Kimi Raikkonen

Hi, I thought I'd write a quick note about Kimi, now let me start by saying I never used to like this guy not because he was arrogant or a prick. But purely as I'm sure you'll understand I'm a Ferrari fan and he drove for McLaren, when he first moved to the prancing horse I have to admit I wasn't too happy and I thought he was a bit pants, but the look on Ron Dennis' face after he'd just seen his old driver eclipse both Alonso & Hamilton in his first race for the Scuderia was worth it.

Although he seemed to have a small baron patch between Malaysia & France , partly due to Ferrari messing things up with the car :/ he impressed me more & more ever since , like his consistenly fast pace or the winning of the 2007 world title despite being 17 points behind with 2 races to go.Or his great drive in the 2008 french gp with a very schumacheresque performance of regrouping the car and getting the same lap times out of it , even with half an engine hanging out (slight exageration :P) .

This year has been a struggle for Ferrari as a whole and Massa before his accident was eclipsing Kimi in the points tables but, after Hungary and after Ferrari had STOPPED all development of the car even though EVERY other team hadcarried on, he still managed to string along 4 podium finishes in a row . And almost had fastest race lap in both monza and suzuka. these performances in my eyes are absolutely stunning , (excluding badoers & fisichellas performance :P) and to cap it all in brazil last weekend he nearly captured 2nd at the first corner only to see it all break in front of him, pit and go to the back of the field he , having his visor up in the pits, got covered in fuel ,from a very stupid mclaren of kovalainen, in his eyes and most probably down his overalls too, carried on and achieved a very strong 6th place from 16th after rosberg trulli etc retired . he did all of this despite fuel in his eyes , now this is why i am very sad he is going (hopefully not to mclaren) i hope alonso commits himself to this most historic teams as much as kimi did but sundays drive will always be in my mind as one of the most heroicly unrecognised in recent years


sorry about the lecture just felt like writing
also sorry if there is an existing kimi section in the forum but i forgot about the search button :/

thanks for reading
nathan

I agree...I think putting the car on 6th after being caught on fire and having petrol hitting the eyes and having to re-start at the back of the grid is a huge achievement. I doubt many other drivers would be able to do it.

Friggin hell!! I did wonder if Kimi's visor was open when he had that fuel shower, but to get fuel in his eyes and just carry on as if nothing had happened?! Never knew that, and it's damn impressive. Much respect to the dude. His drive yesterday certainly was something special, given that.
Just hope his eyes will be OK.

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"I ended up with some drops of petrol in my eyes and even now they are still burning, but I'm alright," he said.

Yeah, it was quite horrific. I really have no idea how he managed to keep on driving. I know I couldn't.

Source: F1-Live.com

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/19/2009 08:03PM by msater.

ipswich2007 Wrote:
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> Although he seemed to have a small baron patch
> between Malaysia & France , partly due to Ferrari
> messing things up

This pic is interesting because his eyes clearly show he's not an alcoholic. Trust me, I know how the eyes of heavy drinkers look like.
I had to learn that Kimi was no Mika, but after all he's such a great and fast driver, it would be a shame if he really quit F1.

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REHAB IS FOR QUITTERS

Well said Vader.
Plus the fact that if he did have any drinking problems, he'd never be let near an F1 car until he'd sorted them.

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Definitely an incredible performance from Kimi! Its amazing how he's been able to keep dragging the Ferrari, which hasn't been developed for so long, towards the front of the field. Hopefully he does end up at McLaren, and we can see him in a championship fight once more.

Surely drives like these should prove to McLaren to pay him whatever he wants, because even though he might do a few less sponsorship days or whatever, if that's all they wanted, they should sponsor a celebrity. The sponsors are supporting a F1 team, and by getting Raikkonen, they will almost certainly have two cars at the front of the grid, which is fantastic exposure.

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X (@ed24f1)

I really hope he does end up back at McLaren, because I think Hamilton will be a great team-mate to bring that flare back out of him.

Sadly, it's not looking likely at the moment - it's all gone silent on the Silver Arrows front.

[Website]

He looks a bit like Ralf Schumacher in that picture.

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Please find us on [en.wikipedia.org] for more information.

Ferrari_Fuhrer Wrote:
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> Sadly, it's not looking likely at the moment -
> it's all gone silent on the Silver Arrows front.



Not really. Today I readed news/rumours from McLaren team, wich says eaxctly same as latest news from Toyota. Kimi is asking for too much money.

Dunno if its true, but somehow its easy to beleave this.

Kimi, so, Massa Fernando Sebastian is faster than you. Can you confirm you understood that message?

^ Well they didn't mention him by name, but the inference was there.

Kimi has shown true determination and has really picked up the mantel as team leader since Felipe's accident. He has done a fantastic job and even gave Ferrari their only win of the season, so hopefully he could be in next year. I kinda hope that he goes to Toyota, because then he can shape it into his team. He could lead them much like Schumacher did with Ferrari, and hopefully have himself a very competitive season.

My opinion has changed of Kimi in recent weeks. He's been dynamite in a surprisingly under-performing Ferrari and has done everything right. Nobody could have asked any more of him.

I'm glad his eye is ok and hope to see him in F1 next year, his skill will be missed otherwise.

Kimi is not a leader.

If he goes to Toyota I reckon he could find himself getting bored pretty quickly!

At least at Mclaren he will be in with a chance of winning races, okay, its not certain but its more probable than Toyota. Kimi to Toyota would be a career ender. And what a waste of talent too. At Mclaren I feel he will still have the chance to show us he is capable of challenging the best. Kimi v's Lewis could be an awesome battle because from what we've seen from both drivers, the one who will likley be fazed would be Lewis so would be interesting to know how he's improved from Alonso. I guess Kimi will not be bothered how quick Lewis is.

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"Trulli was slowing down like he wanted to have a picnic" LOL

chet Wrote:
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> Kimi is not a leader.
>
> If he goes to Toyota I reckon he could find
> himself getting bored pretty quickly!
>
> At least at Mclaren he will be in with a chance of
> winning races, okay, its not certain but its more
> probable than Toyota. Kimi to Toyota would be a
> career ender. And what a waste of talent too. At
> Mclaren I feel he will still have the chance to
> show us he is capable of challenging the best.
> Kimi v's Lewis could be an awesome battle because
> from what we've seen from both drivers, the one
> who will likley be fazed would be Lewis so would
> be interesting to know how he's improved from
> Alonso. I guess Kimi will not be bothered how
> quick Lewis is.

Agree 100%. On the other hand, I would like to see Kimi pushing a bad car a Alonso has had to do in the last two years, and I pretty sure that he could get some good result from Toyota that clearly needs a super-class driver, if not, they will disappear sooner than later.

Anyway, for some reason it seems McLaren option is blocked or
frozen (by Hamilton & co.?).

We'll see in a few weeks.

TF do need a top class driver, but I think they are such a drain on a driver Kimi will find it difficult to motivate himself.

Besides that who cares what he can do in a bad/slow car? What matters is if he can get the job done in a quick car and we know he can. Kimi to Mclaren next year will be the most exciting driver change, more so than Alonso to Ferrari IMO.

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"Trulli was slowing down like he wanted to have a picnic" LOL

For those who haven't seen this:

Kimi's way of making the car as light as possible before the race



&feature=related

:P lol

chet Wrote:
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> TF do need a top class driver, but I think they
> are such a drain on a driver Kimi will find it
> difficult to motivate himself.
>
> Besides that who cares what he can do in a
> bad/slow car? What matters is if he can get the
> job done in a quick car and we know he can. Kimi
> to Mclaren next year will be the most exciting
> driver change, more so than Alonso to Ferrari IMO.


Somethings that bugged me for ages...why do people say TF for Toyota? Like what does it stand for? Obviously FW = Frank Williams but I cant work out what TF might be for the life of me. Toyota something-beginning-with-F?

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Circuit Thermalito

Liverpool Waterfront Circuit (WIP)

Toyota something-beginning-with-F?

I think it's TF1 - Toyota F1, simple as that. TF is just an abbreviation of this, AFAIK.

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Sorry! I think its Toyota Formula... Then the car is 1 ... 0 something.

So Toyota Formula 1 '06' for example. I think!

Pretty much what the post above say then !:p

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"Trulli was slowing down like he wanted to have a picnic" LOL