The Drivers' title that went up in smokeMcLaren boss Ron Dennis has hailed
Kimi Raikkonen's victory tally as proof that he is World Champion material, but admitted a lack of drive from the team has cost the Finn the title. McLaren have now won the last six races after Raikkonen
secured his seventh victory of the year in Sunday's Japanese Grand Prix but the title was already in the hands of Renault rival
Fernando Alonso.
Dennis did admit however that the team's failure to recover from a poor start at the season-opening Australian Grand Prix was a vital part of Raikkonen's failure to secure the drivers' title despite his winning run.
"The psychological blow of it raining halfway through qualifying in Australia was much greater than we anticipated," admitted Dennis, whose team are now chasing down a two-point deficit to Renault in the constructors' championship. "The drivers' motivation in the opening laps of that first race were mixed with frustration, they ran wide, damaged the cars, and that really set the tone for the remaining intercontinental races."
"We did not recover from that. That is where we lost the (drivers') championship. We should have pulled ourselves together a bit more and we should have taken, strangely enough, a few more risks in those opening races. But from our perspective, and we are not hiding from our inadequacies, it is statistically not borne out that we have huge reliability problems because if that was the case we would not have won ten races."
Raikkonen has been beset by troubles this season, including his fourth engine failure in practice at Suzuka, but he has still won more races than the newly crowned Champion Alonso, who currently has six victories to his name this campaign.
Alonso has benefited from impressive reliability, both in himself and in his car, and secured his 14th podium of the season at the race in Suzuka with a third place finish behind Raikkonen and Renault team-mate
Giancarlo Fisichella.
But Dennis believes Raikkonen can finish his impressive but ultimately title-less season with another win in China to prove a point in the championship history books. "At the end of the day, Kimi has won seven races and it is going to be potentially that a guy wins eight races and does not win the world championship," said Dennis. "That is unheard of."
Few doubt that given a reliable engine, Raikkonen could have challenged - and perhaps beaten Alonso - to the Drivers' Championship. It is all to play for in 2006.
E.A. Source AFP
