2013 AUSTRALIAN GP
MELBOURNE LOTUS E21 (1st)
After returning to F1, Raikkonen scored 15 podiums, including two wins, with Lotus. The “leave me alone, I know what I’m doing” win in Abu Dhabi is more famous, but the man himself picks out the Melbourne victory:
“For my own excitement, [I’d] probably [choose] the Australia win because not many people before the season expected us to win.”
The delicate Pirelli tyres were key to the victory, as was the gentle way the Lotus E21 (and Raikkonen) used the rubber. Red Bull’s new RB9 qualified 1-2, poleman Sebastian Vettel 1.3s faster than Raikkonen, but the highdownforce Red Bull ate its tyres and nobody could match Kimi’s pace over the longer runs.
Raikkonen jumped from seventh to fifth on lap one, then picked off Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes on the next tour, around the outside into the Turn 13 right-hander. That put him behind Vettel and the Ferraris of Felipe Massa and Fernando Alonso.
Many runners quickly started graining their front Pirellis. Raikkonen’s first tyre change was around the same time as most others, indicating he could be on the same three-stop strategy as everyone else, but so much milder was his tyre degradation that Lotus planned only one more pit visit.
Alonso decided to make his second stop on lap 20 of 58, a move that helped him jump Vettel and Massa when they followed suit. But Raikkonen cruised serenely on, well clear in the lead. He finally made his second tyre change on lap 34, dropping briefly to fifth, but he was easily in range to move back ahead as others made their third stops.
After Alonso made his final stop he was just over 7s behind the Lotus. He closed to within 4.4s with 14 laps to go, but he then started suffering with tyre degradation again. And Raikkonen banged in some quick laps – one of which was the fastest of the race – on older rubber to score an emphatic 12.5s win.
“He referred to his victory as easy, but often a driver executing his strategy to perfection can make it feel that way and he deserves huge credit for his performance,” reckoned Autosport.
“You know that you can count on Kimi to extract the best from the car,” said team principal Eric Boullier. “His mental abilities are amazing because he can manage the race and the tyres effectively as well as being quick. He only spun the rear wheels twice during the whole race!”