Kimi's future - No racing in 2010?

Printable View

Show 40 post(s) from this thread on one page

20th September 2009, 19:15
Saint Devote

Quote:

Originally Posted by ioan

Because Kimi has been anything but consistent during the last 2 seasons.
Because they will have Alonso on board in Kimi's place, which means a very consistent driver who you can rely on, exactly as Felipe.
Because even if Felipe won't be 100% as good as before, I hope he will be even better, Ferrari will have Alonso plus Felipe or any other young promising driver they will want to give a chance to.
Also why keep pis$ing money down the drain hoping that Kimi will stay awake for the next race?!

Since the point system change back in 2003 consistency is the key to win championships and that's why Alonso will be in a Ferrari. McLaren had him and failed to make it work I'm pretty sure that Ferrari will deal with him differently i.e. won't favor any of their drivers over the other, just like they did with Felipe and Kimi.

AFAIK Mercedes refused to supply Williams with engines so no Hulkenberg to Mercedes powered team possible.

Everything is negotiable prior to contracts being signed - Hulkenberg is a very valuable asset. We will see.

Kimi won the championship in 2007, since Hungary he has been on the podium every race and scored more points than anyone else including a win at Spa that was Kimi rather than the car.

Sure there was a "problem" in 2008 - that is not the past 2 seasons - but sometimes that is what happens and there was enough ink on the subject. It is not material and certainly was not as stated by Luca.

Alonso is not Raikkonen. Kimi does not care who the other driver is. Other than neccessary he has always hardly conferred with teammates ever.

Alonso is a different story. He MINDS who the other driver is and should Massa be his teammate, and be even partially comptitive, he will go out of his ruthless way to crush him in every way possible and we are all aware that Massa is very fragile in the confidence department.

On a driver such as Kimi it would have no effect - he is a man with high self-esteem and absolute self-confidence.

It is not inconceivable that Alonso will refuse to join Ferrari if Kimi is retained - it would be more than likely.

But the overriding question is how can Ferrari take a chance on a driver they have no way of knowing will be okay or not when he races again?

That may well be the reason behind Ferrari's push for a third car to be allowed. But as Williams is objecting, it is not probable that it wil happen.

I do not think that Ferrari will retain Massa as an active race driver in 2010 - they may as a test driver and as an option in 2011.

But then we have a possible objection to Raikkonen by Alonso - Ferrari have in my view quite a conundrum and we go in circles.

Definitely this whole saga is something that may only be decided on January 1 when testing once again allowed. Stupid regulation.
20th September 2009, 19:59
Malbec

Quote:

Originally Posted by Saint Devote

Kimi won the championship in 2007, since Hungary he has been on the podium every race and scored more points than anyone else including a win at Spa that was Kimi rather than the car.

Sure there was a "problem" in 2008 - that is not the past 2 seasons - but sometimes that is what happens and there was enough ink on the subject. It is not material and certainly was not as stated by Luca.

Thats exactly the point isn't it. According to your example Kimi this year has performed really well when his teammate was unconscious (Hungary) or slow (Badoer, Fisi getting up to speed). He hasn't outperformed Massa and certainly doesn't warrant his huge paypacket. 2007 was a long time ago I'm afraid, and whilst he may have supreme confidence etc etc he has been inconsistent in a way the likes of Alonso and Hamilton, even Massa simply are not.

Your point about Massa's injury and Alonso's mindset are true, it will be interesting to see how those issues pan out, but Kimi is hardly the default choice simply based on his performance, and thats before we factor in things like his huge pay.
20th September 2009, 20:15
ioan

Quote:

Originally Posted by Saint Devote

It is not inconceivable that Alonso will refuse to join Ferrari if Kimi is retained - it would be more than likely.

Than it's certainly bye bye Kimi, no matter if Felipe comes back or not, as I'm sure that Santander wants Alonso in the red cars next year even if everyone says nothing precise right now.
20th September 2009, 20:51
DexDexter

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dylan H

Thats exactly the point isn't it. According to your example Kimi this year has performed really well when his teammate was unconscious (Hungary) or slow (Badoer, Fisi getting up to speed). He hasn't outperformed Massa and certainly doesn't warrant his huge paypacket. 2007 was a long time ago I'm afraid, and whilst he may have supreme confidence etc etc he has been inconsistent in a way the likes of Alonso and Hamilton, even Massa simply are not.

Your point about Massa's injury and Alonso's mindset are true, it will be interesting to see how those issues pan out, but Kimi is hardly the default choice simply based on his performance, and thats before we factor in things like his huge pay.

If you compare Massa and Räikkönen's points tally at Ferrari and exclude retirements for mechanical reasons, they've scored about the same number of points per finished race. So If Kimi is inconsistent, so is Massa. Edit: Obviously the Ferrari car has nothing do with this inconsistency the drivers have shown. :)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F1_2007
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F1_2008
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F1_2009
20th September 2009, 21:48
ioan

Quote:

Originally Posted by DexDexter

If you compare Massa and Räikkönen's points tally at Ferrari and exclude retirements for mechanical reasons, they've scored about the same number of points per finished race. So If Kimi is inconsistent, so is Massa. Edit: Obviously the Ferrari car has nothing do with this inconsistency the drivers have shown. :)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F1_2007
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F1_2008
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F1_2009

I hope you included the 20009 results only up to the German GP.

Anyway can you, please, give us the number of points each of them scored in 2007, 2008 and 2009 (up to the German GP) excluding the car failure related retirements (not that it changes absolutely anything ;) )?
I'm really interested to see how they did each of these years and you already did the maths.
20th September 2009, 22:35
Boudica

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dylan H

Kimi's performance does not warrant a seat at Ferrari when the Italian team have a choice of him, Alonso or Massa. His performance has fluctuated considerably when it was expected that he'd slot in where Michael left off and be the lead Ferrari driver. It isn't a coincidence that Massa was the lead Ferrari driver last year and continued to be so this year until his accident.

Factor in his astonishingly high salary and no wonder Kimi doesn't look particularly attractive for Ferrari.

Massa is also on a very low salary for someone in his position, having been snapped up by Ferrari when he really didn't look very good and was on his way out of F1.

Another thing, Massa is far more popular within the team than Kimi, he speaks Italian and wasn't forced upon the team unlike Kimi who was chosen by Luca De Montezemolo against the team seniors' wishes.

The only fly in the ointment is Massa's injury, will he be quite as quick when he comes back compared to before?

I often see people mention that Kimi was suppose to be the next Michael and he hasn't performed. Fair enough he hasn't performed. But with more and more news surfacing recently, you can easily start to see why Kimi hasn't performed.

Things works both ways. If they really wanted Kimi to be more like Michael then they just should have made him the no.1 driver. You cant expect someone to deliver in a certain way, when you dont give him the tools to do so. Kimi did win the WDC in 2007 and many people tend to forget that Kimi was still leading the 2008 championship until more then halfway through the year.

You yourself mention the fact that Felipe was the leading driver last year and this year. But from a logical point of view it doesn't really make any sense to stop supporting your WDC, when he is actually leading the championship? Felipe did an excellent job and I can understand why they would have chosen Felipe to be the lead driver this year based on last year's performances. But it is just a strange move to suddenly stop supporting your WDC. As I have mentioned it is true that Kimi has under performed, but you also have to ask yourself what performances did you really expect from a driver that isn't really supported within the team? It is ironic that Kimi is now performing very well since the team have now started supporting him a bit more.

It seems like the Ferrari team have been dominated by politics these past two years, and Kimi certainly isn't good with politics. The problem for the most part is properly just that Kimi doesn't really fit into the team and Ferrari also dont really understand Kimi, thus they didn't give him the necessary support.

BTW Felipe is on a good salary, he gets 18 million a year that is about the same as Lewis.

Mclaren is in an interesting situation, all of the current WDC have driven for them, and they seem to be very interested in Kimi. In fact they have actually been courting Kimi more vehemently then Ferrari have been courting Alonso.

Many of the latest reports are now also stating that Kimi himself isn't really interested in driving for Ferrari next year. I can certainly understand why. I really hope Kimi goes to Mclaren next year. He will properly have a bit more support in Mclaren then at Ferrari, because the team already knows him. Even if he doesn't have as much support as Lewis, they at least both have the same type of driving style, so compromises in setup shouldn't be a problem. It will also be more difficult to use 2nd drivers next year as there is only low fuel qualifying and no re-fuelling during the races. The Ferrari management have also been quite error prone these past two years. Then there is also concerns about Ferrari's fuel economy, and the Ferrari engine might now be less powerful then the Mercedes engine. It really seems like a no brainer to me.

At least it seems like everyone will be happy with this deal, for Mclaren it is the return of the prodigal son. The Spanish and Italian press, as well as certain tifosisis finally have Alonso in Ferrari, teamed up against a fully recovered Felipe. While Mclaren have the dream team of Lewis and Kimi, going up against them! It could all be very interesting next year.
21st September 2009, 00:26
ioan

Quote:

Originally Posted by Boudica

You yourself mention the fact that Felipe was the leading driver last year and this year. But from a logical point of view it doesn't really make any sense to stop supporting your WDC, when he is actually leading the championship? Felipe did an excellent job and I can understand why they would have chosen Felipe to be the lead driver this year based on last year's performances. But it is just a strange move to suddenly stop supporting your WDC. As I have mentioned it is true that Kimi has under performed, but you also have to ask yourself what performances did you really expect from a driver that isn't really supported within the team? It is ironic that Kimi is now performing very well since the team have now started supporting him a bit more.

I don't understand why the minute Felipe started beating Kimi people supposed that it was only because all of a sudden Ferrari didn't support Kimi anymore.
I'm yet to see a proof that Ferrari supported Felipe more than Kimi or that they decided not to support Kimi as they did in 2007.

To me it looked like Felipe started badly in 2008 but somehow he pulled himself together and started delivering the good at an impressive rate.
Kimi seemed to drop the ball around the same time and only really got it rolling again since Felipe was in comma in hospital.

These coincidences in Kimi's performance point, as far as I can see, towards Kimi losing the team mates battle for the first time and IMO this is what impacted his performance.
It wasn't Ferrari suddenly deciding not to care about a guy they pay € 50 million a year, it was slump in Kimi's performance due to him being in a strange situation that of being dominated by his team mate.

Why on Earth would have Ferrari decided not to support Kimi in 2008 when he started the season much better than Felipe?
21st September 2009, 01:31
gloomyDAY

Can you imagine Alonsita in a Ferrari?

I hope Kimi gets to stay.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ioan

To me it looked like Felipe started badly in 2008 but somehow he pulled himself together and started delivering the good at an impressive rate.

Thanks for bringing this point up again. I remember that when Felipe spun off at the Malaysian GP of 2008 that people were writing him off for 3 races without any points. Monday morning after the race Stefano Domenicali made a statement saying that if Felipe wins the championship then everyone will forget the tribulations of the first 3 races. Felipe didn't take the title, but at least most "fans" have forgotten about the beginning portion of the year and remember his dominant streak of the latter half.
21st September 2009, 01:51
aryan

Quote:

Originally Posted by DexDexter

I suspect Jean Todt was the man who most wanted Räikkönen at Ferrari. That would make sense since the guy has a long history of working with Finnish drivers.

Yes, Jean was quite keen on Kimi. I remember in a podium ceremony in 2006, where Michael, Filipe and Kimi were on the podium, he called the three of them: "My all time favourite drivers".

Michael apparently also chose Kimi to replace him. I know he was close to Filipe and mentored him, but I'm sure having raced against Kimi for a few years, he respected the Finn. Rather more than Kimi ever showed him respect, unfortunately in my opinion as I respect the great champion hugely, even if I am not particularly fond of him.

Watching this thread, it is interesting to me, that the people who want Kimi out of the Ferrari seat, are mostly die-hard Michael fans, who could never really warm up to Kimi after his move from McLaren.

For me, the record speaks for itself: Kimi is one of the three WDCs in the field, and both, Ferrari fans and Kimi fans should respect what they have achieved with each other, winning 3 championships in 3 years.

As a McLaren fan, I find no prospect more exciting than Kimi joining my favourite team. Hamilton and Kimi, means two WDCs in the driving seat. You've got to give it to them, that's a hell of a good combination of drivers to pair together.
21st September 2009, 02:35
aryan

Quote:

Originally Posted by ioan

I hope you included the 20009 results only up to the German GP.

Anyway can you, please, give us the number of points each of them scored in 2007, 2008 and 2009 (up to the German GP) excluding the car failure related retirements ?

2007:

Kimi:

Kimi had one electrical problem (Spain) and one mechanical problem (Europe). Not counting these two races, he finished the other 15 races with 110 points, which gives him 7.33 points per race.

Massa also finished 15 races and did not finish 2. Of the two, one was a suspension problem (Italy) but the other one, he missed the red light at the end of the pit lane and was disqualified, so I consider that a driver error. He had 94 points, over 16 races, gives him 5.87 points per race.

2008:

Massa had two retirements. In Australia he spun coming out of turn one when racing Kovalainen, so that's not a car failure. In Malaysia, he spun out of the race on lap 31, without any car failure. As such, I consider that a driver error too. As such, he had 97 points over 18 races, which gives him an average of 5.38 points per race.

Kimi:
Retired in two races and finished 16. Of these, Canada was definitely not his fault, as Hamilton ran into him in the pit lane, so I won't count that as driver error. In the European Grand Prix, Kimi had an engine failure. He had 75 points, over 16 races, which give him an average of 4.68 points per race.

2009 (until the end of German GP):

Kimi: Of the 9 races, Kimi finished 7 and retired in 2. He retired the Spanish GP with a hydraulic failure, so not a driver error. In Germany he had a radiator issue, so again not a driver fault. He had 10 points by the end of German GP, over 7 races, gives him an average of 1.42 points per race.

Massa: Of the 9 races, Massa finished 7 and retired in 2. He had a suspension problem in Australia, so not a driver fault. In China, he had an electrical issue, so again not a driver error. He had 22 points at the end of German GP, over 7 races, gives him an average of 3.14 points per race.

Overall:
Kimi: 195 points over 38 races: 5.13 points per race.

Massa: 213 points over 41 races: 5.19 points per race.

It is very clear that their points per race (excluding car failure) is very very close. 5.19 plays 5.13. Not much in it really.

Show 40 post(s) from this thread on one page