finally....loooks like kimi is goin to the scuderia after all: http://www.f1racing.net/en/news.php?newsID=129024
"I am thrilled to get the opportunity to race with a world champion team like Renault," said Kovalainen. "I have been a member of the Renault Driver Development programme since 2002, when I had the distant ambition of one day becoming an F1 driver. "It is a fantastic feeling to have finally achieved that. My two seasons testing for the team, as well as my time in GP2, have allowed me to build my technical knowledge and to understand what it takes to win in Formula One. I have also had the opportunity to show the team what I can do, and it is a great motivation to know that they believe in me. "It will be a fantastic feeling to line up on the grid in Melbourne, but that is still a long way off. At the moment, I am totally focused on helping Renault win the 2006 championship." The 25-year-old Finn, last year's runner-up in the GP2 championship, was Renault's test driver in 2006, covering over 28,000kms. - - - - I hope there's no team orders in Renault - it would be a shame to penalize the better driver of the two just because he's new. Carol
So this means Raikkenon will either stay at McLaren, at least for 2007, or he will in fact be racing for Ferrari in 2007, with or without Michael. We will know this Sunday.
Great news!!!! I look forward to watching HK drive. Renault will definitely be a weaker team without Alonso but I am glad they are giving HK a chance. I don't believe there will be any team orders. I think both drivers will get equal treatment.
Good news. I am sure Andreas is over the moon! I think Heikki will do a great job. But I am sure it will take time for the results to show. We need to be patient. Heikki has certainly got a lot of miles with the car - so that is a definite plus. But he hasn't got experience in a lot of the tracks in an F1 car as the third driver from Renault can't drive on Fridays. There is a lot of learning to be done. Also Renault will be using Bridgestones - this will be a big learning and adapting experience for the entire team. The media exposure will be new to him as well. I think he will take about 3-4 months to begin to be comfortable and probably outshine GF before the end of the season. It will look really bad for Fisi if he is consistently outshone by a rookie next year.
Ron, I was thinking the samething, but I have a feeling that GF will score more points but Hekki will be the quicker of the two.
Go Heikki! The first few races will propably be a little tougher for him because of all the new stuff he has to learn (now being the actual race driver). But once the tour gets back to Europe there should be no problems for him to get great results.
Finland produces the best drivers in the world per captia. Look at how many F1 and WRC drivers and champs they've had.
I meant: (Kimi), "driving along side of" MS or Felipe? Oh well, a lot of discussion since I left for work this morning ...
I certainly hope so ! This is GREAT ! I just can't wait for next sunday and Ferraris announcement (you'll propably guess what I'm hoping for...) Once again a season with two Finnish F1 drivers, this is good. Maybe so, who knows ? Or maybe it is just the alcohol that has in multiple genreations destroyed our selfprotections sense....
