How Kimi Raikkonen Clinched One Of His Greatest Ever Victories! | Workday Winning Strategies

This is the world champion trying to pass the former world champion that meanwhile right behind them the fastest man on the track is Kimi Räikkönen in the McLaren who also started from the back of the grid. Räikkönen finally getting past Michael Schumacher oh and they nearly touch can Räikkönen sweep in yes brilliant Kimi Räikkönen the winner absolutely sensational performance brilliant strategy this afternoon by the McLaren team and that wasn't just one of Kimi Räikkönen's best drives but it was one of the best strategies of the decade as well. Welcome to Workday's Winning Strategies and I'm joined by my strategy maestros here Ruth Buscombe-Dyvie and Bernie Collins thanks for joining so we can take a look at one of the best strategies from each of the decades the 90s the noughties and the 10s we've looked already at Michael Schumacher's dramatic race winning strategy coming through the pit lane in the 90s it's time to shift to the noughties and the Japanese Grand Prix of 2005. We have the three drivers who have dominated this world championship all starting from the back of the grid for once this was quite an immense race yeah this is a race that had you know everything that we love in these greatest races lots of overtaking very big bold strategy moves which we'll get into but a lot to play for on the pit wall to get that win right at the end of the race from 17th on the grid so there's another charge from the back Ruth we've looked at regs from the 90s but we're shifting towards the present day where are things at in 2005? Yeah very different to both the 1998 regs and our present day regs so key point about 2005 really was to do with the tires so you used to have one set that you'd used to have for both qualifying and the race in a normal slick race without any punctures or anything else like that which means where's the strategy? Fueling. Fueling was such a big deal then we had refueling but also the fuel you had in the car on Saturday for qualifying was the fuel that you started the race on so if you ran super light on Saturday that would commit you to a shorter first stint or potentially even another stop on the Sunday race now third thing that's super important is that we had this one shot qualifying which meant that the cars would go out in reverse order of the previous race finishing order right so normally that should give your previous race winner an advantage because track evolution still a thing unless of course it could be raining on the Saturday and unless of course the rain starts to get worse throughout the day in that scenario the cars that go first i.e the ones that will last the previous race begin have a massive advantage and you ended up with these very very strange almost reverse like grids this was one of the most bonkers grids let's even talk now of reverse grids for the sprint or something we pretty much had a trial run because of that in 2005 so let's have a look at qualifying as you said some of the guys that finished worse on the previous race go out Ralph Schumacher's on provisional pole David Coulthard's out there on a slippery track as Kimi Raikkonen is watching on waiting for his turn and then look at when Kimi gets in the car it's hosed it down in Suzuka as it so often can and so Kimi there is looms of spray he's going to struggle but I with this point of view he's in a fast car the team know that it's raining the as you said Ruth the the fuel is so important but they can now play around with that yeah and it's so crucial it's so different to what we do nowadays we just look at qualifying at the track and what's the best tire for the condition but the whole way through qualifying as they see it getting wetter they know he's not going to beat Ralph Schumacher's provisional pole time that you say so it is about looking ahead what can he achieve on race day and that we know now was to put more fuel in yeah I'm still baffled that they never change tires from the start of qualifying to the end of the race absolutely bonkers in today's world but let's have a look at the the race start there so you've got some major players out of position here we've got Alonso down the field we've got he's in 16th Raikkonen in his 17th got Michael Schumacher in the Ferrari is in 14th and they're all sort of trying to think of the same game the outlier is Giancarlo Fisichella in the Renault at the front of the field jumps into second place at the start so I guess that's a conventional strategy potentially for that Renault everyone else trying to work their way around the chaos at the start but also just thinking long picture Fisichella is in front of Button that's terrible news for Jenson Button and Coulthard is having a go as well Christian Cleon is also in the mix two cars are off the racetrack one of them though is the local hero the other is the Ferrari of Rubens Barrichello that's terrible news for local hero Takuma Sato but at the front a poor getaway for Jenson Button has that scuppered his plans here it is what's your optimum race from that beginning and you know worth saying because qualifying was wet now they are all still starting on new slick tires for this race so they've got rid of their qualifying tires at this stage and we can see at the end of the first lap some big gains from the major players as well Ralf Schumacher really light on fuel glory running qualifying leads the way Fisichella is up in second in what should be a race massive chance for him in the uh in the Renault and we come through and you can see Alonso making progress on Villeneuve Raikkonen trying to come past the outside of Pizzonia who has a bit of a lock-up Kimi Raikkonen straight across the chicane there's a roof back on but look at them they're streaming past him bad mistake there there goes his teammate off out wide bang into the barriers and Ruth an early safety car yeah big big lap from Kimi makes up five positions brings out that safety car which as you can see nowadays you know you might even been a red flag but it wasn't it was a safety car um and as you say it all gets uh crunched back up again and then he can have another crack at some overtakes after the restart yeah so up to 12th already for Raikkonen let's have a look at the race plot then for the first time and we're looking i guess at the first part of the race here to see how this one's unfolding Bernie yeah exactly now lots of colours on here but the big thing to notice is the sort of light grey that is Raikkonen that we're trying to focus on comes in this first stint behind the Ferrari stuck in that traffic there but crucially for that point he extends further into the race than others and that's very very crucial carrying more fuel as we know in qualifying which allows that stint to go much much further than some others it's very difficult to overtake on the track so we can see also with this part there's the the light blue of Fernando Alonso so we've got three main players that are out of position on the grid Alonso Schumacher and Raikkonen and it gives us a chance to bring in the uh the Alonso overtake at 130R you'd have been impressed if one of your drivers was doing this yeah i mean still one of the greatest overtakes of all time in my opinion Michael goes to the inside tries to block the and Alonso having none of it around the outside of the 130R corner i've never seen anything like it enormous bravery by Alonso i think it was 206 mile an hour or something absolutely phenomenal confidence so Alonso jumps Schumacher Raikkonen is stuck but it kind of counts for nothing because a few laps later into the pits comes the the champion who's already crowned at this point and the others can go long Bernie so it still actually works for them even though Alonso is taking the plaudits yeah Alonso's gone early and they know based on how long he's in the pit stop they know how much fuel is going in so because of the limitations on the flow of that fuel they can work out how many laps he's likely to do in the next stint so that is a a bit of knowledge that the team has gained by extending a little bit further and their next point is what are we going to do what is Raikkonen going to do at that next pit stop for the second all-important stint yeah so we've still got Schumacher and Raikkonen Schumacher we should say was not very quick in this race on a Bridgestone it wasn't really working for him but heavy on fuel difficult to pass i quite like in this race Ruth how you've got so many different strategies because of the qualifying because of the way that you've got a fuel for qualifying the wet and the changeable conditions there's a one a two and a three stop it was all happening yeah exactly you had you had Ralph at the front on his glory Saturday as you called it doing a three stop where Villeneuve is currently on nought stops he only takes one stop but even within the two stoppers as Bernie says there was such variation we had guys going for the faster two stop on paper when it comes to fueling people like Fernando and then you had other teams like McLaren using their power of simulation to be able to have a look and see well actually if we fuel longer and give ourselves more flexibility that could give us potential to kind of fight our way through the traffic and make positions later in the race fascinating stuff and it should be because we should explain how it used to work with the overcut really in fuel the longer that you run you then get a chance to run on low fuel when everyone else has pitted and put high fuel back in the car some fuel in it's kind of the reverse of the modern day undercut the longer you go the later you pit the more you get yeah exactly and there's lots to be said between like we said many on the optimum so very even stints even in that fuel load out never getting to full fuel whereas actually for the longest stint you start off quite slow in the stint and that was one of the big decision points I think for me here is in that second stint is Raikkonen going to go heavy at the start and reduces chances of that overtake on Schumacher which was so so important so he was completely stuck in and we could see he's just in a fast car this McLaren has won the last five Grand Prix the Ferrari struggling only won at Indianapolis under a bit of a cloud dark cloud that year but they do they pit on exactly the same lap so this is pre pre-orchestrated really with what they qualified on on Saturday but Ruth at this point you're McLaren you're in the garage are you trying to call this on the fly right now are you trying to pre-meditate things how does this work because when you're stuck in behind Schumi for so long you've got options but you've got to lock it in before you leave the garage well from the sounds of it for everything we know now is that this was as long as both of these cars could go actually it was phenomenal to get to lap 26 at the pace that they were running and again in some series we still have it nowadays you could theoretically react you could short fuel if you see a car further away on the pit lane but you can actually look at the position of these boxes they're so close they'd have already had their plan as to and as you can see they pull out so so close and they actually end up coming back out in the exact same order so on the face of it you would say advantage Ferrari and once again Kimi is stuck now on a heavy car still behind Schumacher that should be so frustrating for Raikkonen there was one second more stop time for McLaren and that indicates there was more fuel going on board because this wasn't in the peak two second pit stops of tyre changing perfection that we're in now and look they both emerge ahead of Fernando Alonso who had pitted those laps earlier in spite of his heroics the light car at the end of that stint has worked well for those guys so then I guess we go back to our race block and we see in here still Raikkonen tucked in so closely behind Schumacher for a few laps but it's about to change there yeah exactly he finally gets that overtake done and fit to get through which is impressive given that the car as you said has done that one extra one second longer pit stop so it is heavier and does have more fuel on board at this stage but still able to make make that mistake get that overtake done and this one's crucial because as you look at this uh this race block the Ferrari of Schumacher's just really struggling for uh for speed here the red line just hanging there the silver line of the McLaren then can go chasing after those other ones and it brings him suddenly from a race that you're thinking maybe podium can him can Schumacher can Alonso get a podium he can look at a race win again yeah exactly you know he's pecked his way up the order he's now kind of sat in the gearbox of Weber and Button and now actually it's a bit of a long game in terms of really trying to maximize that stint one of the fascinating things about this refueling era is that as you say it's almost like reverse degradation normally tyre deg around Japan will be something like 0.08 seconds a lap on a one of your normal race tyre actually you're going quicker by 0.12 seconds a lap every lap so every lap you can extend gives you a massive offset in terms of pace when you come out the other side this is like the anti-strategy of the modern day isn't it you want to go long you want to have the old tyres and the light fuel early on in the race so yeah on we go into the second stint Fizikela pits with 16 laps to go he looks like he has the race won at this point this is Renault I guess on their conventional two-stop strategy it was fairly plumb for them not the Ralph Schumacher pole and glory on Saturday but a nice evenly split two-stop strategy in he comes and we get a full seven laps later Kimi Raikkonen coming into this I was surprised that he's pitting so close to the finish actually he's leading the race here he's obviously hasn't got the fuel to get to the end surprising that this was the old-fashioned splash and dash wasn't it it definitely was you know he was fit like we said that second pit stop put lots of fuel in then he really pushed through that stint went much longer than some others and that allowed from free air really really fast car like Ruth said low tyre degradation really light and then at the end just needed that few more laps to get it in but he wouldn't have went to very full fuel again he would have went to around a mid-load and it's a very short stop as well barely need to put any fuel in for the last eight laps for Kimi he's out in second place he's jumped Mark Webber, Jenson Button, David Coulthard by going long and doing the anti-strategy of the modern day so Ruth we get one final moment last lap your driver's leading the race he's going to be jittery with that Silver McLaren coming up especially when you know that he's come from 17th place on the grid Giancarlo Fisichella started third got to second been driving his own race for 51 laps at this point phenomenal and the way they use the slipstream here for the overtake is absolutely brilliant isn't it Fisichella offline at the final chicane Raikkonen in the wheel tracks and this is the peril of a last lap move now for and it is a stupendous way to finish what was a great strategy win then for Kimi Raikkonen pretty dynamic then partly set up with what they did on Saturday but also the quick thinking on the Sunday when they pitted the same lap as Michael Schumacher and managed to do something different and then the genius of the driver you have to say to pull it off as well it was a pretty good one not many match that in the noughties yeah lots come through the filter final thoughts Ruth on that great team effort I love races like this where you have to see that absolutely every single element had to work driving strategy all of it and pit stops in order to get that final win um and I think it was at the time the third worst starting position to win that we'd ever had you know one from p22 one from p18 p17 to the win can't say better than that and another cracking stat to finish off as well what a race team and driver in perfect harmony and that was a lot of fun thanks guys for uh helping me look through the 2005 Japanese Grand Prix we've got one more coming up in this series still to come we've looked at the 90s we've looked at the noughties it's a race from the 10s we'll see you next week for it