Disgusted with Kimi *** SPOILERS***

His greatest sin is that he is in the great MS's shoes, which no one will ever fill.
Unforgivable !

 

I think Kimi spent the last three years using the car as an excuse. It can take a good swift kick in the ego to get someone to stop leaning on a crutch.

Continuing to make excuses for a driver whose performance isn't living up to his reputation isn't going to get the job done.

I don't want to see Kimi fall short of his potential, and I think people need to point out that he's just not attacking off the line like a potential WDC.

His McLaren days are over. Blaming the car and going off to sulk isn't "situation normal" for Ferrari. Kimi has to realize that the only thing standing between him and a Ferrari based WDC is his own excuses. And the excuses everyone else makes for him.

The media crucified Massa after Malaysia, and it seems to have galvanized him to improve.

Maybe some shock therapy will help Kimi, too.

 

No disrespect intended, Brian. I was simply cataloging critical comments regarding Kimi. I did read your entire post.

My point is that there shouldn't be anything wrong with criticizing a driver, even if he drives for Ferrari, if criticism is warranted. I took a lot of heat for criticizing Massa yet many of those complaining about my comments, who see my failure to support ALL Ferrari drivers as tantamount to treason, have seen fit to criticize Kimi (which frankly I find much less warranted).

 

don't worry. u didn't show any disrespect.

regarding your post, i 100% agree. it's only fair to criticize all drivers, Ferrari or not. i was one of Massa's critic regarding his Malaysian napping start.

 

Massa
Grand Prix Date Team Grid Race Pos Points Total
Australian 18/03/2007 Ferrari 22 6 3 3
Malaysian 08/04/2007 Ferrari 1 5 4 7
Bahrain 15/04/2007 Ferrari 1 1 10 17
Spanish 13/05/2007 Ferrari 1 1 10 27

Räikkönen
Grand Prix Date Team Grid Race Pos Points Total
Australian 18/03/2007 Ferrari 1 1 10 10
Malaysian 08/04/2007 Ferrari 3 3 6 16
Bahrain 15/04/2007 Ferrari 3 3 6 22
Spanish 13/05/2007 Ferrari 3 Ret from 3 0 22

Massa is doing better than Kimi right now. I think based on the pre season hype, even Ferrari fans are somewhat dissappointed in KR so far. It is just as foolish to call for KR's head at this point as it was to say that Massa was just the practice crash test dummy. F1 is more than just about driving. There is a significant mental part to it and a significant communication part with your team as to how to set the car to make the most of it. At this point in the season Massa has the edge in both of these areas. I expect KR to improve as the season goes on. In the meantime, I am happy to see Massa doing well in stark contrast to pre season predictions of so many.

 

Have to admit I am starting to think this way too. Watch the in car of Kimi's failure - the car darts from side to side as he enters the corner - more like a transmission failure than an electrical problem. Ferrari (or McLaren for that matter) are rarely very good at pinpointing the exact failure

Its essentially the same gearbox that Massa put on pole and won with - so why can't Kimi get it to finish the race?

 

just like the same gearbox MAssa wrecked in Aussie, and Kimi went on to win it. This kinda things happen in F1.

 

I have to believe that Kimi is having a harder time getting adapted to the Ferrari than anyone could have thought. I've read that Kimi is complaining of understeer, something Michael never did. After working with MS for 10 years it is only natural that some of MS's input is still in this year's car. Massa has had over an entire year to adapt to the Ferrari, which is why he's looking better than Kimi right now. When Kimi was with McLaren he dealt with understeer by pointing the car into the corner before braking. For whatever reason, this doesn't seem to work as well with the Ferrari. Kimi is a good adaptive driver and will overcome in the end. One year at McLaren, DC was wiping the floor with Kimi at Suzuka. Kimi didn't seem to be able to get the esses right and had an awful weekend. The very next year he won the race from last place. I wouldn't count him out yet.

 

Touche

 

+1 it is still early, doesn't anybody remember the 91 Williams Renault when Patrese dominated Mansell for the fist part of the season? After that Mansell found his feet and Patrese never came close again. Give Kimi time, I still think he will be the 2007 WDC. Just like everybody is giving Alonso a hard time, it takes time to adapt to a new team. Look at JPM in his first season at Williams, it took until Mid Season for him to blow off Ralf, and after that he did consistently.

 

+1..the whole 'overhyped' 'lets lynch kimi' mentality is just getting tiresome. biases overcoming common sense. most people don't remember those examples you've given...too short of memory, or didn't watch races back then. but, you're right...Mansell didn't look so hot against Patrese that year early on...in fact, he could've been called 'overhyped' if you will but of course, that season ended a bit diff from how it stated.

 

oh no, not another one of those posts...

 

+1 basically lame.

 

Yeah and the most recent example of this was the beginning of the 2006 season. Massa finished the first race in 9th place. Afterwards he was finishing around 5th-9th place again, then towards the middle of the season he was getting more out of the car. I stand by my prediction, which was that Massa will have the advantage the first few races, then Kimi will get it together and start to blow him away. It hasn't happened yet, but it's a long season.

 

+1 great post James.

 

He would finished on the podium in Bahrain last year, except he had a one minute pit stop where a wheel gun stopped working.

 

I don't recall that, but i'm not disputing it. You would agree though, that Massa's performance significantly improved as the season went on though, right?

 

he did improve...in the early going, he looked like a fish out of water!

 

yes. he had a horrible race in Bahrain and in Aussie. after that, i think he had a new race engineer and he did improve a lot after that.

 

You can prove anything with stats. 89% of the population knows that!

 

Implying that Kimi's driving is the cause of mechanical failure makes little sense. Especially a transmission, where the driver has almost no impact on its function and stress. It's been a long time since the drivers could do things like over-rev, miss shifts, crash gears, etc. The bottom line is the tranny has to take 19,000 RPM from the engine and make it play nice with the gearbox. Bad things can happen. Everyone knows at this point that "electrical problems" is race-speak for "we're not saying".

 

when are we gonna stop with that 'some drivers are harder on their cars than others' BS...the car is designed by the engineers to be bricked all out for the distance of a race. you can't blame every single failure on the driver whenever you feel like it...picking and choosing...if the gearbox is the issue, than it's the engineers/mechanics responsibility...and many teams have had gearbox/other mech/electrical issues so far this year. are those drivers abusive towards their cars too? i don't see anyone griping about those drivers.

 

Talk to a mechanic. Some drivers *are* harder on cars than others. Some people have been burning out EVO clutches at 3000 miles. Others get 50K out of them.

I got 100K out of my AWD Celica clutch --- but only about 3K out of the front tires (until I got used to AWD's understeer).

Or look at used Ferraris -- and their service records. The previous owner on my 328 had the clutch rebuilt twice and the gearbox rebuilt once. That's one reason I got it at a low price -- the PO couldn't figure out how to shift it, and blamed the car. It's been fine, for me.

In F1, we saw last year that Alonso was harder on his tires than some other drivers ... and it cost him a couple of times.

Now the mechanics should be aware how the driver's style stresses the hardware, and account for it. That's where communications between the driver and his crew comes in.

Maybe it doesn't have to be during the rest of the race, but Kimi and his crew really should be talking about why the car broke, and what they can do about it.

A driver that figures that he only drives, and has no other responsibility to the team is just a "hired gun". I don't think a driver like that is going to be consistently successful. I'm guessing that you disagree.

I think Kimi has the potential to be a great driver. But he spent the last three years using the car as an excuse, and *may* have gotten into the "hired gun" mentality. He's not going to become WDC if he keeps using a crutch of blaming "Bad car, Ma."

Because they're not breaking Ferraris.

 

Actually they did say: It was one electrical cable that came loose that caused the DNF.

And as you said: Had nothing to do with how the driver rode the car.