The Case of Kimi Raikkonen

Kimi Raikkonen has been slightly eclipsed in recent races as his team mate at Ferrari, Felipe Massa, has climbed up the standings and had better results, while the Finn has run into various problems - particularly with qualifying. But Raikkonen set the fastest time in practice today in Valencia, and he said afterwards that he still had more speed coming. Yesterday, when asked who he saw as having the best chance at winning the title this year, Fernando Alonso said that despite everything, he still saw Kimi as the strongest contender. Last night as I ate my dinner in Valencia - couldn't get paella, since they only serve it to a table of a minimum two people, and I couldn't persuade them that talking to myself made me two - I noticed in the official program an interesting fact: Since 1993 DHL has offered an award to the driver who scores the most fastest race laps in a season. The first winner of the award was Ayrton Senna, with eight fastest laps. That number of fastest laps has not been matched since then, with six being the highest number. But this year, Raikkonen has already scored seven of the season's fastest laps - and we're not yet near the end! Behind him, the closest number of fastest laps come from Heikki Kovalainen and Nick Heidfeld, with only two fastest laps each. Indeed, the 2008 Raikkonen story has not yet been told.