Kimi's future - No racing in 2010?

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Originally Posted by aryan

2008:
[..]
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.

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You've forgotten (at least) that he crashed at the Singapore GP. I understand that was driver error.

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Originally Posted by penagate

You've forgotten (at least) that he crashed at the Singapore GP. I understand that was driver error.

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No, in Singapore, according to official Formula 1 stats, he is classified as 15th, as he had finished more than 90% of the race. So that's not considered a retirement.

Anyway, 15th or driver crash doesn't change any of the calculations, neither the number of points, nor the number of races counted.

Some of the posts have been quite weird in this thread. Do people not realize that Kimi is the only WDC for Ferrari in the last five years? And on top of that, he did it in his first year in the team. Then there are ridiculous claims that he "lucked" the WC in 2007. Yeah, sure, winning the most races in the season and winning the championship can be termed "lucking it". :rolleyes: (Going by that effed up logic, Hamilton lucked it in 2008, and Schumacher in 2003.)

Sure, Massa came close in 2008, but bottom line, Kimi is a champion and Massa is not, yet. As simple as that. Ferrari would be the biggest idiots, wanting to replace a potent championship winning driver such as Kimi, who on his day is unbeatable, and on top of that pay off his contract! :eek: :rotflmao:

Of course there are bad races, but they happen in everybody's career. Nobody is a superman. The 2007 car suited Kimi and he delivered a championship, the 2008 and 2009 cars didn't, and so he struggled. I'm sure that after Massa's accident, Ferrari had all their resources and attention on Kimi and his car, and the setup he wanted. The results speak for themselves. They must be kicking themselves in the back right now, if the Alonso contract has already been signed.

Anyway, at this point of time, if he chooses Mclaren over Ferrari, it would be a very wise choice, seeing that Mclaren have produced a better car in the latter half of the season, and probably will carry that onto the next year. Nobody at this point knows how well the 2010 Ferrari is gonna perform. I say good for Kimi!

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Originally Posted by ioan

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.

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Highly unlikely that in these times of recession, pressure or no pressure from Santander, Ferrari would make the biggest dumbass, brain farting move in the history by replacing Kimi with Alonso, and then paying off his contract for what, $52 million for NOT driving for them, and then go ahead and pay Alonso too! :eek:

Ever heard of the expression: "To chop your own leg with an axe?"

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Originally Posted by aryan

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.

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I'll only say that one can see the differences between how Michael made history at Ferrari and how Kimi is doing the opposite.
The difference in the work ethic of these two drivers are way to big for Michael fans to be able to cherish Kimi for his lazy approach. I like Kimi as a person with his one liners, but as a professional individual he is relying to much on his natural talent and too little on hard work for the team.
Back when Michael retired I hoped it will be Kimi who takes his place, not Alonso. Last season I realized I was wrong.

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Originally Posted by X-ecutioner

Highly unlikely that in these times of recession, pressure or no pressure from Santander, Ferrari would make the biggest dumbass, brain farting move in the history by replacing Kimi with Alonso, and then paying off his contract for what, $52 million for NOT driving for them, and then go ahead and pay Alonso too! :eek:

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Let's think about it.
Ferrari operate on a 300+ millions budget. Next season this budget will already be halved. Everything over that is free for management staff and driver sallaries. Looks to me that they have enough money to pay out Kimi's over inflated salary and than anyway Santander will pay Alonso's salary, so the loss is already covered.
Add to this that no one can say for sure if next year Kimi won't fall asleep again for about 75% of the races, meaning that Ferrari might not get much in return for retaining him for 50millions for another season.

Money isn't a problem for Ferrari Marlboro F1, results are what they need, deliverd in a consistent way.

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Originally Posted by X-ecutioner

Ever heard of the expression: "To chop your own leg with an axe?"

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Never. Is it Indian or Finnish?

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Originally Posted by henners88

Why should it be only up until the German GP? Its not Kimi's fault Massa is sitting the season out.. While he's chilling at home recovering, the stats are racking up against him.. :p

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Hopefully you are just kidding.

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Originally Posted by aryan

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.

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Now let's compare the ROI for each of them.

195 points for 3x50+millions a year = approx 800000/point for Kimi
213 points for 12+12+18 millions = approx 244000/point for Felipe

My conclusion is that one of them should perform better in order to earn his pay.

Kimi was hired for a reason and he didn't really deliver what was expected of him.
As I already pointed it out I never was an Alonso fan, and I even cheered for Kimi in 2005 when he fought for the WDC against Alonso although I'm really not a McLaren fan. However as a Ferrari fan I believe that Kimi didn't bring what was needed.

Kimi has a WDC for Ferrari. That's what he was paid to do and that's what he has done.

Forget some statistically flawed perspective of value because it's immaterial. If you want a monatary comparrisson it is this.

Kimi - $150m - 1 WDC success
Massa - £$52m - 0 WDC failure

Which was the most cost effective?

You guys might not want him at Ferrari but getting him at McLaren would be superb for us :D We're happy :D

BTW, who's picking up the tab. Are Ferrari going to be paying him to race for McLaren ;)

I really hope this happens.

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Originally Posted by ioan

Now let's compare the ROI for each of them.

195 points for 3x50+millions a year = approx 800000/point for Kimi
213 points for 12+12+18 millions = approx 244000/point for Felipe

My conclusion is that one of them should perform better in order to earn his pay.

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Fair enough, I see your point. But, Ferrari snatched Kimi from a rival team, of course they had to lure him with a lucrative contract. Massa on the other hand, owes his F1 life to Ferrari. Back in 2002, the only person in the world who would throw him a contract was Jean Todt; and good on him, cause Ferrari is reaping the benefits now.

Back when in 2006 Ferrari was signing the contracts, Kimi had been a multiple time WDC contender, and was recognised across the paddock as a fast driver. Massa still had a lot to prove.

I think it is unfair to hold Kimi's salary against him. It's not like he bargained for the salary himself. These drivers all have management teams which represent them in contract negotiations. Kimi's management obviously had some nice negotiation skills, and were able to extract that salary for him. You can't even hold it against his management, after all, their job is to get the highest money for their client.

Seriously, the way I see it, Massa and Kimi have been very well matched over 2.5 years, and the only argument I hear against Kimi is his salary. You know what? I'm sure that extra WDC championship that Kimi brought to Ferrari (and Massa is yet to do) was worth the extra millions of dollars that he has cost them in salaries. At least!

Besides, Alonso would at least be twice as expensive as Massa as well. He probably will come with a 50 million dollar salary, at least. By the same logic, will you start calling him an underachiever if he doesn't get twice Filipe's points?