The battle for supremacy within Ferrari's driver line-up has been much closer than many anticipated in 2007.

Felipe Massa's stock has risen thanks to two accomplished victories and a consistent points-scoring run, but is he really faster than Kimi Raikkonen? Expert analyst Mark Hughes looks at the facts.

Kimi Raikkonen’s return to winning form for Ferrari in France saw him produce the sort of error-free, consistently-on-it sort of drive he’s been failing to deliver since Bahrain, the third race of the season.

Ever since that event – where he left an open door on the first lap that Fernando Alonso walked through, then was later half-asleep on the restart behind the Safety Car – his races have been compromised by little lapses.




At Barcelona he lost a crucial place off the grid, at Monaco he made an inexplicable error in Q2 on Saturday that restricted him to mid-grid, in Canada he damaged his wing at the first corner against the back of team-mate Felipe Massa, at Indianapolis he again lost crucial places off the grid.


In two of those races – Bahrain and Spain - Massa took consecutive beautifully accomplished victories.


So the perception built that Massa was ‘blowing away’ the man who prior to this year had the unofficial tag of ‘world’s fastest driver’.


But actually it hasn’t been like that.


Raikkonen’s shortfall this year has not been one of raw performance, but of sharpness, of making the right instinctive moves in the competitive heat of the moment.


The underlying speed behind the little errors that have proved so costly has been very much there.


In fact, the last time that Massa was genuinely faster through a weekend was in Malaysia, the second race of the year.


In fact, that was the only time Massa had been faster all year until, ironically, France – where Kimi won, aided by a better strategy.


The idea that actually Raikkonen has been overall the faster Ferrari driver is very much against the perception and so will take some explaining.


The picture has been skewed by differing fuel weights in the top-10 run-off sessions, but let’s look at it race by race…


Australia. No comparison possible, because of Massa’s gearbox problem in Q2 that kept him out of the run-off. Raikkonen took a dominant pole and win but his team mate was out of the picture. Speed score: Raikkonen 0, Massa 0.


Malaysia. Massa was quicker all weekend, by a couple of tenths. Felipe made a Horlicks of trying to pass Hamilton and so Kimi got the result. But in terms of speed Maasa was the man. Speed score: Massa 1, Raikkonen 0.


Bahrain. Both of Raikkonen’s new tyre qualifying runs were baulked by traffic. So no comparison possible. Speed score remained therefore at Massa 1, Raikkonen 0.


Spain. Massa was on pole, Raikkonen only third but there was absolutely nothing between them once fuel weights were taken into account. We didn’t get to see this play out because Raikkonen retired before his first stop. But team members confirmed that he’d been fuelled three laps heavier than Massa. Score remained Massa 1, Raikkonen 0.


Monaco. Raikkonen made that bizarre error in Q2 that damaged his suspension and kept him out of the run-off. However, throughout the weekend up to that point he had been consistently 0.2-3s faster than Massa.

The team confirmed that he had achieved a much better handling balance than Massa, and wasn’t being compromised by understeer. They were deeply disappointed with Kimi’s accident as all their data suggested he would have been pushing the McLarens for pole. Remember, we’re only talking performance here. Kimi was the quicker Ferrari driver and only his accident and compromised starting position disguised it. Running score: Massa 1, Raikkonen 1.


Canada. Raikkonen qualified ahead – despite a fuel load one lap heavier. Running score: Raikkonen 2, Massa 1.


USA. Massa qualified ahead but by less than the amount he should have done, given his lighter fuel load. Running score Raikkonen 3, Massa 1.


France. Massa’s pole was still half a tenth quicker than Raikkonen’s lap when you fuel-adjusted for Kimi running three laps more fuel. Running score: Raikkonen 3, Massa 2.


The shortfalls in Raikkonen’s performances have been not raw speed but apparent concentration lapses.


He’s not been prone to these at any other time in his F1 career, and as such the suspicion must fall to his fitness levels/

But in France, he was flawless.

He used his heavier fuel strategy to beat Massa, but it required that he beat Hamilton off the start and that he then stayed close enough to Massa to be able to use his three low fuel laps to advantage each time Massa stopped.


He did each of these things to perfection. What he desperately needs to do now is build on that, make that sort of consistency the norm that it used to be. Then we’d have the Kimi Raikkonen that Ferrari signed.

Let’s wait and see.