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[McLaren Fan]

Of course he has been giving a fair chance and any sane team principal would see that Lewis is the main driver and so should be allowed to win the races however I don't see how Lewis getting in front of Heikki is to Heikki's benefit. Points are at stake for Heikki and even though he isn't in the title race Lewis should prove he is senna-esque and pass heikki properly. That way we wouldn't be having this discussion

With Hamilton and Kovalainen squabbling over petty points, the door would have been wide open for Raikkonen to attack the two of them and another red car would have nabbed an undeserved win.

Erm, no, Piquet would have won.

That's right. Massa supposedly had brake problems.

Hey I just realized I spelt worse wrong.
MF is right I must be STUPID

You're not stupid, Mike, just wrong.

[racechick]

What did not happen was some sort of Ferrari-Schumacher-esque plan, whereby at the start of the season, McLaren anointed Hamilton the number one driver and decided that Kovalainen was to be his team.

I think the price tag and AH did this anyway.

Price tag? You earn your price tag. Last year lewis was on peanuts

Sure. I'm simply saying that McLaren has invested way more in LH than HK, so that makes him the number one driver by default. McLaren is just sneaky about it while Ferrari did it openly with MS.

Not neccesarily. If Heiki had proved to be the quicker earlier on then positions would have been reversed. The team pay market value for a driver but if a rookie comes along and blows him away then thats who the team will get behind. Kovi cant win the championship but if he had the speed to beat lewis in the race he would not be asked to slow down. When ferrari did it, they did it from the beginning of the season when either driver still had a chance. They also made the second driver slow down. That is disgusting and different to a slower driver letting a faster one past. There is no evidence Ferrari do this now, its hard for them as their drivers are equal on points.

[Mikep99]

Hey I just realized I spelt worse wrong.
MF is right I must be STUPID

You're not stupid, Mike, just wrong.

Yeh I know, I did spell it wrong

MF do this little quick quiz for us.

Put a tick in the black box.



Please don't tell me there is no black box

[McLaren Fan]

Sure. I'm simply saying that McLaren has invested way more in LH than HK, so that makes him the number one driver by default. McLaren is just sneaky about it while Ferrari did it openly with MS.

Not neccesarily. If Heiki had proved to be the quicker earlier on then positions would have been reversed. The team pay market value for a driver but if a rookie comes along and blows him away then thats who the team will get behind. Kovi cant win the championship but if he had the speed to beat lewis in the race he would not be asked to slow down. When ferrari did it, they did it from the beginning of the season when either driver still had a chance. They also made the second driver slow down. That is disgusting and different to a slower driver letting a faster one past. There is no evidence Ferrari do this now, its hard for them as their drivers are equal on points.

[McLaren Fan]

Hey I just realized I spelt worse wrong.
MF is right I must be STUPID

You're not stupid, Mike, just wrong.

Yeh I know, I did spell it wrong

MF do this little quick quiz for us.

Put a tick in the black box.



Please don't tell me there is no black box

I've explained how McLaren operate on a couple of threads. If you've any issues, say and we can talk further.

[texasmr2]

Ebony and ivory live together in perfect harmony
Side by side on my piano keyboard, oh lord, why dont we?

[Mikep99]

Hey I just realized I spelt worse wrong.
MF is right I must be STUPID

You're not stupid, Mike, just wrong.

Yeh I know, I did spell it wrong

MF do this little quick quiz for us.

Put a tick in the black box.



Please don't tell me there is no black box

I've explained how McLaren operate on a couple of threads. If you've any issues, say and we can talk further.

Yeh that's what the issue is mate. The content.

Do we really need to go into it any further ?
I don't think so, it has been talked about a million times.

[TechniqueFreak]

It's unfortunate the conversations here seem to end up so personal so quickly. We're all F1 fans - I'm sure you peeps wouldn't be so rude to each other if you were standing next to each other at a race.

Great race from Hamilton yesterday. Kovallainen let Hamilton through (I think impliedly, codedly, or pre-racedly ordered to), but who cares, it was the rational thing for McLaren to do, and any other team in their position would have done the same thing. Maybe they could've made a little less of a balls up about making it so obvious in these "no team order" days, but whatever, its a silly rule in a team sport anyway. But the main story is Hamilton's great drive, and Ferrari's loss of pace relative to McLaren. Hamilton's significant advantage over Kovallainen all weekend says to me that McLaren's recent improvements have helped Hamilton more than his teamate. Even so the margins were a pretty clear demonstration of Hamilton's dominance in that team.

Kimi did well enough with what he had (sh!te set up), but he has to take some blame for the set-up and the development pace. I think this is where Kimi shows his disadvantages over an MS, who at this stage would be all out berating the team in public and working his but off in private to develop the car. It'll be interesting to see whether he can lift his work-rate.

The only criticism I have is of Hamilton's over-driving. So many oversteer moments, locked fronts and missed apexes. He seems to be at his best when the car is "over" the limit (as you can see in his overtaking), and maybe that's what the McLaren needs but I can't help wondering if the car could have done a race distance (or key parts of it) at the same or even faster speed if it had been kept more within the limits of adhesion.

[McLaren Fan]

Here's an interesting, although hardly difficult to have worked out, piece from Planet F1:

Kimi Could Be Paying For The Absence Of A Work Ethic
Raikkonen's position is safe courtesy of his title triumph last year. Yet he should not be spared criticism for another lacklustre outing (his last victory was in April). If the Finn has a weakness then it is his apparent inability to dial out a problem whenever his Ferrari is not tuned in to his liking. If the weekend begins badly for Raikkonen on a Friday it invariably tends to stay that way. Perhaps his race engineer is culpable, or perhaps Raikkonen's set-up deficiency is the inevitable consequence of his infamous reluctance to spend time in the car outside of race weekends or engage in lengthy debriefing sessions whenever he does.

"Kimi is extremely talented," Bernie Ecclestone once observed. "The trouble is, he's not as dedicated as Ayrton Senna was, or as Lewis Hamilton is, for whom it is the end of the world if something goes wrong." The problem, in fact, might be that something went very right for Kimi last October. Ambition achieved, has he metaphorically stepped off the gas since winning the championship?

A final thought on the matter: Last year, it was repeatedly asserted that Hamilton was 'lucky' because he was able to copy the set-up of Alonso. So whose set-up is he copying this year? Certainly not that of his team-mate. And who was the driving force during the recent tests at Silverstone and Hockenheim when McLaren found an edge that has cut Ferrari to second best?

[TechniqueFreak]

Here's an interesting, although hardly difficult to have worked out, piece from Planet F1:

Kimi Could Be Paying For The Absence Of A Work Ethic
Raikkonen's position is safe courtesy of his title triumph last year. Yet he should not be spared criticism for another lacklustre outing (his last victory was in April). If the Finn has a weakness then it is his apparent inability to dial out a problem whenever his Ferrari is not tuned in to his liking. If the weekend begins badly for Raikkonen on a Friday it invariably tends to stay that way. Perhaps his race engineer is culpable, or perhaps Raikkonen's set-up deficiency is the inevitable consequence of his infamous reluctance to spend time in the car outside of race weekends or engage in lengthy debriefing sessions whenever he does.

"Kimi is extremely talented," Bernie Ecclestone once observed. "The trouble is, he's not as dedicated as Ayrton Senna was, or as Lewis Hamilton is, for whom it is the end of the world if something goes wrong." The problem, in fact, might be that something went very right for Kimi last October. Ambition achieved, has he metaphorically stepped off the gas since winning the championship?

A final thought on the matter: Last year, it was repeatedly asserted that Hamilton was 'lucky' because he was able to copy the set-up of Alonso. So whose set-up is he copying this year? Certainly not that of his team-mate. And who was the driving force during the recent tests at Silverstone and Hockenheim when McLaren found an edge that has cut Ferrari to second best?

I think that is a good analysis of Kimi's key weakness. To lack of effort in developing the car, and learning how to do so, I would add lack of interest in the politics. A public berating of the team for its lack of development, followed by a show of commitment over the winter break, would do wonders here. It's exactly what a Schumacher or a Senna or a Prost would be doing right now.

But I'm not sure Hamilton has established himself as a set up master just yet. In answer to the rhetorical question posed in the last para above, um, De La Rosa, anyone? I'd certainly rather have him working on set up on my off days than a Badoer or a Gene. This is certainly Ferrari's biggest weakness right now. And as I said earlier, Hamilton's drive at Hockenheim was quick but at times messy, not the sign of a guy who has dialed the car bespoke to his style.

[bud]

so i guess Kimi flukes a setup when he is onsong? i dunno he has had more on days than off days yes he didnt get it right this round but its funny how quick people are to jump on the Kimi's lazy bandwagon even Ferrari fans!
which is one thing ive noticed about alot of Ferrari fans is when things go wrong they are quick to jump off their drivers and bag them

[TechniqueFreak]

so i guess Kimi flukes a setup when he is onsong? i dunno he has had more on days than off days yes he didnt get it right this round but its funny how quick people are to jump on the Kimi's lazy bandwagon even Ferrari fans!
which is one thing ive noticed about alot of Ferrari fans is when things go wrong they are quick to jump off their drivers and bag them

Or could it be, just possibly, that some people call it like they see it and are not blindly parochial? Nah, impossible, every F1 fan must be someone who screams for their team and screams insults at other teams, right? .... Personally, I find that boring. I'd prefer to actually talk about the sport than get into flame wars.

Anyway, as I've said before, I'm a fan of great drivers and driving, not teams.

And I'm not saying "Kimi's lazy", I'm saying, as have many who have worked with him from different teams, that car development, set up and team motivation are not his strong suits. He'll take good advice on set up (which was why, amongst other things, he whupped Montoya) but he won't lead a team. Anyway I think the fact that Formula 1 isn't a religion for Kimi, while it hurts him for the reasons I've discussed, also helps him psychologically. I think it makes him calmer under pressure than the Hamiltons and Trullis of this world (and the Schumachers, back in the day).

[bud]

its nothing to do with being blindedly parochial, you dont just drop your support for a guy after a couple of bad races! people say all this crap that he is lazy after he has an off race but where is this criticism when he wins or grabs a podium?

it was the same last year, Ferrari fans at times were crying for the return of Schumacher yet when Kimi turned the season around they applauded the efforts of Kimi...

[TechniqueFreak]

its nothing to do with being blindedly parochial, you dont just drop your support for a guy after a couple of bad races! people say all this crap that he is lazy after he has an off race but where is this criticism when he wins or grabs a podium?

it was the same last year, Ferrari fans at times were crying for the return of Schumacher yet when Kimi turned the season around they applauded the efforts of Kimi...

I haven't "dropped my support" of Raikkonen. I still think he is the best driver on the grid. I still hope he wins when I watch. And yet, I can criticise his weaknesses. Two whole thoughts at once. Even more, perhaps. It's called a balanced and honest opinion.

[bud]

youre not a representation of all Ferrari followers though are you, i have read posts of these fans and not just here wanting new drivers after some bad races. this is crap if you ask me!