FastEdward wrote:
Regarding Kimi's time at McLaren, they were very accommodating back then - they clearly realized they had top talent in their hands and did everything in their power to give him a car to succeed. For example I remember reading back when Montoya and Kimi were teammates they actually built different noses or front end or some such for the two cars in effort to give both drivers a car that suits their needs, because when Montoya came to the team he found the car optimized for Kimi horrible to drive. I don't think it was ever like that at Ferrari - in 2008 for example they made changes to the car mid-season that didn't really seem to fit Kimi's style - at the time he was still ahead of Massa in the standings, but instead of trying to optimize their car for their reigning world champion they decided on changes that perhaps made for a theoretically faster car but didn't seem to suit Kimi. I still believe if Ferrari had made some different choices back then Kimi would be 2 time WDC and 2009 would've also looked very different. Then again Massa came very close to WDC that year, so can't really fault Ferrari for their choices. There was also the whole fiasco of bringing back Schumi for 2008 as some sort of advisor on car development, and it always seemed to me Kimi and Schumi didn't get along very well. A bizarre move in every respect IMO, it's like telling your drivers we don't value your input but rather bring back a retired driver, especially considering one of the strengths of Kimi has always been his very keen feel on the car and his accurate feedback.
Some other driver more political astute / more interested in 'leading' a team would've probably made their voice heard better, that part is on Kimi, the other part is on Ferrari, they paid Kimi a lot of money and somehow I got the feeling back then after Todt leaved the team that they didn't really give Kimi the focus and trust he should've deserved as their reigning WDC, instead bringing back Schumi and just in general messing things up in a way Ferrari often seem to do when they 'loose it'. Maybe after Todt left there was an absence of leadership and they were used to having a driver like Schumi on board who was as involved as they get, while Kimi is quite the opposite.
Yeah MS advised the to change the car in 2008 when Kimi won first 2 of the 4 races for Felipe

and then just slipped away which should have been another title. Missed opportunity that year. I think his best was in especially 2nd half of 2009. 2nd half 2007 was also pretty good and got lucky in the end