Kimi, the demolisher [Archive]

Juppe

19th January 2007, 07:53

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/56372

Will KR have the same "bad luck" at Ferrari? Is he really that "savage" or is it just the opinion of an engineer defending his products?

That is an interesting question. When there are reliability problems it is a lot more convenient to blame the driver for the problems than to accept any fault of their own. Now that Kimi left McLaren - I am sure we will hear a lot of blaming Kimi and praising Fernando in the future from that direction.

Kimi's teammates have had their share of technical problems as well, so Kimi could not have been the sole reason for the defects.

However, the season starts fairly soon and it will be interesting to see how reliabilities develop for different drivers Fernando/Felipe/Kimi. If Kimi's cars continue to fail and Massa always drives home safely, then there could be some truth to that. We'll see.

But as Shalafi wrote, why would anybody want to have a car wrecker in his team?

Juppe

19th January 2007, 09:24

And what would be the "Ferrari-tank" proposed by the Mario Illien like?

The answer is here:

http://fakeferrarinews.wordpress.com/2007/01/19/will-2007-be-a-season-of-upsets/

:D :D :D

ArrowsFA1

19th January 2007, 09:40

But as Shalafi wrote, why would anybody want to have a car wrecker in his team?
The only race seat Mario Illien has available is on his MotoGP bike :p

You often used the hear that a particular driver was "hard on the machinery" when there weren't electronics to manage these things, but it's unusual to hear it now.

wroom

19th January 2007, 09:52

Sour grapes...

chap

19th January 2007, 10:19

When there are reliability problems it is a lot more convenient to blame the driver for the problems than to accept any fault of their own.

The point is that the driver knows that the car has this "reliability problems" and is his duty take care about ... not continue to drive ignoring what machine you have.

If Kimi's cars continue to fail and Massa always drives home safely, then there could be some truth to that. We'll see.

Exact! Juan Pablo was, as well, very hard with his material so not a good reference.

Kimi's teammates have had their share of technical problems as well, so Kimi could not have been the sole reason for the defects.

Except on 2002, David 4 retirements vs 10 for Kimi.

samuratt

19th January 2007, 11:16

But as Shalafi wrote, why would anybody want to have a car wrecker in his team?

Cause he is the fastest of all! ;)

Anyway I still think that kimi is very hard on the car, I remember at Monza in 2005 when he was constantly driving thorugh the kerbs at the chicanes... the car was almost flying evertime he passed throught there... and that is not the best way to nurse a car that you already know it is weak...

Donney

19th January 2007, 11:24

I think it is an enginner trying to divert the attention on the origin of the problems in McLaren

Dzeidzei

19th January 2007, 11:57

I think it is an enginner trying to divert the attention on the origin of the problems in McLaren

Well, there are some questions Mr Ilien doesnt say anything about. If you know that by taking your car to its absolute limits you can hang in there with the leading cars, do you think a real racer would ever choose to take it easy and finish the race in 5th or 6th?

I think the basic problem with McL was that it was just too slow. Kimi already had a seat at Ferrari (probably since 2004) so why would he be gentle to the car and try to finish at 3rd or 4th spot? I think Mr Ilien defined motor racing well when he talks about being gentle. Going flat out must be for stupid people. Finns, basicly.

But arent we lucky this year? We´ll see FA nurse his McL around and not getting any DNF´s all season.

Juppe

19th January 2007, 12:31

Except on 2002, David 4 retirements vs 10 for Kimi.

That is true, but after that horrible year the retirements in 2003 -2006 have been:

Kimi: 20 / Teammate: 21

So there is no statistical proof for Kimi being more destructive than his teammates have been, but as statistics are fun - they do not always tell the whole truth.

ioan

19th January 2007, 13:24

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/56372

Will KR have the same "bad luck" at Ferrari? Is he really that "savage" or is it just the opinion of an engineer defending his products?

As we have already seen it the McLaren auto destructs also when driven by Alonso.

Taking into account Mercedes' and McLaren's incredible reliability, even if KR will destroy his Ferrari again and again, Felipe would still win the championship with a few races to spare! :D

Big Ben

19th January 2007, 14:00

IMO drivers are supposed to push their equipment to the limit. It's simple. The difficult part is to find where that limit is. However, in KR's case I would blame the engine. I have no idea how many times they had to change KR's engine in 2005 sending him back 10 places on the grid, but I recall he won in Hungary and the Turkey using the same engine (though I'd might be wrong)... Nevertheless, at times they had to change it even two races in a row.... I'd say that is quite a proof that engine was pretty fragile... and not the driver too aggressive
So give him a reliable car, let him drive it hard and bang it into all the kerbs, lap after lap, and race after race....

ioan

19th January 2007, 15:27

Don't worry people, Ferrari designed cars that were able to cope with MS' aggressive style lap after lap for 2 race week ends, KR will be fine too.

chap

19th January 2007, 15:32

So there is no statistical proof ...

only because you decide not to take account of the data you don't like ... that's the way to have fun with the results

schmenke

19th January 2007, 15:39

IMO drivers are supposed to push their equipment to the limit. .......

Exactly. It's up to the engineers to construct a car that will withstand the punishment of an F1 race.

Tazio

19th January 2007, 16:15

Speaking of the dead!
How many times Did Mike turn up the wick for a limited part of a race(the 4 stoper in france'94 comes to mind) Monza the same year!
Fred also! Mostly running away early, and cruising! The former was more dramatic! the latter is just common sense!
My point is you have to know the limits of your equipment.
Kimi may get a great car! He will win races! But, he will not win the wdc if he doesn't take care of his equipment!

agwiii

19th January 2007, 16:18

I believe this is just Illien "woofing" to the press. We will soon see if Kimi's reliability problems continue at Ferrari. Nothing like having the facts, is there? Making predictions is -- the purview of Nostradamus, not Illien.

:)

Juppe

19th January 2007, 16:35

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/56391

It seems this was a duck.

Illien denies Ferrari 'tank' comments

By Jonathan Noble Friday, January 19th 2007, 15:01 GMT

Mario Illien believes that Kimi Raikkonen will make a success of his switch to Ferrari, after denying reports that he said the Finn's new team would need to build him a 'tank'.

German newspaper Sports Bild on Thursday quoted Illien as saying that Raikkonen was so hard on his cars that Ferrari would have to produce a bulletproof machine if they were going to get the best out of him.

But Illien has denied making those remarks and, in fact, has told autosport.com he can see no negative aspect to Raikkonen's approach to racing.

"I haven't spoken to anybody in the last few months about Formula One and gave no interviews," said Illien, who worked with Raikkonen when his Ilmor engine company produced engines for Mercedes-Benz.

"Kimi is a great guy. I enjoyed working with him and have great respect for him.

"He always gave the maximum in the car and he was a guy who you know would take things to the limit. I see that as a good thing."

Illien believes that Raikkonen can deliver all that is expected of him at Ferrari following his switch from McLaren.

"He is going to push hard, of course," explained Illien. "A lot will depend on how the relationship between Kimi and the team gels, but I expect everything will work out okay. He is a very committed guy."

Juppe

19th January 2007, 16:46

only because you decide not to take account of the data you don't like ... that's the way to have fun with the results

Ok, I take it you do not make a lot of statistical analysis?

If there is one year that supports your conclusion and five years that do not support it what is the outcome?

It is quite normal to disregard the data that does not fit the rest of the results from a statistical analysis.

chap

19th January 2007, 17:14

Ok, I take it you do not make a lot of statistical analysis?

If fact it is the opposite ... that's why I know your discussion is false.

If there is one year that supports your conclusion and five years that do not support it what is the outcome?

It is not me who decided to ignore the year that not fit ... ;)

It is quite normal to disregard the data that does not fit the rest of the results from statistical analysis.

Your last sentence is true but has nothing to do with the way you treat the data.

In addition there are no statistical analysis here. It's simply matter of comparison year by year ...

Cheers.

catnip

19th January 2007, 17:19

Off the top of my head, Kimi 'only' had more engine failures than his teammate(s) in 2002, 2004 and 2005. In 2001 he had none, and in 2003/2006 his failure count was as low as or lower than his teammates'. Furthermore, his engine failures in 2005 tended to happen very early on in the engine's life cycle so it's questionable if his driving style really affected the outcome - after all, if an engine can only take, like, 10 practice laps, it's a bit difficult to state with any confidence that it's a great engine.

That leaves two seasons during which he indeed had an abnormally high number of engine failures. I don't know what those were all about, to be honest, and I admit they do look a bit suspect. However, those were also generally poor seasons for McLaren so maybe they were taking unnecessary risks with their engines to be even remotely competitive - I don't know. I'm just saying that while you can simply add up the numbers over the years and conclude that Kimi's stats look a bit weird, it'd be a good idea to keep in mind that he's also gone three entire seasons with excellent engine reliability. That probably wouldn't happen if his driving style was exceptionally and unacceptably abusive.

Juppe

19th January 2007, 17:32

If fact it is the opposite ... that's why I know your discussion is false.

....

Ok, this gets a little bit boring, but...

It is true that there is no real statistical study here and I am far too lazy to make one properly, but if there is one year's data that is very different from the rest, the natural conclusion would be either disregard it or to try to find a reason for its peculiarity. So what is false?

Cheers :)

19th January 2007, 17:35

The only sure-fire fact is that the story was in SportBild.

Which makes the only relevant statistic this - it is likely to be 99.999999% sure-fire bollocks.

F1boat

19th January 2007, 17:51

Ilien denied it. This story stinks.

VresiBerba

19th January 2007, 20:43

Strange that Ron Dennis & co wanted to keep that kind of a car-wrecker in McLaren so desperately... ;)

If they were so desperate to hang on to Kimi, McLaren would have not let the option they had on Kimi laps, but they did.

Juppe

19th January 2007, 21:32

If they were so desperate to hang on to Kimi, McLaren would have not let the option they had on Kimi laps, but they did.

I cannot find any details, but did McLaren have an option for Kimi 2007?

agwiii

19th January 2007, 21:49

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/56372

Will KR have the same "bad luck" at Ferrari? Is he really that "savage" or is it just the opinion of an engineer defending his products?

Now Illien denies the statements. We will never know the truth in the matter, but beginning on March 19, 2007, we will know if Kimi really is hard on cars.

Ian McC

19th January 2007, 22:13

The only sure-fire fact is that the story was in SportBild.

Which makes the only relevant statistic this - it is likely to be 99.999999% sure-fire bollocks.

:up:

That was exactly what I was going to say :D

DimitraF1

19th January 2007, 23:01

in 2 months everybody will forget all this..if kimi drives aggressive and is any dangerous to retire,ferrari all they have to do is to drop the rpm's a little and he will be fine..they know better than us..is their job

mstillhere

19th January 2007, 23:08

Strange that Ron Dennis & co wanted to keep that kind of a car-wrecker in McLaren so desperately... ;)

Totally agree

mstillhere

19th January 2007, 23:16

kimi would drive so fast that even the rear mirrors would fall off.

fly_ac

20th January 2007, 07:18

My point is you have to know the limits of your equipment.
Kimi may get a great car! He will win races! But, he will not win the wdc if he doesn't take care of his equipment!

With the reliability issues of the Mclaren, where Kimi had to start either 10 places down, from qualifying, or at the back of the grid on several occasions, no wonder he had to drive the SH!@T out of the car to play catch-up.
With Ferrari being reliable Kimi won't have to wreck the equipment to get somewhere, as he would possible start near the front, if not the front, at a regular basis.
I believe Kimi know how to take care of his equipment.

DexDexter

20th January 2007, 14:59

IMO even if the tank-thing was true, it's a huge compliment to Kimi. It implies that Kimi is a driver who gets so much out of the car that it breaks down, talk about "maximum attack" as Markku Alen used to say. 100% commitment every single lap, literally driving the wheels off the car. Forget about championships, if Kimi does that with Ferrari, the Tifosi will love him.

ioan

20th January 2007, 20:44

If they were so desperate to hang on to Kimi, McLaren would have not let the option they had on Kimi laps, but they did.

Any links to this?

VresiBerba

20th January 2007, 21:07

Any links to this?

No, perhaps I confused it with someone else. I don't remember.

ioan

20th January 2007, 21:15

No, perhaps I confused it with someone else. I don't remember.

That's all right.

PS: It was Williams who had an option on MW but decided not to take it. ;)

Big Ben

20th January 2007, 22:42

No, perhaps I confused it with someone else. I don't remember.

Maybe JPM

Dzeidzei

22nd January 2007, 13:47

I cannot find any details, but did McLaren have an option for Kimi 2007?

Actually, a lot implies that KR and Ferrari had at least a provisional deal already in 2005. McL didnt have an option, otherwise they would not have signed FA.

Juppe

22nd January 2007, 15:07

Actually, a lot implies that KR and Ferrari had at least a provisional deal already in 2005. McL didnt have an option, otherwise they would not have signed FA.

Supposedly BusinessF1 magazine wrote something about Kimi having an option at McLaren that would have guaranteed Kimi a salary of astronomical proportions and that Ron let it lapse, because he thought Kimi was not going anywhere and that he could get a cheaper deal by letting it lapse. This was during 2005, when Ferrari was having a difficult year and McLaren/Renault were fighting for victory.

I have not seen the article, so I have no details.

However, nobody else has reported anything of the sort - so this could have been only in their imagination at BusinessF1. I really don't know.

Tazio

22nd January 2007, 16:04

With the reliability issues of the Mclaren, where Kimi had to start either 10 places down, from qualifying, or at the back of the grid on several occasions, no wonder he had to drive the SH!@T out of the car to play catch-up.
With Ferrari being reliable Kimi won't have to wreck the equipment to get somewhere, as he would possible start near the front, if not the front, at a regular basis.
I believe Kimi know how to take care of his equipment.

A point well taken!