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Kimi
Raikkonen and his Ferrari engine may have survived to
finish Sunday's French Grand Prix, completing a Ferrari
one-two behind Felipe Massa, but it could result in an
unscheduled engine change, says team principal Stefano
Domenicali.
Raikkonen suffered an exhaust failure around half
distance in the 70 lap race which caused fluctuating
performance thereafter. Raikkonen was lucky to finish
behind team mate Massa, even though he matched his team
mate's time for a while before the engine worsened at
the end.
This year, however, the team is lucky that it is allowed
one unscheduled engine change without penalty. "I would
say it is quite likely that we will have to replace the
engine," said Domenicali after the race. "For sure,
after such a heavy race from the middle to the end, it's
very likely that we have to change it so we need to play
the joker that allows us to do it." However, the team
won't know for sure until later in the week. "We will do
the analysis later on and tomorrow but there's no rush
to do anything more than eventually change it when we go
to Silverstone."
Domenicali admitted that it will be hard to find what
had caused the problem. "Unfortunately it was not
possible to understand the problem and also the other
difficulty is that for almost half of the race all the
breaking parts were falling apart so it will also be
difficult to collect all the pieces in our hands because
they're somewhere around the track."
Domenicali then explained what had caused the varying
performance. "If you lose the exhaust there's no more
performance and then you start to have different
parameters on the engine, the temperatures go up, the
water pressure comes down. Everything is mixed up, of
course. In a way, it was very very good and very
important to finish the race with eight points in that
condition."
Domenicali explained that the team felt that they had
limited time at the second pit stop in which they could
do anything to help the problem. "It had already fallen
off. There was the cable of the lambda and we decided
not to cut that because we would maybe lose more
seconds, and we had Trulli pushing behind so we took
that into consideration. I have to say that in terms of
strategy, in terms of teamwork everything was done
correctly."
How much longer would it have lasted? "The maximum the
engine lasts is for two races so maybe I think it's a
bit ambitious to have another race in that condition but
honestly, I don't know, difficult to say. I don't want
to tell lies; I don't know."
The team was able to work on engine settings to
compensate. "We were trying to do what we could in order
to protect the engine under those conditions and after
all the things that were possible to do, just wait until
the chequered flag. You could see that there were a lot
of switches being moved around."
Domenicali saw the engine's survival as a plus point.
"For sure we were very worried, no doubt. It was a long
race to finish, maybe we lost a lot of years and a lot
of hair but that's part of the game. So I'm extremely
happy it lasted. In that condition you never know. It
may stop any lap, it's too difficult, it's critical."
Domenicali also paid tribute to Felipe Massa, the new
World Championship leader. "I think that we always said
that we were very very happy extremely happy with our
two drivers. It's better not to assume any kind of
thinking before the end of the season because if you
think that after the first two Grands Prix Felipe had
zero points; I recall what was the discussion about him.
I think that strong drivers in a strong team have to
look ahead without being influenced by the negative
thinking around. I think he's strong now, and as I said,
I think it's the first time for him to be leading the
Drivers' championship so it's a great award for him but
it doesn't change anything on our side. Teamwork is our
main target and we said at the beginning that there's no
changes in our decisions or strategies."
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