World Champion Räikkönen and challenger Kovalainen gear up to provide excitement for Finnish fans in 2008 F1 season

Winter testing suggest it will be another Ferrari-McLaren duel

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The two Finnish Formula One pilots Kimi Räikkönen and Heikki Kovalainen have excellent prospects on the eve of the new F1 season, which is to commence this coming weekend in Melbourne, Australia.
     
The equipment at the Finns’ disposal is as good as it gets. The winter’s track testing results attest to that. The differences between various teams were so clear that at this stage there can be only two championship candidates: Ferrari and McLaren, a familiar enough pairing from 2007.
      Räikkönen’s Ferrari was downright dazzling, especially in tests simulating an actual race, even if there were some minor technical hitches in the last of them. Kovalainen’s McLaren was a slight underdog in the race-long tests, but in one-lap times it equalled Ferrari’s speed at the very least.
     
Räikkönen has every chance of renewing his drivers' title. Thanks to last year’s jackpot, the man’s self-confidence is higher. Unlike the year before, in this winter’s tests it was Räikkönen’s turn to better his teammate Felipe Massa.
      Räikkönen is now also more familiar with the team and its modus operandi than a year ago. The 2007 car was still built according to Michael Schumacher’s wishes, and it was not always to Räikkönen’s liking.
      This year’s vehicle, in turn, has been put together already clearly with Räikkönen in mind.
     
Kovalainen’s situation in his team is considerably more problematic. He has entered a team that already houses last year’s comet and runner-up Lewis Hamilton. No doubt comparisons will be drawn between the two, and their "personal chemistry" will be minutely scrutinised, particularly in the British media.
      All in all, the Finn cleared the winter tests well.
      "Only in competition speed do I have some room for improvement”, Kovalainen says.
     
For Finnish sports fans, Räikkönen and Kovalainen racing wheel-to-wheel against each other on the track is a rare treat indeed.
      The 2008 season may well become the Finnish Formula One year of all times. In 2007 this dream failed to materialise, for Kovalainen’s Renault, the championship car from the year before, was surprisingly tame.
      The only meaningful duels between the two men were seen at the beginning of the Indianapolis race and at the end of the Japanese GP.
     
From the spectators’ point of view, the most important change compared with 2007 is that this year no electronic control systems, such as traction control, are to be allowed.
      During the winter, many of the drivers have had to learn a new driving style. Previously, once a driver had reached the culmination of a bend, he could simply floor it and the traction control would take care of business.
      Now, acceleration out of a tight, slow bend in particular will prove more difficult. Any viewer can tell the difference. Compared with previous years, many of the drivers will look like beginners.
     
Because there will be more mistakes, there will also be more overtaking, which has to be good for a sport that has suffered from too many results being determined in the pit-lane - or even in a courtroom - rather than on the track. .
      Behind Ferrari and McLaren’s supremacy, an intense competition will emerge for third place. Williams, BMW, Renault, and Red Bull are all equally strong candidates at this stage.
     
From the point of view of Williams driver Nico Rosberg, the situation is interesting, for he now has a good chance of achieving his first-ever podium finish.
      Rosberg races under German colours, but is the son of Finland's first F1 World Champion Keke Rosberg, who won the title in 1982, also in a Williams.
      The prospect of a podium finish hardly warms the heart of the 2005 and 2006 World Champion Fernando Alonso, however.
      Last year in the McLaren seat he still managed to win four races. This year his chances of topping the podium with Renault look bleak indeed.
     
The longest-serving driver in the F1 circus is Rubens Barrichello, driving this year with Honda. Barrichello, for many years the deputy to Michael Schumacher at Ferrari, has 253 Grands Prix under his belt.
      Räikkönen has 122, Rosberg 35, and Kovalainen, who made his F1 début last season, has driven 17 races.
      At the other end of the scale there will be three rookies this year, including Nico Rosberg's team-mate Kazuki Nakajima of Japan.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Schumacher and Räikkönen test new Ferrari in Barcelona (26.2.2008)
  Kimi Räikkönen is the 2007 Formula One World Champion - for now (22.10.2007)

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