planetf1.com

Yes, I'd agree. I don't think it's much of an excuse, though, as everyone is in the same boat. He really needs to get himself sorted this weekend and if he does I'm fairly convinced he can keep up with Vettel

BIB: not sure why you say that, 2014 and 2015 were pretty bad for him as well and he got an extension?

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Go Vandoorne - Verstappen - Vettel!

Trying to remember now but I don't think 2015 was terrible, just that his qualifying was and he ended up having to play catch up most Sundays. His race performances weren't bad on the whole and I seem to recall that they felt if they could address his Saturday issues he'd do better. Which he did, as it turned out.

I'm reasonably sure 2014 was a two year deal?

Agreed. 2014 and 2015 were both really poor, 2016 was ok, but far from great.

It's time to hang up the helmet, and like many others I like Kimi.

Had to chuckle at a remark from Arrivabene about Kimi (on the parent page)



Team boss Maurizio Arrivabene, who has been Raikkonen’s greatest protector in the team simply added, “He was talking too much on the radio.”


That is something I never thought to hear

There has been talk about Kimi's level of performance since 2014 not the last 2 races, the Ferrari over the season was the equal of the Red Bull, Vettel could have finished 3rd in the WDC if not for bad luck, Kimi finished 6th and I would say that was his level of performance, nearly every race you would be predicting him to finish 6th whereas with Vettel often you would be fancying him for the podium.

Yes Vandoorne is a rookie plus he is in a car that has issues of performance and reliability and questions whether he has the same car as Alonso, how can we be saying that Kimi is a 2 race rookie?

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Bwoah.

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I wonder if you actually watched last season? Since the above is simply not true. Before Japan, just four races from the end of the season and where he was 4th in the WDC, Kimi finished lower than 5th on exactly four occasions, so to claim that 6th was somehow his default position is just nonsense. In fact, he finished 4th or higher more often than not. And, while the Ferrari started stronger, the Red Bull definitely overtook them and by the half-way mark were the stronger car. Kimi did finish 6th a couple of times after Japan, but by that time of course the Ferrari was struggling.

There are no questions as to whether Vandoorne has the same car. See above

You don't know that Mercedes would not sign a tier 1 driver because there wasn't one available, I personally believe that if Vettel wanted to go to Mercedes next year then they would sign him, one of the clinches is with him being a German 4 time WDC, this being much the same reasoning behind signing Schumacher in 2010.

Again with Kimi he didn't perform in either 2014 or 2015 yet Ferrari re-signed him, also part of the reasoning behind the 1 year contracts for Kimi might also be his age, this is a policy that football clubs also tend to operate with older players.

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Even when he started beating Vettel in qualifying in the second half of the 2016 season, Vettel was still beating him in the races.

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And yet you do know that Ferrari wouldn't? I sense a double standard here.

There's nothing to suggest that Ferrari and McLaren are operating a different driver policy. Both have a "main" driver, and both have a solid 2nd.

Yep, because Vettel's better? Did you miss the post above where I said - and I quote - "You'll get no argument from me about Vettel being better." That doesn't mean that Kimi was bad.

Here's a wild thought. Imagine Kimi's performance remains this bad or worse as the season progresses and it really starts to hurt Ferrari in both championships. Do you think they would go to Giovanassi? Lol I can't imagine that but it would be quite dramatic wouldn't it?

He would often finish 4th or 5th when other drivers had issues, not often on pure performance, sometimes Red Bull were off the pace, you tend to notice this things in the competition I take part in. If I was unsure which car would be quicker between Ferrari and Red Bull then I would place Kimi 6th, to do this just because I have anything personally against Kimi would be sort of chopping my nose off to spite my face, so it shows that is a genuine opinion.

Actually being in the competition helps to keep you sharp about relative driver performance.

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Ferrari have history of not doing this as witnessed by employing the likes of Massa and Kimi, if Mercedes re-sign Bottas after being dominated by Hamilton then you will have a point.

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Even when he started beating Vettel in qualifying in the second half of the 2016 season, Vettel was still beating him in the races.[/quote]






multiple times because ferrari bodged his strategy. they tried to bodge vettels as well but unlike kimi, he didnt trust the team to make the right call, stayed out and ended up getting an advantage in the end.

ferrari just dont seem to understand tyre usage and track position. they dont seem to be able to adapt to how the race is unfolding. its as though they come up with what they think is the ideal strategy and thats it. put the blindfolds on during the race. this is going back basically to when brawn left. they have been awful since then. but have been particularly bad recently

Just pointing all we hear is if Kimi could just do this better, if Kimi could just do that better but it all comes round to the same thing with him being the weakest driver in the top 3 teams which he was in 2016.

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After how he performed in China I would give that a big NO.

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I think most of the arguments are simply saying Kimi needs to do better, not "do this" or "do that." No-one's arguing that he's doing fine, so pretty unclear what you're trying to say here. The point I'm making is simply that calling for his head after two races is knee-jerk.

I think that some have been thinking this for awhile and his recent performances just reaffirm this, also going forward from this we hear how these new cars seem to be more challenging for the drivers and widening the differences between the drivers, sorting the men from the boys sort of thing, I would be a bit concerned that maybe the new cars are showing Kimi up as well, maybe he hasn't aged well?

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maybe he hasn't. But two races is still too early to tell

I doubt it anyway as Ferrari don't like to be seen to make wrong decisions and this would mean they chose badly with both drivers. Keeping Kimi and lending Gio

I doubt half the grid would do a better job than Kimi let alone a rookie drafted in at mid season.

Sounds of commentator licking ice cream. Race starts....

Kimi : Race has started

Stroll crashes into turn 1.

Kimi : That idiot rich daddy Canadian crashed.


Race ends....

Kimi : gets up to get more ice cream.

Thanks for posting this - that fits with what I thought, which is that Alonso had the better aero parts in Melbourne, but not in Shanghai anymore. If anything, the newer engine would in principle have given Vandoorne a slight advantage (until it failed, of course!).

To paraphrase pokermean, one thing I dislike is when people try to find an excuse of favoritism for any time Alonso performs better than his teammates.

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I wish Kimi would realize he's probably not going to improve in his performance and go out on his own terms. I count myself as a fan as well, but it's frustrating to watch him go backwards. Unless something changes drastically this season, I'd wager Ferrari is going to replace him. I don't see that happening so it'd be nice to see him sent off gracefully.

I see no reason to believe his performances can't improve.

There's nothing new here. He couldn't get the car set up the way he liked it in Australia and then in China this was exacerbated by the lack of Free Practice. Both times the car wasn't set up the way he needed it to be and when that happens he's frankly rubbish at coping. The low temperatures didn't help, either. But if he gets it set up right in Bahrain then don't be surprised to see him keeping up with the others.

The problem's not Kimi being slow, or that he's "lost" it. The problem is, and has always been, that he has a tolerance window of around 0.05% and anything outside that means he can't cope. Inside that, he's fine. But he's just crap at adapting

Yes, the reason people are saying that it's time for Kimi to retire isn't because these two races have been so terrible - it's because they've been completely in keeping with his form since 2014. The only way I would have said he should keep going is if this new formula had actually revitalized him like we'd all been hoping for. Setup issues or not, it clearly hasn't done so.

Since 2014, he has beaten his Ferrari teammate a grand total of eight times. Of those eight:

2016, Singapore: Vettel started from the back, still finished right behind.
2016, UK: Beat Vettel on merit.
2016, Spain: Got lucky with the better strategy, but otherwise beat Vettel on merit.
2015, Abu Dhabi: Vettel started from the back, still finished right behind.
2015, Belgium: Shouldn't count - Vettel beat him, but had a car failure and still got classified.
2015, Canada: Vettel started from the back, still finished right behind.
2015, Bahrain: Beat Vettel on merit.
2014, Belgium: Alonso got a penalty for unsafe team actions, but Kimi probably beat him on merit anyway.

That's four times out of three years that he beat his teammate in a straight fight without the other driver starting way down the grid due to a technical issue. That shouldn't be good enough for anyone, and it's certainly not good enough for a world champion. I really wish this year had brought a return to form, but there just aren't any indications it's done so - and his form for the last three years simply hasn't been good enough to justify staying in a top team.

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And really it has become very difficult for me to imagine that he wasn't equally poor at Lotus before that. His teammate was Grosjean and I think he was flattered by having a middle-of-the-grid-level driver in the other car. Still he actually lost out to Ro-Gro in qualifying. I think that car was actually really fast; perhaps even the best car of 2012 and certainly second best car of 2013.

To me Raikkonen has always been overrated and ever since he won the championship back in 2007, he has done nothing but decline in terms of his performance. Don't forget that Massa had firmly established the upper hand in the matchup by the time Kimi left for WRC for a couple of years.

am I the only one who would like subtitles when kimi is interviewed ?

Exediron: from memory, Vettel also had a grid penalty in UK 2016. Not that it changes anything from your overall point.

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Go Vandoorne - Verstappen - Vettel!

Yeah, he did - 5 places, from one spot behind Kimi to 11th. He was pretty much garbage in the race though, and Kimi finished well ahead of him. Vettel was clearly not on it that day.

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kimi is the new Ferrari DJ, it was vettel for a while but told him to shut up this year as they wanted kimi because he speaks so much clearer

As some have said, the Ice Cream wanna be jokes are so overused now that people need to realize it. Time to put them to rest.

When a driver is hurting in a race, for whatever reason, bad day at the wheel, bad set up, lack of power, the only fall back the driver has is strategy. In China I saw Kimi get stuck behind a car, and that seems to be happening a lot to him, he needs to push the issue, thats on him. Two races now where he is just being dropped by the front runners, he needs to sort that out, is it car or driver? Only he knows that.

Now when the guy driving a F1 car, dealing the track, other drivers, all these car settings on the steering wheel, still has more sense of how the race is developing than the team, the first thing I will question is the team strategy. He looked worse due to strategy, he gets a podium even when complaining about the car and maybe this thread does not come to be, rather "What a great recovery on a slow Ferrari".


Yes Kimi needs to get on the game, but its just the second race, and Ferrari carries some of the blame.

Too early to ask for his head. Do think this might be the year when he leaves F1

I really wish he was better at working with adverse conditions and I agree that we can expect him to do better in Bahrain in warmer temperatures and he's gotten great results there during his 2nd stint.

But Exediron's point pretty much says it all. Granted he's been paired with possibly the 2 best drivers in F1 so I can only fault him so much but he just hasn't gotten the results. Whatever the reason, I rather him move on to something else than watch him struggle, plus I tend to favor moves (barring accident/injury, of course) that create opportunities for new drivers.

I still enjoy watching for the most part, even if I wish he'd try to work more through less than ideal conditions.

Well who to believe when somebody says one thing then somebody else says something different?

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I ask you what is the true performance, the few races were he looks good or the majority were he looks second rate?

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PF1 Pick 10 Competition

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Some of the names being thrown around in this thread as potential replacements for Kimi just make me laugh... Perez, Wehrlein... It seems people have good memory only when it comes to Kimi's worst.

Back on topic, there's only one driver I could see Ferrari replacing Kimi with: Nico Hulkenberg. He's due a competitive drive already. Most of the others would not do any better than Kimi, especially considering he's been able to trouble Vettel on occasion. There are also a few drivers Vettel wouldn't like to be partnered with, and Ferrari would certainly not re-hire Alonso either.

In current F1 there's only one truly promising WDC contestant: Max Verstappen. I'm looking at the drivers list for the 2017 season and I seriously can't see anyone who would be better than Kimi, especially if you factor in that Vettel is supposed to be elite driver and the major threat to current best driver Hamilton. Losing to him when you're past your best is, therefore, no shame. If Kimi is able to outqualify Vettel in one season, he's doing better than Barrichello ever did against Schumacher, for example.

I think Ferrari will have to start considering replacing Kimi soon, as his salary is high and he's almost 40 years old, but it'll be difficult to find youngsters happy to play second fiddle to Vettel. Even the veteran Berger didn't want to be the second driver to Schumacher after having been just that to Senna, and Irvine knew he wasn't as good as Schumacher and had that carefree attitude, so when Ferrari approached him with a proposal, he just said "why not?" and got on with it.

I would've liked to see Bianchi in that second Ferrari, but it wasn't meant to be.

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"Ask any racer, any real racer... It don't matter if you win by an inch or a mile. Winning is winning." (Dominic Toretto, "The Fast and The Furious")

Unless he can get to grips with the understeer he has had in the first two races he is gone. Hell he might be gone anyway if Vettel stays and Ferrari rehires Alonso next year. This year his poor adaptability is going to count adversely and very publicly because Ferrari arguably have the best car and so there is no hiding place for him. Only in 2016 did Kimi look at his fast and comfortable best but one year out of four is not a good ROI for Ferrari for his expensive services. He already knows he is fighting for his seat next year against some very capable contenders by his very vocal frustration in the cockpit when faced with adversity. Alonso is basically using this season as a year long interview for his next job also displaying new found diplomacy and politeness 😉. I would be very surprised if he is not in a Mercedes or Ferrari next year.

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I tend to believe the one that has a source - or in this case, I tend not to believe the one that doesn't. McLaren was quite open that Vandoorne had a different specification of car in Australia, so if the same was true in China why would they hide it?

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