Boullier praises “brilliant job” by ailing Raikkonen

2013 Singapore Grand Prix

Posted on

| Written by

Eric Boullier praised the effort of departing driver Kimi Raikkonen to take third place in the Singapore Grand Prix despite his back pain.

Raikkonen gained ten places during the race to finish on the podium. Boullier said his driver, who will join Ferrari next year, “did a brilliant job”.

“He didn’t do any mistake and he was there when we asked him to push,” said Boullier.

Obviously he was helped by a brilliant strategy. A lot of clear laps at the beginning, it helps. We pitted him early on purpose, he got a lot of free air laps where he could obviously push, he got a couple of cars before which helped as well.”

Raikkonen said his back didn’t hurt too much during the race but admitted “it’s not a hundred percent” afterwards. “But it doesn’t matter we have two weeks’ time to rest and get it right.”

He doubted he could have achieved much more than third place: “I think I had really good speed and I could overtake a few people.”

“In the end I was following Jenson [Button] and I could see that his tyres were going off so I just gave some pressure and then I had to try to get past him because some obviously people changed tyres and they [were] catching us quickly.

“But I managed to pass him and pull away and luckily nobody managed to catch me in the end so not too bad.”

2013 Singapore Grand Prix

Browse all 2013 Singapore Grand Prix articles

Image © Lotus/LAT

Author information

Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

Got a potential story, tip or enquiry? Find out more about RaceFans and contact us here.

8 comments on “Boullier praises “brilliant job” by ailing Raikkonen”

  1. Loved that chat between Seb and Kimi.
    Seb: ‘Kimi, how is your back, fine?’
    Kimi: ‘Yeah.’

  2. “Brilliant strategy” last time this team new exactly when the safety car would be deployed it was because they organised it, I don’t think they knobbled DanR this time so it was more luck than strategy that Kimi had his second and last pit-stop under the safety car.

    1. The drive was more brilliant than the strategy. Kimi did a great job to look after the tires on the second stint and still be able to pass Button before the others could catch up. Under duress, Kimi is still better than most.

      1. Kimi’s drive was superb, but the team made the right decision to pit him early and under the safety car, while others (Webber and the Mercedes) pitted at the end of the race and fared much worse.

        1. It’s fun how Rosbergs, Hamiltons and Webbers strategey went wrong while Vettel, which had the same startegy, made it just work ^^

  3. Raikkonen did a fantastic job, considering that he:

    – Couldn’t take part in practice almost at all and even qualifying was doubtful, because of the back issues
    – Started at 13th place
    – Had Kers issues, so overtaking must have been harder than usual

    He still managed to get a podium finish, with a mix of great tyre saving, good strategy and a little bit of luck (with the Safety Car). And he doesn’t even get paid..

  4. Trenthamfolk (@)
    22nd September 2013, 17:06

    Kimi was a pleasure to watch today… Bravo :-)

  5. I watched the highlights on BBC (watched the start of the race online but I left after 5 laps) and I didn’t really see any of Kimi’s race other than the overtake on Button.

    I was delighted to realize Raikkonen did such an amazing job, this sort of performance helps show he is possibly the most naturally gifted racer ever.

Comments are closed.