Kimi Raikkonen’s much-anticipated comeback to Formula One lasted about ten minutes before he fell out with his Lotus team.
Raikkonen’s default setting is glum and an unreliable car, which had cut into his practice time, had deepened his mood as he stalked into Melbourne’s Albert Park on Saturday morning, drawing boos from the enthusiastic Australian fans as he refused their requests for autographs. Sometimes he is his own worst enemy.
But bad turned to worse when he took his seat in his new car for his first competitive laps in Formula One for two years. So much was expected, which probably meant that the disappointment would be all the greater. Raikkonen, 32, was dumped at the first qualifying session stage, meandering around the track apparently believing he had plenty of time to set the Australian Grand Prix alight. Not so, as it turned out.
“I slowed down because we were supposed to have time for one more lap and I guessed we didn’t,” he said. “Nobody told me when I slowed down that I had to hurry up. There’s no point to blame anybody and everyone is as disappointed as me. It’s a bad start.”
That was fine until Raikkonen’s words reached Eric Boullier, the Lotus team principal, who was moved to defend his team’s honour. The problem was down to Raikkonen’s errors, he said, and it was true that Raikkonen had put in a ragged lap before returning to the pits to discover that his first efforts in Formula One were to be shortlived.
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The embarrassment was all the greater because the potential of the Lotus was ably demonstrated by Romain Grosjean, his team-mate, who put his car in third place on the grid for Sunday’s grand prix - a humbling moment for the 2007 world champion.