Formula 1 - 2009 Season

[Bludd]

I read some suggestions that Kimi hated being at McLaren. If that is so, maybe he just didn't like Ron Dennis' style. Dennis is gone and Kimi is still fast. I think it is his best option and I think he really wants to prove a point.

 

[Phil]

Apparently, he's still leaving his options open and considering leaving F1. If he does stay though, McLaren would be is best option, as by his own words - he's achieved what he wanted (winning WDC) and if he does continue in F1, it will be at one of the front-runner teams and he will do it to win more races and possibly WDC.

 

[Kaotik]

It was Ferrari who made the decision to replace Kimi early, not Kimi, Ferrari even had to pay a fine for getting rid of him. They replaced him, because they weren't satisfied with his performance and/or feels Alonso and Massa will do better, because if it was only about the money Santander brings in, Ferrari could have dropped Massa and keep Kimi with Alonso. Considering Massa's injury and the question mark it puts on top of him, it adds to the apparent unsatisfaction of Ferrari towards Kimi.

It seems Santander was the key in making this happen, due to their deep pockets. Ferrari on their own would not have paid Kimi's salaly + fine + Alonso's salary, but with the help of Santander this whole thing was possible. Imo Kimi's performance was not inline with his salary, especially compared to Massa and even the champioship he won was due to catastrophic mistakes by Hamilton and McLaren in the last two races. Kimi underperformed and Ferrari ousted him. I hope Kimi goes to MacLaren and with full of motivation challenging Hamilton head on.

Santander was fine with Alonso coming in 2011, Alonso said himself that the contract was changed last minute to start in 2010 instead of 2011, so there was some incident which suddenly changed things, and since some suggest that Kimi "wanted to leave" (as in, didn't really enjoy being at Ferrari anymore, but was going to drive 'till the contract ended), they got a good chance to break the contract and get Alonso in earlier, and use big chunk of Santanders sponsor money to pay the salary & fine for breaking the contract.
Had Kimi been totally comfortable at Ferrari and wanting to really drive there, I doubt breaking the contract would have been "this cheap"

 

[DuckThor Evil]

Santander was fine with Alonso coming in 2011, Alonso said himself that the contract was changed last minute to start in 2010 instead of 2011, so there was some incident which suddenly changed things, and since some suggest that Kimi "wanted to leave" (as in, didn't really enjoy being at Ferrari anymore, but was going to drive 'till the contract ended), they got a good chance to break the contract and get Alonso in earlier, and use big chunk of Santanders sponsor money to pay the salary & fine for breaking the contract.
Had Kimi been totally comfortable at Ferrari and wanting to really drive there, I doubt breaking the contract would have been "this cheap"

Santander was fine with it, because they don't run Ferrari, but their payment made it possible for Ferrari to break Kimi's contract early. I don't believe that Kimi wanted to leave as everything I've seen suggests otherwise. If Kimi wanted to leave he would have had no leverage to ask money from Ferrari

"hey guys I want to leave, but I also want you to pay 30 Million for me to leave"

It was said that Kimi wanted even more, but had to settle for 15M. To me it doesn't sound like Kimi was in any way the originator of this turn of events.

 

[Phil]

Had Kimi been totally comfortable at Ferrari and wanting to really drive there, I doubt breaking the contract would have been "this cheap"

I'm not sure cheap is the right term, as Ferrari AFAIK are paying exactly the amount the penality for breaking the contract costs. Given Kimi apparently hasn't decided on his future in F1 yet, that doesn't really sound like a two way thing.

Kimi Raikkonen says he is yet to decide if he will continue racing in Formula 1 next year after it was announced he will not be at Ferrari.

The former world champion, who joined Ferrari in 2007 and went on to win the title, will be replaced by Fernando Alonso from next year, despite having a contract that run out at the end of 2010.

Although Raikkonen has been linked with a return to McLaren, the Finn admitted he is still thinking about whether he wants to race on in F1 or not.

"So far I have not talked too much about what I will do next, as I still have time to make my decision and I will let you know when I have," Raikkonen said ahead of the Japanese Grand Prix.

"For the moment, I haven't decided what I want to do next, whether I want to continue racing or not. I had a contract for next year, but now I don't, so that changes things. So maybe I race, maybe I do not."

He said switching to the World Rally Championship was a possibility.

 

[Kaotik]

Kimis race engineers comments about Kimi (in finnish here: http://www.ts.fi/f1/sahkeet/78249.html , translation by me)

Kimi Räikkönen's race engineer Andrea Stella praised the finnish driver to Turun Sanomat, especially in those 4 races where Ferrari got podiums on the row from Hungary to Monza.

- Kimi could do so much with the wheel, so that our engineers advices wouldn't have been nearly enough, Stella says.

- In that way Kimi is better than Michael Schumacher. When I was Michaels dataengineer, he had to be always told precisely how the computer says he could drive different corners better. On Kimis behalf, these suggestions aren't needed. He finds them himself, Stella praises.

- Of course there's many different things we did in those races, Räikkönen says himself too.
(I have no idea how the last sentence is really tied to the rest but I translated the whole thing, even if the translation is bit crude on some points)

 

[Kaotik]

From Turun Sanomat (whichs F1 reporter has good reputation on world too as long time F1 reporter, Heikki Kulta)
Crude translation by me

When did you find out that Fernando Alonso would be coming on your place already for next season?

- It wasn't too long ago. If I had really wanted, I could have surely driven next year too, but there's no sense in doing so, if someone from some reason wants something else to happen.
- There wasn't any sense for me to stay here and fight the team. I got compensated for it, and they got what they wanted. Both parties got what they wanted, Räikkönen highlighted

----

So both parts of the story were "half true", he could have for sure driven the next season if he had insisted on doing so, but given the opportunity and the hefty compensation money he got, there was no point to do so.

 

[Bludd]

Kimi just doesn't want to get too involved in politics. He just wants to drive fast. I want to see him come back to McLaren and do well just to say to Ferrari this is what you lost.

 

[Bludd]

So Vettel never actually sped in the Singapore pit lane and the way the FIA/FOM/FOA whoever measures the speed is by doing a distance over time calculation but then there is different lines so some are shorter than others. That is quite amateurish from whoever set up the measuring.

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/79113

 

[_xxx_]

Wow, that's heavy.

 

[Bludd]

Some decisions the stewards have to take cannot be anything but judgement calls, and they tend to have a subjective slant to them though they ideally shouldn't. Measuring speed should be absolute, shouldn't it?

 

[_xxx_]

Definitely and also there are many ways to do it very precisely.

 

[Bludd]

Outrageous.

 

[Rurouni]

Qualifying is strange.... they shouldn't use a yellow flag in qualifying.. if there's an accident somewhere that would impede qualifying, then they should throw a red flag and stop the clock (If I'm not mistaken the clock is still running when yellow flag is waved even in qualifying.. correct?). To bad for Alonso and Buemi though... especially Alonso... He should just ignore the yellow flag and try to get to Q3 like Sutil, Barrichello, and Button.

Btw, since Button and Buemi being demoted to 11 and 14, does that means that they can refuel the car or they must start the car with Q3 fuel?

 

[Gerry]

Btw, since Button and Buemi being demoted to 11 and 14, does that means that they can refuel the car or they must start the car with Q3 fuel?

I believe they cannot refuel and must start with Q3 fuel loads.

 

[Kaotik]

Qualifying is strange.... they shouldn't use a yellow flag in qualifying.. if there's an accident somewhere that would impede qualifying, then they should throw a red flag and stop the clock (If I'm not mistaken the clock is still running when yellow flag is waved even in qualifying.. correct?). To bad for Alonso and Buemi though... especially Alonso... He should just ignore the yellow flag and try to get to Q3 like Sutil, Barrichello, and Button.

Btw, since Button and Buemi being demoted to 11 and 14, does that means that they can refuel the car or they must start the car with Q3 fuel?

So you suggest that everytime someone crashes everyone would just rush back into pit waiting for the clock to restart, and then start new warmup lap etc?
In most cases atm you can just slow down a bit due yellow flag, the lap is ruined but by the time you're there on the following lap, you can go full speed again.

Final qualifying results with all the penalties in:

1.  Sebastian Vettel     Red Bull    
2.  Jarno Trulli         Toyota      
3.  Lewis Hamilton       McLaren      
4.  Nick Heidfeld        BMW          
5.  Kimi Räikkönen       Ferrari     
6.  Nico Rosberg         Williams
7.  Robert Kubica        BMW
8.  Adrian Sutil         Force India  * 
9.  Rubens Barrichello   Brawn        *
10. Jaime Alguersuari    Toro Rosso  
11. Jenson Button        Brawn        * 
12. Giancarlo Fisichella Ferrari
13. Heikki Kovalainen    McLaren      *
14. Sebastien Buemi      Toro Rosso   *
15. Kazuki Nakajima      Williams
16. Romain Grosjean      Renault
17. Fernando Alonso      Renault      *
18. Vitantonio Liuzzi    Force India

Start from pitlane:
Timo Glock           Toyota  
Mark Webber          Red Bull

Those marked with "*" got some sort of penalty for one reason or another

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

Yeah they got a penalty for driving too fast after one of the Torro Rosso's decided that he actually likes offroading better and went on the grass/gravel for the second time in like 30 minutes. As only 2 drives had put in a time and it happend at the end of the session the only choice they had is just ignore the yellow flag and go as fast as they could.

Funny though. I was watching the BBC and they said that under a yellow flag you are not allowed to set your fastest sector time in that sector. But The brawn's and Sutil did not put in any sector time yet, so, if you read it by the rules (which you never do in F1, but lets just do that for a moment) since that would be their only sector time, it cant be the fastest right? well, ofcourse its the fastest because they only have one but what is fast? If they would slow down it still would be the fastest time. Obviously if you end up setting the 4th time its quite obvious you didnt slow down so no suprise they got a penalty but still.... Find it a shame for Sutil btw, he had a nice 4th place. Good for the brawns. I dont like them. Especially that Barichello. What a crybaby bitch he is. Suzuka is still too dangerous he thinks. Someone put this guy in a retirement home already. Every track that doesnt have a run off aera the size of a supermarket carpark is too dangerous to him I get the feeling...

 

[Bludd]

I accidentally my whole car at Degner.

Incredible qualifying, that was some crazy stuff - a thousand red flags. It couldn't have been more dramatic if it were raining.

 

[Davros]

from itv-f1

After studying telemetry data and talking to the drivers concerned, the stewards found that Rubens Barrichello, Jenson Button and Sutil did not lift off when passing the scene of Buemi’s accident, where debris had been littered across the track, while Alonso only backed off only after passing the hazard.

 

[Bludd]

http://www.grandprix.com/ft/ft21895.html

Mike Doodson's columns are always worth waiting for.

Brundle's mate in the commentary box is reliable Jonathan Legard, who seems to know the names of all the drivers' engineers, girlfriends and managers while keeping us up to date with changes in the points table. I still think of Jonathan in his FiveLive radio days, most notably at the 1999 British GP for which Stirling Moss was rather ill-advisedly invited to join the team. As soon as word came from the hospital that the injuries suffered by Michael Schumacher, who had crashed on lap 2, were limited to a broken left leg, dear old Stirl started banging on about how relieved Ferrari would be that it wasn't his right leg, because declutching was much less strenuous than braking, etc. Somehow, Jonathan and the crew managed not to point out to their guest that things have changed a bit in the F1 pedal department since 1962, but you could almost hear them biting their lips in frustration.