Merano Promenade, used by local people and also the tourists to chill out and enjoy sunshine and beautiful scenery. Like today, temperature was above 15 degree Celsius in this city which also called The City of Flowers. I really in love with this small city and voila the spring is in the air, bring it on :)
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Merano Promenade, used by local people and also the tourists to chill out and enjoy sunshine and beautiful scenery. Like today, temperature was above 15 degree Celsius in this city which also called The City of Flowers. I really in love with this small city and voila the spring is in the air, bring it on :)

Kimi Raikkonen demonstrated that qualifying pace doesn’t always depict Sunday’s form

Never judge a race by its qualifying cover

What a compelling, relief-filled contrast between the race foreseen after Red Bull had monopolised qualifying in the earliest hour of Sunday morning and the real thing six hours later when the World Champions were humbled by the neatest of tricks from Lotus.

The E21 may not be the fastest car on the grid - Kimi Raikkonen, lest nobody overlook, actually qualified 1.4 seconds adrift of Sebastian Vettel’s pole-securing time - but its magical ability to sustain its tyres is a trick which made them far too quick for everyone else when push came to race.

On other days, in other conditions, it’s a skill which won’t be anything quite as effective. Raikkonen’s burst from seventh off the line to fourth at the end of the first lap, aided by Mark Webber’s all-too common reversal, was a critical turning point without which victory, regardless of the E21’s kindness to its tyres, may not have been possible.

Moreover, the capacity to keep the otherwise-flakey Pirellis in shape is an advantage only at its most powerful when - as in Melbourne - the optimum number of pit-stops is a marginal call and the opposition’s race strategists can’t make short, fast bursts add up to a winning formula.

Finally, though the Lotus tended to excel in warmer climes last season, it remains to be seen whether the E21’s tyre advantage is quite as apparent in Malaysia and beyond rather than merely in the autumnal cool of Melbourne.

Yet, for all those mitigations, nobody should be fooled into thinking the race-tilting impact Lotus’ trick will exclusively be felt in the number of pit stops required. Not only did Raikkonen set the fastest lap of the grand prix on a 27-lap stint at the end of a race, but he did so, in the astonished words of Red Bull boss Christian Horner, “on a tyre that was older than we could have dreamed of going anywhere near.”

From up the sleeves of their unnaturally-quick E21, Lotus have pulled a fast one alright.

By: Pete Gill

Source: planetf1.com