Why Kimi Raikkonen is Ferrari's benchmark

A study from Autosport suggests that Kimi Raikkonen is Ferrari's real benchmark for the 2018 season and not Sebastian Vettel, and they make a very good case.

First of all, there are the qualifying numbers. Raikkonen has qualified in second every time, two of the times behind teammate Sebastian Vettel and one time behind Lewis Hamilton. However, if you look at the average deficit between Vettel and Raikkonen over the first three races this year and last year, it's drastically improved. 0.073s is the average in 2018 compared to 0.391s last year, and 0.276s over the whole season

Another stat that favours Raikkonen is the average 'supertime'; the fastest single lap of your weekend expressed as a percentage (the lower the better). Last year, Raikkonen had with 100,81% compared to Hamilton's 100,01% and Vettel's 100,355%. This year, Raikkonen has closed it to 100,359% compared to Vettel's 100,277% and Hamilton's 100,312%. Another sign that Raikkonen has vastly improved.

So, Raikkonen has proven that he still has life in him in what could be his final season in F1. If it wasn't for the badly timed safety car in Melbourne, the pit stop disaster in Bahrain and Ferrari's horrible strategy in China, who knows, he could've won a race already. At least we can go to sleep at night knowing that Kimi is still the Ice Man.