Kimi may be a robot

The man won the F1 title for Ferrari. For that, I like Kimi. Case closed.

 

Ferrari is all about passion, from the owners of production street cars, to the craftsmen in the factory, to the fans that watch and support Scuderia Ferrari. In my opinion Kimi never had the passion. He was a great driver but Ferrari owners, fans and employees deserve more. I think Alonso has the passion and drive to be part of Ferrari.

 

Kimi's musical idols
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXa9tXcMhXQ

 

Alonso has had the passion before he was even confirmed. Did you guys read the latest interview with him today about the F10? He even thanked Massa for doing such an excellent job of preparing the 2010 F1 car prior to his time in the car. As someone who really admired Kimi, I have to say I am very happy to have FA now in the car, in fact as I have posted many times before, it should have been Alonso to Ferrari in 2007 and Kimi should have stayed at McLaren, it would have been a far better situation then.

 

Yes he's a passionless ******....


In a recent interview/track test with a finnish TV presenter at fiorano, Kimi took the guy out in the scuderia. Before that, they where talking a little bit and he was smiling a lot. At one point there was a question: 'Kimi, what Ferrari's are your favourite?'

He replied 'one of the older ones, they may not be as fast but there is far more passion into building them and they are prettier.'

Yes the guy has zero passion!


Just because you can't understand a different CULTURE doesn't mean the guy is passionless, doesn't know how to smile etc.

OTOH, Americans seem to be one of the most friendly persons you could meet (minus the deep south, of course) but in my opinion, not all of it is genuine and its a bit of an act by about 80% of the americans I've met.

I could go on forever about many cultures but I really can't be bothered.

I reckon you can call Kimi 'lazy', because he didn't bother to put up a fake smile and forgetting to show up in a unmolested Ferrari Daytona...

 

+1. Yes! I remember that.

 

As F1 drivers go, Kimi is just an OK driver IMO.
He won a title by some ability and with a good dose of luck.
He was most of the time midpack and mostly inconsistent.
He is not good at developing cars, not good at communicating with mechanics and engineers and certainly not good at communicating with the fans.
Not a good fit for Ferrari IMO.

 

By looking at his wiki page most people will conclude that.

However, the people who actually watch F1 will know what actually happened. His Mclaren was incredibly unreliable when he drove there. If the car actually held together for more than half a race I reckon he'd be a tripple WDC already.

Mclaren praised his ability of coming to a track, get in the car, set a quick lap, tell the engineers what needs changing. then he went to sleep for a little, woke up, got back in the car and set the f'ing track on fire.

He doesn't communicate with the fans well, I give you that.

 

Couldn't disagree more:

- Kimi won the title for Ferrari
- Kimi is immensely talented and came very close to winning the title with McLaren if it wasn't for the reliablity of those cars
- Kimi's "don't give a damn" attitude was refreshingly different to the robot Schumacher who wants nothing but perfection and wins
- Kimi knows how to party
- Kimi speaks his mind in interviews and thus is a lot more telling than most drivers who regurgitate the company line

In short: Kimi rocks. He was a worthy successor to Irvine and lives his life in the footsteps of James Hunt.

 

Absolutely... reading that just makes me realise how much I will miss Kimi this year.

 

I would have to say he was better than just an OK driver. Afterall, he has won one WDC, been runner up twice, 3rd once, he's won 18 races, got 16 pole positions without spending his entire F1 career in the most competitive cars.

In the 2007 season only four drivers won races. Kimi won 6, Hamilton won 4, Alonso won 4, Massa won 3. Okay, Massa let Kimi through to win in Brazil but had he not, Kimi would still have won 5 races. Both Hamilton and Alonso are rated as better than OK drivers and yet Kimi did better than both of them.

If you check his record on here: http://www.formula1.com/results/driver/2009/12.html going back to 2001 when he started his F1 career, you'll find that most of the time he finished ahead of the midpack, pretty consistantly.

On the first point, communicating with the mechanics and engineers, I agree. As for Communicating with the fans, I can't say that I've ever heard any complaints about him from fans, to be honest. With Kimi they know exactly what they're getting.

As it turned out, he didn't fit in as well as was hoped, but he did a reasonable job all the same, 1 WDC and 2 WCC's for the Team. He could have gone through his Ferrari contract and never have won a WDC.


The thing with Kimi is that he has a very close circle of people he trusts and feels relaxed around. These people see the real Kimi, laughing, joking, the life and soul of the party.
Martin Brundle once said on TV that he'd been for a night out with Kimi and his friends, and you couldn't shut him up, it was joke after joke, playing pranks on people and non stop chat from him. Brundle said it's amazing to see the transformation in Kimi when he's around people he's comfortable with.

At the end of the day, Kimi see's himself as a racing driver, not a celebrity. He's found a way of doing what he loves whilst at the same time keeping all the distractions normally associated with the job, to a bare minimum. As for the criticisms for the way he achieves this, do you really think he cares?, I doubt it very much.

 

Have you ever visited the factory in Maranello?

I have. You realize the California is assembled like most other cars todays in a pretty standard production line.

Yes, Ferrari is a lot about passion etc and I love my own Ferrari, but lets not get ahead of ourselves.

As for the connection between the road cars and the F1 fans: Sadly it is a very loose connection at best. If you go to Ferrari club events (I happen to be the president of one) you will quickly see how few people have these cars because of the team or how few of them actually follow the races. F1 racing builds the image and the myth that ultimately helps selling road cars, but the two groups of fans have only a small common overlay.

 

Utter nonsense. Just go to ebay and calculate the average miles per year for all the preowned Ferraris for sale. You will soon notice that at least in the US the primary passion of most owners is posing. Many of the cars are great, some of them are beautiful (like 308, 355 and 458) but most of the owners are just rich geeks whose tepid drives to "cars and coffee" type of events require nothing more than a Prius. Of course with a Prius, the discussions of the car's awesome performance -as reported in Car & Driver- would not be as spirited.

Lets get real here!

 

Funny, that's how I felt about Schumacher and how I still feel about Massa (minus the title ).

Mercedes recently made a special edition called the "Stirling Moss" and let the legend drive it and guess what he said: He didn't like it as much. He preferred "the older ones".

Ever watched Topgear and Clarkson's test of the 599? Remember what he said about it? Perfect car, but boring and he much rather had <you guessed it> one of the older ones. A 250 to be precise.

Many people prefer the older ones without all the nanny controls, without all the weight and perfection. With the raw sound, manufactured when Enzo was still around. Doesn't mean these folks have no passion.

 

Perhaps he just felt that the comment covered the answer enough. The presenter could have easily then asked: "So which is your favourite old time Ferrari then?", it's the most natural follow up question I can think of.

 

What bothers me about your comments is that you have no idea of what is in Kimi's garage.

 

That'd be an Enzo right?

But hopefully you're not thinking of that famous picture with the Enzo displaying ZH (for Zurich) plates because that wasn't his.

I get you. Likewise I would have said the opposite: I prefer the newer ones without being specific. Enzo, Scuderia, Italia, doesn't really matter.

 

My monies on: a snowmobile, motorbikes (various types), some old cans of paint that have gone hard and should be thrown away but he hasn't had time to go to the tip, bits of an old car he keeps meaning to do up and will get round to one day, a lawnmower he borrowed from a neighbour, a chainsaw that doesn't start for some reason and never cut that well in the first place, the barbeque that needs a good clean and a fridge to keep some extra beer in.

Am I close?

 

No, not the Enzo. Kimi has a huge garage these days.

Edit: Make that "garages".

 

Probably not even close.

I read an interview with him at his home in Finland and it was about as designer home as it gets. Absolutely flawless and top notch modern and in perfect condition.

Dont confuse hanging loose with trailor trash. He is everything but.