Kimi Raikkonen Confirmed as Ferrari Driver

[Kevin Cordice]

Did Alonso had a say in this signing, if not I wonder what are his true thoughts

 

[David O'Reilly]

Wow, intriguing on a couple of levels.
Speed: Who will be faster?
Politics: Some feel that Montezemolo (through this signing) was giving Alonso a slap on the wrist for his impolite words re wanting a RedBull for his birthday. But if Montezemolo though Alonso was out of line he hasnt seen anything yet or so it would seem.
Historically its noot so unlike the Schumacher Irvine pairing in terms of characters. One a golden child, annointed winner and one a bit of a wild child who marhes to his own tune.
Impact on other drivers: I feel a little for Massa but in reality Ferrari stood by him in his darkest period after the Hungary incident/injury and he has had what? 6 years in a Ferrari. It must be hard to be #2 but then be ousted throough lack of results when you are forced to sacrifice results sometimes for the #1.
Hulkenberg, he must now be the next hottest property but can anyone afford him? It seems that today you have to be a certified top driver (Alonso, Raikkonen, Hamilton, Vettel? or have 20 million in your pocket. Maybe Lotus will take him on. He doesnt need a nother mid team season-been there done that.
Grosjean, probably the winner out of all this. His chances of retaining his drive must have increased significantly.

 

[Sérgio Marques]

How will be team work for next season:

 

[Salut Gilles]

How will be team work for next season:

Good question. IMHO, it all depends on how fast they will adapt to the *new* turbos... Nobody knows the answer. Will the turbos be reliable enough (to begin with) or will they blow up before the finish line?

 

[Graham Laing]

"Fernando is angrier than you"


..... or is it the other way around?

 

[Caramidaru Andrei Bogdan]

Sergio you made my day with this post(picture)
Hope something good comes out of this move


p.s.> miss you RD!

 

[RoMaN14]

Good good.

Hats off to Ferrari for having two great WC as a driver line up, you know RB would have never wanted their golden boy challenged.

WCC is wrapped up for 2014, with Byrne coming back and this duo...oh yeah no more boring F1.

Also before "he is faster than you" quotes, the fact remains, Alonso WAS and IS faster than Felipe, and the only one who can challenge Vettel, so the use of that quote in any article today is completely irrelevant.

and lastly, both have raced each other, in 2005 and 2007 both beaten each other. They have mutual respect, both have matured, and Kimi does not care for being #2, I mean when Massa was their #1 he didn't care at all. I root for either one to be WC for the team, and also support team orders against each other if one happens to be mathematically out of the WC.

RB domination is over, Helmut Marko and Papa Horner will regret no signing Kimi.

"WCC is wrapped up for 2014", "no more boring F1."
How very interesting.

Anyway, I think unless something apalling happens concerning team orders, that Kimi will be the "1# driver", as you call them. But it's an educated guess, nothing more. xD

 

[Dux]

Ferrari is extremely stupid not to sign Hulkenberg.

Vettel is great, both speed and mentality.
Red Bull are crushing everyone 3 years in row, going for fourth successive, next year if good enough will equal so far now unmatched record of Ferrari winning 5 straight titles, which cannot happen, or they will make anything so it wont.

Why Kimi?
Signing Kimi to me was more than a surprise. To me that says a lot more than just normal transfer. Ferrari for the first time since 1953 will have two WC drivers. That means either they have past the point of waiting for Alonso or they dont think that Alonso is enough to bring them success, speaking of strategic moves, something that is different in Red Bull, that puts pressure on Vettel to bring success, because it does, it doesnt matter he has Newey he has to be well educated and working on the car to make Newey work complete, i.e. Newey cannot do the car excellent like he did in the past 3 years if it wasnt for Vettel and Webber both, working hard and going in the details of the cars.

So, in 2014 we have turbo plus a engine that was never produced from Ferrari factory for road cars. It will be new for them right? They are already behind Renault & Mercedes who both had, have and will have excellent road cars from the given specification in 2014. In the turbo era Renault was one of the best if i am not wrong. And we all know that Kimi Raikkonen is very good at creating the car setup plus knows the turbo more than anyone else nowadays in F1 since he met with it in Rallying...
So, even if it was a surprise to me because i expected to see some NO.2 behind Alonso, i kind of understand why Ferrari signed him. Not only he will do all that stuff he will push Alonso even more, no matter Alonso himself says he already is pushing hard enough, maybe not more but he wont be relaxed thinking that he has Massa behind him no matter what.

So now Ferrari have secured them to have two good drivers to get the most out of the car when they are already behind in other stuffs, like the engine, section in which Mercedes and Renault i am sure will be ahead. Thats my opinion

 

[Dmitry Zaharov]

Why Kimi?

He openly admitted that he left Lotus because of unpaid salary. Which just confirms that he only cares about money and questions his on-track motivation. He won only one race in a top car thanks to the strategy and one thanks to Mercedes engine. His qualifyings were awful, often outpaced by young crashkid Grosjean. Finally he is pretty old already.
Hulkenberg is young, hungry for results, fast and determined. He is simply better choice.

 

[Dux]

His qualifyings were awful, often outpaced by young crashkid Grosjean. Finally he is pretty old already.
Hulkenberg is young, hungry for results, fast and determined. He is simply better choice.

I can agree with it, but its just Kimi's experience and knowledge that cannot be bought with Hulkenberg...

 

[Dmitry Zaharov]

I can agree with it, but its just Kimi's experience and knowledge that cannot be bought with Hulkenberg...

They have Alonso already.

 

[Dux]

They have Alonso already.

Like i said before, buying Kimi Raikkonen means they are either NOT satisfied with Alonso or DONT belive in his abilities to bring their cars to success

 

[Jari Vinnari]

Which just confirms that he only cares about money and questions his on-track motivation. His qualifyings were awful, often outpaced by young crashkid Grosjean. Finally he is pretty old already.
Hulkenberg is young, hungry for results, fast and determined. He is simply better choice.

Would you work with out getting paid for your work ?.

Currently Lotus cant pay they driver, have lost key personnel and are rumored to have depth of $150 million. Car development for next year is very important due to new engines and rule changes.
Ferrari has the money and staff to develop next years car so the prancing horse is much safer bet for F1 championship next year. In my opinion leaving Lotus is the right thing to do.

Next year is big question mark for all teams and drivers. Engine reliability and power are very important next year. Having experienced drivers like Kimi and Alonso will help Ferrari to reach their full potential when it comes do car testing and development.

In my opinion Alonso is faster than Kimi in qualification and but in race they are about equal in pace. Kimi is very good overtaker and he has been very reliable racer in his Lotus years. Ferrari want to win F1 championship so having two fast, experienced and reliable drivers was a smart choice. There could be some sparks flying in Ferrari next year but im sure many F1 fans will just love that. Kimi and Alonso are good and mature enough to race clean against each other.

 

[Dmitry Zaharov]

Would you work with out getting paid for your work ?.

You should question Romain Grosjean, he is in the same team.

 

[Markus Neumann]

You should question Romain Grosjean, he is in the same team.

a) Grosjean doesn't have much of a choice. He won't get picked up by a comparable team. Hence he just has to swallow down his pride and put up with it. Kimi on the other hand has alternatives.
b) It's possible Grosjean is actually getting paid. To my knowledge, Lotus have only been late on paying out Kimi's price money, not his base salary. For Grosjean, the bonus payments are obviously far, far lower.
c) Kimi's motivation might not be just greed or pride. The fact that Lotus is not able to pay him is also strongly indicative of the fact that they will continue to be unable to raise enough money to keep developing the car, which makes it pretty much impossible to go for a championship simply because they can't keep up with the development speed of RB, Ferrari, Mercedes and possibly also McLaren.

Currently Lotus cant pay they driver, have lost key personnel and are rumored to have depth of $150 million.

It's not just a rumor. Gerard Lopez himself confirmed that they owe 120€ million, but 90 of that they owe to themselves (i.e. Genii's financing scheme for Lotus).

 

[Dmitry Zaharov]

c) Kimi's motivation might not be just greed or pride. The fact that Lotus is not able to pay him is also strongly indicative of the fact that they will continue to be unable to raise enough money to keep developing the car, which makes it pretty much impossible to go for a championship

You really sure he will be allowed to challenge for the championship let alone challenge Ferrari No.1?

simply because they can't keep up with the development speed of RB, Ferrari, Mercedes and possibly also McLaren.

Yet they out-developed two of four this year. Makes sense to me - better to put money into 2014 car instead of greedy driver's pocket.

 

[Markus Neumann]

You really sure he will be allowed to challenge for the championship let alone challenge Ferrari No.1?

Part of the reason for why Ferrari hired him was to keep Alonso in line. Also, Ferrari doesn't really care who gets the championship for them.

Yet they out-developed two of four this year. Makes sense to me - better to put money into 2014 car instead of greedy driver's pocket.

They didn't really out-develop McLaren, they just had the better car to begin with. As far as Ferrari is concerned: As far as I know, the main reason for James Allison leaving Lotus was that he didn't have enough money to play with. Now that Ferrari has an actual aerodynamics expert (Fry wasn't particularly well-suited to the job, he's a mechanical engineer at heart), they should be expected to do much better as well.

 

[Leonardo Chaves]

Ferrari have Tombazis, an aero guy, as chief designer, although he might give ideas Fry isn't the kind of tech director that is directly responsible for car design.
In the recent re-estructuring they also got Loic Bigois.

At this point it looks like they are going for Mercedes style "beat Newey with numbers".

 

[Péter Bártfai]

What Ferrari might profit about is the experience of Raikkonen at Lotus. Also their engineers. As for the driver line-up, I think Alonso will still be No. 1., but we'll see.
For the same reason btw I think Lotus could profit with signing Massa. 1 - he is still a fast driver, 2 - he has a lot of experience at Ferrari (or just say another top-team). And they have Grosjean as a young driver who just needs more experience, and has the potential to become a great F1 driver (and maybe he could also learn and profit from another experienced team-mate).

 

[Dmitry Zaharov]

Also, Ferrari doesn't really care who gets the championship for them.

I think you are wrong. Ask Rubens Barrichello or Eddie Irvine.

They didn't really out-develop McLaren, they just had the better car to begin with.

You did not create better car by magic. They just did better job (also comparing their resources) and thats it.

As far as Ferrari is concerned: As far as I know, the main reason for James Allison leaving Lotus was that he didn't have enough money to play with. Now that Ferrari has an actual aerodynamics expert (Fry wasn't particularly well-suited to the job, he's a mechanical engineer at heart), they should be expected to do much better as well.

Like stated above, Ferrari is playing Mercedes game. Also, Allison was in Ferrari once, and Benetton/Renault/Lotus always had tight resources so probably it is not "the resources" thing.