How Raikkonen call led to Alfa Romeo’s best F1 race since 2019

Having missed the Dutch and Italian Grands Prix with a positive COVID-19 test, Raikkonen looked set to finish outside of the points on his return to F1 action in Sochi until late rain turned last Sunday’s race on its head.

Raikkonen profited from an early call to switch to intermediate tyres on Lap 47 having pushed his Alfa Romeo team into stopping to change over from slick tyres at a point when only light drizzle was falling.

It enabled Raikkonen to pick off the likes of George Russell’s Williams and the Red Bull of Sergio Perez. The Finn ran as high as seventh but was eventually passed by the faster McLaren of the recovering Lando Norris on the final tour.

Nevertheless, P8 for Raikkonen marked the Swiss-based outfit’s highest finish of the season and its best result since the 2019 Brazilian Grand Prix.

“Luckily, we made the right call,” said Raikkonen. “I felt that it was already too wet, and we were one of the early ones to come in to change tyres. It paid off in the end.

“Our car is normally not the best in wet conditions, but luckily we pitted at the right moment at then we had decent speed. Actually, in the last couple of laps I managed to pass some cars, so it was not too bad.”

Alfa Romeo head of trackside engineering Xevi Pujolar confirmed Raikkonen had overruled his team in making the call to pit for intermediates.

As it turned out, the 41-year-old had timed his stop to perfection.

“The rain came very late and everything changed very quickly,” Pujolar explained.

“We knew that we needed to be ready in terms of the driver call because they are the ones driving out there and it would be very difficult for us to understand from the pitall what the conditions are.

“We just tell the drivers ‘let us know when it’s too much and we need to box’ and it was a good call from Kimi on that one and so we managed to gain positions.”

Pujolar explained that teams tend to lean more heavily on the driver’s feedback when conditions are changing from dry to wet and praised Raikkonen’s call in what he described as being a “hero-to-zero” situation.

“When the track is getting towards wet, I think you need to rely a little bit more on the driver,” said

“The forecast is also important but if the driver is telling you I’m not able to keep the car on track, then you need to react.

“It’s not an easy call because you have got only a few laps to the end of the race, it’s only raining on one side of the track so can you keep the car on the track losing four or five seconds or will you destroy the inters on the dry part of the track. I don’t think you have a straight answer.

“Today it worked well, but another day it will go another direction. You can go from hero-to-zero very quickly in these kinds of conditions.

“But when it is wet to dry, I would say it’s more of a team decision. And dry to wet I would say more towards the driver.”

Raikkonen's four-point haul sees him sit 17th in the drivers' championship heading into the final seven races of his F1 career, while Alfa Romeo has closed to within 16 points of eighth-placed Williams.