No matter what, Kimi will take the cake!!!

Re: Here he IS.. The 2007 FIA formula-1 world CHAMP!!!
 

OK you guys can have the car, I want him! :D

Wellllll...

What... no love for last years champion, Alonso?:D
What about Fisichella driving last years winning car?

Renault seemed to have the dominate car at the end of the season, Fisi could make things very interesting.

I am not a Fernie fan never have been. he is a good driver that had a great car!..... Kimi is a great driver that had crap to work with and NOW! he will whip some azz :)

Hey.. Porsche girl.. you'll be in a line of girls that want him that circles the globe a few time round :) good luck.;)

I am thinking of buying the Ferrari team. Changing the advertising stickers on the cars for Pelican logo´s.

Seriously, I also feel Kim has earned his fame - not least as a he is Scandinavian. Come to think of it, how many North American top drivers are there ?

And why didn´t PAG pour some of that Cayenne money into F1 instead..

Scott Speed sucks!!!! he is a punk that is all about the image of driving... IMHO.
The reason PAG doesn't get into F1 is because it would cost them a MINT to do so and they would see NO return from it.

North America only has Scott Speed winner of Red Bulls American Drivers search a few years ago. A promising young man thrown into the fire very quickly coming straight from Karting. Sort of like Hamilton unfortunatly Hamiltom is getting an A+ ride and Speed has had to do with hand me downs.

Porsche has made it VERY clear they are not interested in F1 and would rather concentrate on racing venues that directly corolates to their road cars.

I cannot say they are off base and I applaud them for concrentrating and dominating road courses all over the world.

Both of his WC titles should have asterics next to them IMHO. He won in 2005 because the tire rule took Ferrari to its knees and poor Kimi had to deal with a car that just fell apart underneath him.

In 2006 he barely won with Ferrari still flailing around trying to sort out their F246 after scrapping the F2005 entirely and going back to the F2004 and buildig from there, then having to try to make up ground on development of the car as Renault had a perfect setup. We all saw what happened by mid-season and how FA started to come unglued and blame his team for his problems.

I cannot understand the whole hate Scott Speed thing. He is VERY young, he had no prior road racing experiance and there he is mid pack, he is not at the back he is mid pack. He consistantly finishes in P10-12 sometimes as high as P8. I hope our American winner of the drivers search matures into a great driver.

Its funny, anyone into RX7's has heard of Pettit Racing and the owner Cam Worth, when they interview Speed I feel like I am watching Cam on TV, Cam gets all excited when talking about racing just like Speed and they both have the exact manorisms. I like the kid, he is in over his head with crappy gear and holding his own.

I apologize for the fact that last year was my first year as a real F1 fan and therefore they are just a bunch of talented guys in really cool cars to me. :D

As with most sports I suppose it makes it more interesting if you have your favorite to cheer on and the "bad guy" to cheer against... hmmm... sounds a little like a certain form of American automobile racing. :D

So far in testing Massa is still faster than Kimi. Granted they are doing more aero experimenting on Massa's car, but he is still faster. Massa also knows how to ANNUNCIATE!

When i was a kid there was a character on one of the Saturday morning cartoons they called mumbles. Reminds me of Kimi.

I agree, Kimi didn't have enough to work with last year, I just wonder if he is well developed enough personally to deal with Ferrari. Certainly it's not the chaotic spagetti factory that it was prior to Schumacher, but a number of key players that MS brought with him have left or moved on. Kimi's certainly the "Ice man" on track (not to mention on the interview stage too!), but I wonder if he's got the professional attitude needed to take Ferrari by the scruff of the neck and make it his own on the on the non-race days. Remember, he's apparently got a flakey and somewhat unstable temperment off-track, and been known to do some pretty stupid stuff. MS on the other hand was a racer 24 hours a day who paid constant attention to being in top form (physically and mentally), and was known to be constantly interacting with the team on how to make the car faster.

Personally, I think Alonzo's the real deal. He's already tied or has more world Championships the Surtees, Andretti, Fittipaldi and all three Hills. He's the youngest World Champion and with 15 wins already he's well on his way to beating the win records of guys like the Hills, Piquet and Fangio. He's also 3rd (behind MS twice) for the number of podium finishes in a season, so he knows how to rack up points and construct a championship. He's also seems to share with MS a constant focus on fitness and professionalism. Has anyone heard of any stories about a drunken Alonso during the off season?

The question is, can he survive the stresses of racing and being married. I just saw on Wikipedia that he apparently got married during the off season to Raquel del Rosario, lead singer of Spanish pop group El Sueño de Morfeo.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...%282005%29.jpg

If there's anything that can take the killer fearlessness out of a guy, it's getting married and starting to recognize that he's not immortal, and he does have something else to live for besides racing. Schumacher seemed to have managed the transition well, although he did mellow a bit, while lesser champions just faded away. It will be interesting to see how Alonso does. McLaren will also be a challenge since they've struggled a bit. Like Ferrari, they've often done well when drivers made the team "their own", like Lauda, Prost, Senna and Mika did. If he can get the team to run on all 8 cylinders, they could be very strong. I think that Hamilton might rise to the occasion and do well this year, but he's too new to usurp Alonso's position as #1 with the team. Especially given Alonso's proven ability to rally a team around himself.

Personally, I don't think that Fiscicella has the stuff to make Renault a consistant winner. He's fast (sometimes) and experienced, but I don't think that he's got the steel backbone to rally the team around him, and take the fight to Alonso and Kimi. It's too bad because I've always like the Renault (nee Benetton nee Toleman) team for being really scrappy underdogs. Some classic moments were MS's Spanish 2nd place with the unfavored Cosworth V8 and only 5th gear and Senna's maiden season including a 2nd place at Monaco in the rain to Prost.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/media/images/4...toleman300.jpg

As far as Scott Speed, I like him and thought he did a great job last year, generally out racing his team mate while lagging a little bit when qualifying. I don't remember him making many mistakes either. Yes, the team is hardly a front runner, but I don't think that Speed's got a rich family to bankroll his efforts either. When he's been on TV he's come across professionally and always ethusiastically even if the outlook wasn't good. I can remember some other born-and-bred American's (let's exclude Cheever for a moment) who really struggled in spite of better experience, a better team, better equipment, and a better family lineage. I think Speed's the kind of guy who given half a break will surprise a lot of people and could run in the front half of the grid given a solid enough team behind him.

That's my $0.02

SmileWavy

You don't have to sit on pole or test the fastest to win races...... Hell Senna use to prove that.
I thikn that when the time comes to make the money .. Kimi will come through.

Is that Gary Busey in the red jacket?

:confused: Huh???

If I remember correctly, Senna used to test constantly and was the pole meister. When he was Andretti's team-mate, Andretti would hardly get a look in at testing because Senna did so much of it.
When it came to poles, Prost would generally out race Senna when they both were at McLaren, but Senna would almost always out qualify Prost.

Sorry...I think Kimi is a dolt with all the PR value and after-race stage presence of a block of ice...hence "Iceman". What made Schumi was his extraordinary ability to record car characteristics in any circumstance and bench it against the telemetry to which it often proved a match. Based on everything I've ever heard out of Kimi, and the fact that there is no more Ross Braun in the technical dept. at Ferrari, it would be a dandy time for Massa to step up and have some fun with Kimi. Not that it will happen though...

Kimi is very, very good...with large "attachments" (as David Hobbs has said). I also think Alonso is the real deal. He handles pressure very well, even when that pressure was Michael. Granted he had the best car (at least part of the year), but he held his own against Michael on numerous occasions.

I do think it might take some time for Kimi to get up to speed in the Ferrari &, as others have pointed out, some key Ferrari personnel are either in new roles or gone. That is why I think Massa might do very well this year. He knows the car & the organization. I think Massa will start the season strong & Kimi will improve throughout the season.

I think Alonso is up to the challenge -- the question is whether the McLaren is.

I can't wait for the season to start!

Don't you remember that when Senna didn't sit on pole he normally would have the lead after a few laps..
the race escapes me but it was raining and he was sitting like 5th on the grid.. and by the end of the 1st lap he was 1st.. that's the ***** Kimi is gonna pull on the other ;) ahahah! oh yeah!

Alonso holding up under pressure?

Did you guys watch last season, when he blamed his team for sabotaging him, he brake checked a test driver during Friday practice because he would not move out of the way fast enough and just about lost his mind as his point lead disapeared.

If MS had not blown his engine in Japan, FA probably would have had a breakdown.

I am looking foward to next season to start and put all this speculation to bed.

I do not see Massa as a #1 driver, he was horribly slow the 1st half of the season and only did well in 2 of the races in the last 1/2 of the season. Kimi knows how to do more with less and now that he has more he will be the man to beat on Sunday.

I am really looking foward to next weekend.

Eric,

The race you are thinking of is the European Grand Prix at Donnington Park in 93....

His opening lap indeed saw him overtake all the established figures....Mansell, Piquet, Prost in a display of controlled aggressive driving that remains a reference in such matters.

The McLaren car itself has proven very reliable... its the Ilmor motor that has let it down...as first Paul Morgan was killed piloting his Sea fury and in the last year or so Mario Illen was preparing to hand over power and ownership...This allied with the designing and building of the McLaren Technogy Centre and the fiasco of the SLR have distracted Ron Dennis' attention. If you look back on the periods of McLaren's greatest success these are the times when RD had nothing else to focus on... when he and Gordon Murray were developing the F1 the team went off the boil and had some dire years...and when they started on the Technology Centre the same happened...

But there have not been these distractions over the last year or so and I believe that Illmor are now more settled after the departure of Illen.

As last year their car will be either the fastest or one of the top three...add to that some reliability (demanded by Alonso) and I think that they stand a very good chance of winning.

I think that Kimi is a better racer than Alonso (just ahead) but Alonso is a better development driver... so he will race with a reliable and dependable car, but I do not think it will be as quick in absolute terms..The average is what will make the season so good. What will be interesting is to see if Ferrari can adapt from the MS approach to the Kimi approach....and deliver a car rather than be guided by the driver....

As for Renault, Fisi is not sufficently focused to deliver another Championship without a major upgrade in his approach and determination during the race. Like Trulli he is capable of being very very fast, but cannot deliver over a race distance sufficiently regularly to win the title.

Melborne next week end will give us a good race...

Ah.. that's the one! thanks! my memories are not sticking with me.:)
Thanks the write.. you have some good insight.
I to think Kimi is a slightly better racer than Ferni.... but that's me. i do hope Ferrari comes through for him.