Driving a simulator has a strange effect on Kimi?

After Sports Illustrated's  epic "Juan Pablo Montoya returning to F1 for "Chap" Ganassi"  headline,  it's worth noting news of Raikkonen being "forced to drive a simulator" by Ferrari.

Amazingly, as per Great Britain's quality tabloid The Daily Star,  Raikkonen has come out of this harrowing experience looking a lot like Heikki Kovalainen.   

Oh well, I guess all Finns look the same.  Perkele!

Perkele! Audi fail tosses Heikki in the wall as an Ühr rolls

a suspension failure on the Auri R8 LMS tosses Heikki Kovalainen into the barrier injuring his passenger and almost into Seb Loeb at today's Race of Champions in Dusseldorf. (Perkele? check here)



Speaking of Audi fails, ROC founder Michelle Mouton got behind the wheel of a priceless original Uhr Quattro and rolled it. Tough car, window did not even crack. Finally some excitement at the ROC!



More ROC videos after the jump.

The Champ vs the Gramps



The surprise winner was Felipe Albuquerque...who? I guess just like a few years ago, Heikki who?

Perkele!*

Who said Finns have no sense of humor?



* Perkele
An essential Finnish curse-word denoting the devil, and typically pronounced with an exaggerated rolling of the "r" for added emphasis. It is often one of the first words in the Finnish language that foreigners visiting this country pick up.



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FTD vs DFL

For those who insist that a driver makes little difference in a Formula 1 car. You can grant Luca Badoer all the excuses you want but I can't remember the last time a Ferrari driver qualified Dead effin Last with a healthy car. But nobody can really blame Badoer, the fault is with those who put him in such a position. If it's true that Ferrari has given up on the season, why not use the opportunity to test some new viable talent? Why, because Ferrari is, as often heard, "where drivers go to finish their careers" rather than start them? Old thinking.

These two laps are not Hamilton's or Badoer's qualifying laps but they give the idea well enough. Hamilton was great as was Kovalainen in P2 with a slightly heavier car. Badoer didn't even look like he fit in the car properly, look how much his head gets pushed down under braking. Maybe since he's fuelled for one stop, tomorrow some safety car will play his way, as they say, from last place he can only improve.

And here is the rest of it.

Turkish GP: cheer for the underdog.

In a Grand Prix that was as devoid of surprises as it was spectators, the only real pleasure was to watching the two drivers most in the... "hot seat" at the moment put on the kinds of moves that, had their names been Hamilton or Raikkonen, would have been hailed as definitive proof of a second coming. I'm referring to Kovalainen's great defense against the vastly superior Brawn of Rubens Barrichello and Nelson Piquet's exquisit smackdown outside pass on World Champion Lewis Hamilton.

Barrichello no doubt must have complained bitterly about the slower Heikki daring to stand in his way. In past races we have seen Barrichello's histrionics when he felt held up, usually big, dramatic hand gestures. Barrichello is a man who's career is coming to a close in a repeat of his biggest nightmare, to be a second driver in a top team. In fact, more than one source claims the only reason Rubens is at Brawn is because of the testing restrictions which did not allow for Bruno Senna to be in the car at all before the season. Clearly frustrated, he unleashed the frustrated man's move: the impossible divebomb. Not satisfied with his first failed move, Barrichello later repeats on Sutil's Force India.

Nelson Piquet is another F1 driver everyone, not always unfairly, pretty much writes off. The kind of move he dealt the mighty Hamilton however, was something out of his father's playbook. If Piquet has not found the proper mindset and motivation to raise his game, it is clear that somewhere there is the talent. Kudos Nelsiño.

Oh the race results? Button dominated, Webber had a good race, Vettel showed he is human but Red Bull gave blatant team orders. Ferrari, who would haveve been raked over the coals for a radio transmission like Red Bull's, was nowhere and BMW showed a small improvement.

Home

Mclaren Mercedes goes Green

Amid continuing speculation the car is not behaving as expected, Mclaren engineers have come up with a novel idea to analyze air flow in critical areas without resorting to a wind tunnel: they smeared green paint on the leading edges of the sidepods!

With Norbert Haug admitting to BILD that "...We are certainly not where we want to be.." and Kovalainnen 1.6 seconds off the pace in testing at Barcellona, is this a clever way to get around wind tunnel testing restrictions or a sign of desperation?

All speculation will be resolved in Melbourne in two weeks time an don't forget that with the testing cuts this season, Mclaren might just be testing solutions for different tracks than everyone else.

And here is the rest of it.

That had to hurt...

Most boring race of the year. Ferraris dominated, the only variable of interest, Alonso, retires with a melted Renault engine. BMW once again almost have it but are not quite there. Coulthard is involved in his obligatory murky door slamming incident...

Heikki Kovalainen sure made everyone wake up though... scary. He's apparently all in one piece, and Mclaren will to write off that chassis, perhaps karma for Ron Dennis's comments ridiculing the size of Kubica's nose in a pre-race interview!

Fernando's axis of oversteer

Tomorrow's qualifying will be exciting but I think McLaren and especially Alonso look to have, as I imagine Ron Dennis might say: "optimized our synergistic driver-car interface in conjunction with our technology partners".


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Heikki Kovalainen decided do a fireworks show to celebrate his success with Renault this year


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and Adrian "Air" Sutil shows Spyker's aeronautical heritage still alive and well.


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thanks to AEF1 for the rips

A real pro...

from F1Racing's video podcast check out how Peter Windsor gently saves Heikki Kovalainen after the finn makes the terrible mistake of saying what he really thinks of the car.

Also amusing is to think that Heikki would be seriously reprimanded by track day instructosauruses for his hand positioning (...wink)

Finally, at the end of the clip you get a measure of the respect Windsor must have among the F1 drivers as Heikki basically asks him if he is driving properly!

amusing to read between the lines here.



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