The Betfair Contrarian: Why Raikkonen won't win the Formula One Championship

Formula One / The Betfair Contrarian / 14 March 2008 / Leave a Comment

The Betfair Contrarian is at it again, this time telling us why defending champion and favourite in the betting Kimi Raikkonen won't successfully defend his crown

The Contrarian - Why Kimi Raikkonen won't win the F1 Drivers Championship

Like the Oscars and the new year, it has long been traditional for Formula One to get under way in the middle of the night. While most people in this country will be sleeping through the curtain raiser, however, Kimi Raikkonen will start the defence of his title in Australia with some sense of regret that Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton got divorced over the winter. Last year, their incessant bickering helped distract them from the main event sufficiently for the Finn to sneak ahead in the last race and nick the drivers' championship. No such luck this time, Kimi...

He was jammy last year. Hamilton won't make the same mistake again.

With just two races to go last season the Finn was 17 points behind Lewis Hamilton, whose price to clinch the title was as short as 1.03. Hamilton was forced to retire in the penultimate race, and finished seventh in the final race to throw the title away. It's inconceivable he'd want to repeat the experience.

The McLarens look faster than the Ferraris

The McLarens have posted quicker times than the Ferraris in winter testing. The re-banning of traction control may have contributed to this. Ferrari's chief executive Jean Todt certainly thinks so - he said "McLaren will have an advantage in the championship."

Hamilton doesn't suffer from "second season syndrome"

Second season syndrome is the strange mental process that causes an athlete or team to follow up a sparkling debut year with a campaign that falls flat. While some British drivers have suffered in the past, Hamilton has pointed out that in 2002 he finished third in Formula Renault before winning the series in 2003. Then, a year later, he finished fifth in his first season in Formula Three Euroseries and followed up by winning that championship in 2005.

Even Hamilton's arch enemy Fernando Alonso thinks he'll do better than last year...

Alonso may have been making another of his trademark whiny it's-not-fair remarks, but he did say "After one year's experience things become easier and that will give him an advantage."

...and so does Frank Williams

He said "If the Ferrari is the better car this year, McLaren should be saying to themselves, 'Thank god he [Hamilton] is not in a Ferrari, otherwise there would be no point going racing'."

If Raikkonen repeats his slow start of last year, he won't be able to sneak back in.

Raikkonen took almost half the season to find his form last season, and he's unlikely to find it so easy to rejoin the title race if he puts together a similar start to the campaign. Despite winning the opening Grand Prix in Australia it took him until July to win his second race - not generally recognised as Championship-standard consistency.

McClaren had the best car last season - and may well have it again (whatever Frank Williams says).

If it weren't for the spying row between Ferrari and McLaren last season that led to McClaren being kicked out of the Constructors' Championship, then McLaren would have won it comfortably. McLaren would have had 218 points compared to Ferrari's 204.

The number one car doesn't always come out on top.

In two of the last three years the driver in the number one car has failed to win the title. Raikkonen won last year as number six and Alonso won in 2005 in number five - on both occasions the number one driver finished third. Raikkonen has the number one car this year.