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Can Kovalainen be as good as Kimi for Lotus?
Heikki Kovalainen is Caterham F1 team’s reserve drivers who will be racing for Lotus F1 team in the upcoming two races of the season. Their driver, Kimi Raikkonen has announced his unavailability for the next two weeks after deciding to undergo a back surgery after he suffered back problems in Singapore Grand Prix in September.
Raikkonen would resume his racing next year with his old counterparts Ferrari for whom he had won the World championship in 2007. He was successfully operated in Austria today and would soon start his recovering programme. Meanwhile Kovalainen gets charged up to again experience first class racing.
Fin Vs Fin: Kimi—Kovalainen
Since Kovalainen hasn’t raced in 2013, let’s compare their stats in 2012. The best grid position of Heikki was 16 to Kimi’s 3. The former scored zero Championship points whereas the latter had 207 points and overall third position in the driver’s title. Raikkonen’s thriller in Abu Dhabi had given him his first victory after his come back to Formula One after a gap of two years and Kovalainen’s points shows that there is no need for us to check his number of victories in that season.
There is one sign of positivity in his record of 2012. Kovalainen finished all the races except the starter, Australian Grand Prix which was his only retirement in the season. He has just one win in his career of seven years.
Can Kovalainen do as well as Kimi?
If we go by the saying “Numbers speak”, it is very difficult to accept the fact that Kovalainen will do as well as Kimi for Lotus. Lotus stands fourth in the current Constructor’s Championship which is not a very decent finish after having talented drivers like Romain Grosjean and Kimi Raikkonen. When it is the time for Lotus to improve their score in the Championship by performing well in the remaining two races, they are without their experienced driver and the funny thing is they chose a driver who hasn’t driven this year and failed to score a point in 2012.
Today’s United States Grand Prix will tell how good Kovalainen will be proved for the Lotus f1 team. He had a good Saturday in the Circuits of America where he qualified eighth ahead of Williams, Sauber, McLaren and Force India.
