No no, you guys are just jealous of the awesome life that Kimi has! He loves what he does... there is nothing he would rather be doing than sucking at a junior rally team. It was his decision to leave F1, he is still the best driver evar, and he makes more money in 8 seconds than all of you will in your entire life! Kimi WANTED to get fired from the top F1 team and it was McLarens loss that they didn't pay him tens of millions to suck for them. Don't you all get it?
What an odd WDC. Footnote in history? He certainly had flashes of brilliance (Spa 2009 comes to mind).
But he isn't sucking in the WRC, so far he's 10th in rally Portugal and his best finish is 5th I think. Still doesn't look like he'll be coming back to F1 ever again though.
How to ruin a perfectly good internet rumor BTW who's this Horner guy and what does he have to do with RB?
Best finish is 5th and now in 10th place. So roughly equivalent to the Sutil/Alguersuari level if compared to F1. That's not sucking? It's the junior series. He's not a top level WRC driver - he went to the junior league and his best finish is 5th and in general he finishes a lot worse than that. That's sucking. Considering the guy is a former WDC and formerly well respected F1 driver. Leaving F1 was the worst move in history. He could be driving the Renault this year, which is pretty fast, or he could be driving the McLaren, which is also pretty fast. Instead, he's struggling to be mid-pack in a junior WRC series. That's a pretty far fall.
Yeah, those are overall finishes...even though he is on the junior team, that doesn't mean that is a different rally class. The Citroën Junior Team is just like Toro Rosso in its relationship to Red Bull Renault. I should say that his results have been quite good and his results have steadily improved. It seems he has earned a decent amount of respect on the rally circuit. There really is no way to compare rally results to F1, except to say that he is 1 of only 2 people to ever score championship points in F1 and WRC.
That's what I thought. I've watched a bit of it on HD Theater and am quite impressed by those guys. Kimi does seem to be enjoying himself and apparently hasn't had any ego issues playing the newbie.
And he's driving how God intended the Finns to drive WRC is pretty incredible and it seems that chance plays a much larger role than what we are used to (i.e. a random rock takes out the car). I agree with you that he doesn't seem to have an ego here; very much a student of the game right now. He still has a ton to learn, but to start in the series this strong is pretty impressive (until he gets bored with it!)
I think footnote is true, unfortunately. He had many flashes of brilliance, mostly when he was at McLaren and in spite of constant reliability problems. But the fire simply went out.
Red Bull is missing out on a fantastic marketing opportunity with Kimi as their spokesman for the New Red Bull'n Vodka offering. Probably cost them billions in lost revenue. Offset by savings in product consumption.
I disagree, you can't compare it to F1 they're chalk and cheese, sure they're both motor sports and you still drive cars but to be honest that where the similarities end. I would have preferred him to stay in F1 and yes he could have gone to Mclaren (we'll never really know why he didn't) but I don't think Renault would have been an option, he always said before he left Ferrari that would wouldn't still be in F1 just for the sake of driving around. He wanted more championships at the time Renault looked like they couldn't give him that, and they're quick now but know where near that quick. The WRC is something that he has always been interested in doing, so he had the chance and took it, its his first season and he's still learning so in that respect 5th is quite good and from what I've heard the team are very happy with his progress and speed. However it is unfortunate that Red Bull aren't interested in him purely because Webber is finally putting in the results he should. +1.
I don't think it's true that Kimi would have preferred to stay in F1 but wanted more championships... McLaren offered him a drive, he turned it down because they weren't willing to pay his asking price. He just isn't worth what he thinks he is. He's no Alonso or Hamilton or Vettel. He's a Webber. A guy who can go fast if the car is just right, but if it's not, he can't overcome it. He absolutely screwed up at Ferrari. He got smoked by Massa - twice. His stock dropped a ton. If he was a real racer, he would have sucked it up and gone to McLaren for a year and if he did well, his stock would rise again and people would assume he just had an off couple of years at Ferrari. But after all his screwing around, getting smoked by Massa, doing horribly for two years, he felt the top teams should be beating a path to his door. His mistake. He's driving for a junion WRC team now, and ain't exactly cleaning house. He says he is happy. He insists that he doesn't care at all about F1, and even says he has no idea who is winning and losing this year, because he just doesn't care. First of all, he doth protest too much. Second, that's not the way to impress any of the teams. The driver market is pretty static next year, he won't be at Ferrari, or Red Bull, or McLaren. So that will be 2 years he'll have been out. His F1 career is over. All because he was too proud to accept that he lost some of his luster at Ferrari and didn't feel he should have to prove himself. His mistake. IMO. I don't think that's the ONLY reason they aren't interested in him
Incorrect. Kimi is driving in The World Rally Championship, not the J-WRC. It might be the Citroen Junior Team, but he's in the top class with two top 10 finishes out of 4 rallies run in his first season as a rally driver. If you don't like Kimi that is fine, but don't go making crap up. .
Indeed. He is doing quite well in his first season, some people either don't understand rally driving, or just want to talk Kimi down.
You're right - he is sucking in the junior team, not the junior league. It wasn't a case of "making crap up", just a typo. It's not that I don't like Kimi, he just fell so far from grace. When he first got into F1, he had all the promise of guys like Hamilton and Vettel. And he blew it. Totally blew it. He lucked into one WDC, got his ass kicked by Massa (!!), twice (!!!), got fired, was gifted a job offer at his old employer, but got all pissy because he felt he was worth more. So instead of being one of the F1 greats, he's sucking in a Jr. WRC team. Pretty far fall from grace.
Actually, IMO, he has risen in grace, from a useless lump of boredom in a Ferrari cockpit to a solid, if still learning, rally driver. I never liked him in F1 and I don't like him now. That said, I don't know what you expect out of a first season for any rally driver, but I can tell you, without hesitation, that if you think Kimi isn't doing a decent job in WRC, then your expectations were totally unrealistic. BTW, nice try with the "typo" thing... you made that "typo" twice, once calling it "junior league" and the next "junior series". I know darn well you thought Kimi was driving in a lesser series or class from the top tier of WRC.... and so does everyone else.
Kimi seems to be enjoying himself and oddly enough he doesn't seem to care what we think. Kimi being Kimi.
A useless lump of boredom. Hmm.. that's a pretty wild characterization. Nope, he wasn't that. He was just arrogant. He figured he was so good he didn't need to stick around and develop a car, and didn't need to put the time in that the other guys do. He is that kid who is pretty smart and figures he doesn't have to work that hard, then he wonders why he's 35yrs old and in lower-middle management instead of being a rising start executive. I don't think Kimi is doing well in WRC. Of course, you put the qualifier "expectations" in there... I didn't expect him to do well. I love MotoGP but I also wouldn't expect Rossi to do well in F1. It's a different game. Kimi didn't get tired of the grind of F1.. he got fired. And he got fired for cause - for sucking. He got waxed by Massa. The same Massa that is getting waxed by Alonso. Kimi was getting superstar $$$ and putting in D-list performances. If what is claimed is true and that he's a racer at heart who just wants to win, he would have gone back to McLaren. But he was too stubborn to accept reality - that lesser drivers had made him look like a chump. He held out for a price that nobody was willing to pay. He could have been in JB's seat, and if he was doing well, he would be able to make the switch to RB or Renault or MB. But his arrogance pushed him into the junior levels of WRC, where he isn't setting the world on fire. He is meeting expectations I guess - expectations that were set when we saw how he fared against Massa. Damn, you caught me... I was trying to pass off his drive as being in a lesser series. I figured if I said it enough that people may believe it, and I secretly hoped nobody would notice. But you figured it out! Junior team or series - I don't believe it changes the argument. He isn't in a top team, and he isn't a shining star in a bottom team either. He's not doing in his WRC car what Alonso did in the Minardi to make himself stand out. And at the end of the day, this is a former F1 WDC who showed all the promise of someone like Hamilton or Vettel early on. And he drove that ship into the ground, hard.
