The Kimi Raikkonen Mood Chart / Kimi Raikkonen's Return To F1

I have to gloat a bit and let out a giant Nelson-eseque "HA, HA!" to that guy (what was his name?) who used to be here and argued incessantly in favor of Kimi at every step.

It was said Kimi left F1 by choice, didn't want to be there anymore, etc.

Kimi himself said he wasn't interested in driving in F1 except for a top team and a top salary. He turned turned down McLarens offer to drive alongside Lewis at a reduced salary to that of Ferrari.

He thought his stock was MUCH higher than it was. I said all along that he could come back to F1 when he got realistic about his talent and his performance. He got an ass kicking by Massa, and based on Massa's subsequent performances, that makes Kimi look about on-par with David Coulthard or Heikki Kovalainen.

Seems he has finally accepted that - and is coming back to a crappy team, at probably a pittance of a salary, and will be hoping to raise his stock and get his mojo back.

Nice to see he's finally acknowledged his place in F1-dom

 

Wow from Prince to Pauper for Kimi. I never cared for him and think he was alway's overrated.

 

Meh.

BUT...I'll take an unmotivated twit over Rubens any day of the week and thrice on thursday.

 

I'll take someone who wants to be in the field for not just a paycheck, Ruben's > Kimi

 

Kimi Raikkonen, for some reason, is one of my favorite drivers of all time; along with Senna ofcourse. Kimi has a lot of character and I love it. He's quite a funny guy too.

 

+1

 

IF he comes back with Williams, and to me that's a larger if, I don't see him lasting very long. Maybe he'll make it a full season, but that's the max I'd give him. He lost interest way too fast with a top team, how long is a mid-pack team going to keep his attention. I just don't see it.


Mark

 

What's the point in Williams giving this burnt out relic a seat when there is so much fresh motivated talent out there. The only person laughing would be Kimi... And his bank manager.

 

Money is all imo and we all know FW does not give a crap about his drivers.

 

+1000

 

+1

Unlike so many other drivers this man has a backbone. He speaks his mind and not what his PR manager told him.

 

+1. That's exactly how I see it. Kimi will smoke Maldonado and move on to a better team,... or he'll be gone from F1 after 2 seasons. I don't see him being a Jarno Trulli running at the back for long...

 

Firstly, why were these 2 threads merged? Just because Kimi is the topic of both? The two subjects couldn't be more different. Why don't we just create threads with the driver's name as the topic, and then just put every story related to that driver in that thread. Yes, that is sarcasm........

I love that a familiar name is coming back to F1, but being out of the sport as long as he has gives him very little chance to getting back to being a front runner again, especially if the team he is going to is Williams. I wish him all of the best, and I truly hopes he surprises everyone.

 

Actually the same topic. Here the OP:

 

has anyone heard anything about if he will in fact be racing for williams next year?

 

Nah.

IIRC, this all started when he visited their motorhome a few races back - I postulated at the time that he was simply looking for an icecream but this story has gained legs all by itself.

Further, AFAIK, it's only been reported by some of the "less reputable" sources - Once Autosport takes it seriously I may start paying attention. Until then it's the gutter press (PF1 and the like) fueling the silly season IMO.

Cheers,
Ian

 

Not true:

http://www.motorsport-aktuell.com/automobil/wolff-bestaetigt-ernsthafte-verhandlungen-mit-raeikkoenen-4077049.html

Williams Team co-owner Wolff confirms negotiations with Kimi.

 

Including Williams looking at Jules Bianchi.

 

To me Kimi strikes me as a driver that likes doing as little as possible for the most possible cash, and he has done that to certain extent, (I maybe quite wrong) so I suppose good luck to him for doing it. His hardest work I believe was at Mclaren, although, I think Ron Dennis was looking for another Mika.

To be honest all the more power to Kimi, he is and can be extremely fast, whether or not he has had his fill of F1 remains to be seen, maybe he has had a rethink about rallying as in dangerous.

Maybe he just wants some easy cash in F1, plus the bonus of getting a racing fix.

Or he may really want to come back and try to blow the doors of everyone, and shut his critics up, if so I hope that is the case.

A no nonense type of guy that clearly hates the press and co, likes to party, whether or not it will work out, I really don't know.

 

As I've always seen Kimi, give him a car that's working well and is fast and he'll blitz the field with his natural speed.

Give him a car that's not working well, is slow and needs developing and he's lost.

My opinion of having Kimi in your team is that if the cars got a problem, he struggles to explain to the engineers exactly what he needs doing to sort it to his satisfaction.

At McLaren they had fantastic engineers who could figure it out for him whereas at Ferrari they sometimes struggled to understand exactly what he wanted from the car.

It was almost like:
Engineer: "So what do you need from the car?"
Kimi (muttering): "I don't know, just make it faster!"


Think of Kimi as a moodier version of this:
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5cL-h3Pj1o[/ame]

 

On the other hand, when the Ferrari sucked, Kimi couldn't do anything with the car. He just wanted to show up and drive, then go home.

Massa smoked him. Twice!

Kimi isn't a guy like Alonso who can make a crappy car perform above it's level. He is a guy who will just whine that the car isn't fast enough and he can't do anything with it.

I have to wonder, during those few years that McLaren was almost winning WDC's but not quite (the Kimi years), would they have been kicking ass if they had Alonso or Hamilton or Schumi?

 

Yes, he certainly does come across like that.

 

Great question, I certainly figure they would have done better, hard one to answer for sure though.

 

Its all about motivation for Kimi.
A motivated Kimi is a fast Kimi.
A Kimi with a fat contract, WDC under the belt, and mediocre car is a mediocre Kimi.
Same can be said for most drivers.
Every once in awhile you get a Senna, MS, or Alonso. Appears that SV is in the same small boat.

 

yeah sure if they had a car that could finish races back then, IIRC, PB