In the Alfa Romeo garage, he is probably the man who knows the Finnish driver best: race engineer Julien Simon-Chautemps, who sets up the car and manages its operation during Grand Prix weekends, tells us from the inside about driver Kimi Räikkönen.
MAKE THE CAR AS FAST AS POSSIBLE
A man of the shadows, the race engineer plays a crucial role in the performance of his driver. His mission is to help the driver to get the most out of the car by adapting to a whole series of parameters: track conditions, driver preferences, the team’s development programme…
“My job is to operate the car so that it goes as fast as possible,” Frenchman Julien Simon-Chautemps told F1i. I work with a team of five engineers (performance, aerodynamics, systems, engine, tyres) and six mechanics. On a race weekend, part of my role is to give them work lists, such as the set-up sheet for the mechanics and so on. While the car is on track, I receive feedback from all these people and filter this information to pass on the essentials to Kimi. I attend the meetings before and after the race.”
“Once back at the factory, I spend between one and two days analysing the race we’ve just run, and three, four days preparing for the following weekend. It’s a more analytical job, interpreting the data we’ve collected over the weekend. Even though I’m a racer who prefers to be at the racetrack, it’s important to give feedback to my colleagues at the factory so they know what needs to be improved to go faster.”
The Saint-Raphaël native has been playing this role of interface between technology and people for the past ten years in Formula 1.
After studying engineering at IPSA and a stint in Formula Renault (where he worked with Robert Kubica), then in F3 and GP2, he began his Grand Prix career as performance engineer for Jarno Trulli at Toyota in 2007. After a stint with Caterham, he spent six years at Enstone, where he was notably the track engineer for Romain Grosjean and then Jolyon Palmer. In January 2017, he moved to Hinwill to work with Marcus Ericsson for two seasons, before working with Kimi Räikkönen from last year.
BUILDING A COMMON DATABASE
However, the Finn was not a complete stranger to our interviewee, who had been his performance engineer for two years at Lotus.
“I had worked with Kimi back in the Lotus days when I was his performance engineer. We kept in touch afterwards, which helped a lot when he came here.”
“Usually we have a first technical meeting at the factory with the driver to get to know each other, but in this case it wasn’t necessary, because I knew what kind of driver he was.”
“Nevertheless, we always go through the winter testing stage, which is necessary to create common references. During the tests in Barcelona, we usually try out several set-ups, with different settings, each of which produces particular effects. This allows the driver to get an idea of what effect a particular setting has on the car.”
“Depending on the intensity of the problem he is experiencing, he knows that he has to change more aero or more anti-roll bar, differential, etc. We scan a whole series of settings, and we build up a common database, which evolves throughout the season according to the changes we make to the car.”
“The transition from Ferrari to Alfa Romeo went very smoothly. Besides, with his experience, Kimi knows exactly what he wants. It was very clear in his head what he wanted for the driving position, the steering wheel, the set-up, etc.”
“He wants a very special driving position. Last year, he worked on his seat himself during the tests, simply because he could see that we were all very busy. And he said, ‘Give me the seat, I know what I want, we’ll save time.’ Classic Kimi! (Laughs)”
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