"Raikkonen has no secrets for me. I’ll bring back him to the top"
When two years ago Kimi Raikkonen went to the track in Melbourne to make his first race with the Ferrari (and he won), before the triumph, his box has experienced moments of genuine panic. Under banner of “What the hell is he saying?”. Understanding the whispers of Raikkonen in the headset is still a difficult exercise, more at that time because nobody was accustomed to. In addition, the radio wasn’t working properly, the pilot could speak to the box, but the box could not talk to the pilot. At one point, a young engineer, who was Kimi’s performance engineer, raised his hand: “Excuse me, I think he is saying he wants the blue flags for the lapped drivers.” Savior of the fatherland. Since then he has the most experienced “Kimi-translator” living. He understands him not only when he speaks, but seems to have free access on the mysterious Raikkonen’s planet. It’s not a coincidence that this young man - called Andrea Stella, 37 years old, a degree in Aeronautical Engineering, born in Orvieto, married to Michela and father of Edoardo and Federico - is today the engineer on track of the Finnish pilot, the connecting point between him and the rest of the team. He replaced Chris Dyer, promoted to the role of coordinator of the engineers. “It’s not just about a linguistic matter or interpretative capacity - says Andrea -. When you're at your computer it’s like if you were in the car with the driver, you are always contextualised and then you images of what you're talking about him.” Now Stella is just a little more in front-line, though in these years he didn’t have a defiladed role: “I was already the interface between the pilot and data concerning him. The performance engineer, or vehicle engineer, watches the telemetry and his task is to improve the performance of every aspect of the car: he has to analyze a curve and tell the pilot how to make it better, so for the tyres or the engine brake. Now my role is a little bit less analytical, but it concerns more over the management of the group.” Now Stella is the end point of the work of the whole box of Kimi: “I have to coordinate the others: managing people, managing time (ex. during the tests to schedule the program of the day), choosing priorities, studying the regulations. And then, in the race, managing the driver. The aim is to create the conditions for driving in a natural way.” And here we go back to Kimi. The mysterious object of F1 has no secrets for him. “Kimi loves the essence of the information. And more the visual communication than the oral one. With him doing three hours of meetings doesn’t pay. Better to put in front of him a sheet with a diagram and a clear message, maybe highlighted with a beautiful color.” He’s not Schumacher , who while was testing the car was also able to have long technical disquisitions: “Michael loved to set the choices on deductive logic criteria. Kimi has a more intuitive approach, based on his beliefs or perceptions. This from a communicative point of view is something of less effective...".
Stella is a quiet guy, he doesn’t like losing his control. “I don’t like the quarrels.” He speaks calmly and clearly, like an engineer who wants to make oneself understood. After listening Kimi through headphones, he always replies him in a reassuring way: “OK, I have understood. Thanks.” However the hollow face under his curly hair betrays some tension. Do you feel the responsibility of having to redeem a year gone wrong? “How can I say that I can’t feel it? - His answer is sincere -. There is the environment, there are many changes that will remember it to you. But you just need to focus on your work, I don’t need to think bigger now. I just have to try to put Kimi in the best conditions.” And maybe in the last race he will say him “by one point,” like Dyer did in 2007. “For me, it would be enough to tell him that we have done an excellent job.”
