Slantnose!

Too funny!

A.Wayne

Searched all of the usual British web sources , unbelievable , 90 % about Hamilton , 5 % about Kimi , the rest F1 news, of the 90 % on Hamilton most of it is about how great he is , blah, blah , blah , nothing about his bone head performances , everything negative is Alonso, Alonso caused everything , he had no pace in Brasil because he was just slow , our Hammy was flying , Biggest loser of the year, of course Alonso , Lewis had accountability for nothing , amazing , Ohh by the way Kimi is WDC , nice chap , deserving chap , but now we have Hamilton, wow what a rookie ....

mitch236

I think you discount the marketablility of Kimi. First of all, there's the name, Kimi. Say it a couple of times. It sounds cool! Second, how about him as a spokesperson for Finnlandia Vodka? He's perfect! Really, who cares about sellable personality. I agree with Finn. If you want to watch personalities, try that wrestling crap. This is racing. Personally, I don't think I could have taken another season of seeing Hamilton's father. I'm glad he has a dad that comes to all the races but seriously.

I'm pissed that Kimi has had to have his WDC tarnished by Hamilton. If Hammy was a real man, he would come out publicly and state, "I'm here to say that Kimi is the WDC no matter what comes of the appeal that my team has advanced. While the appeal had to be lodged to keep the sport real, I will not accept the WDC if that is the outcome. Kimi is the champion and that will not change".

MJSpeed

Blah, blah, blah....don't **** with Britney!

Finn I think you missed his point. He wasn't comparing driving style or performance, clearly Kimi gives us more. Kimi is pretty rediscent and doesn't let anyone (the press) get to know him.

I have no roplem with that at all and I too prefer that to Hamilton's fakeness. People can say what they want about Senna, Schumi, Kimi, Alonso, DC and others, but at least they're not fake.

MJSpeed

Actually if it's proven that it's been used on the track, then they both get penalized. Examples:

1) 1994 Schumi is DQ from the Belgian GP due to the wood plank under the car was not up to regulations. Both team and driver lost points.

2) 2004 Canada- post race inspection reveal illegal brake ducts on some cars. All teams and drivers lost points.

3) BAR-Honda is found to have an "extra" fuel compartment. Both the team and drivers lost points.

4) 2007 McLaren is found guilty of having, testing Ferrari's technical info, however the FIA could not prove that it was used on the track and therefore only the team is penalized.

So if you go by the examples/history then it would be feasible to think that both the teams and drivers would be penalized, if the FIA does find something wrong.

Personally I don't the FIA will do anything with regards to this.

MJSpeed

You don't think Bernie is waiting for the outcome of the appeal to then endorse the champion???

Bob Rouleau

Kimi needs a full time PR spokesman to manage what he says and how he says it. Lewis is golden in the British Press. Sooner or later they will turn on him (they always do, eventually) and the results will be interesting.

I wonder if Bernie is thinking about Nascar - where it is all about the drivers? If so, it might explain his comments. NASCAR seems to hve copied the WWF model. I hope F1 never goes there.

Best,

A.Wayne

Planet-f1,

Kimi Raikkonen landed at Zurich airport in the afternoon. These are his first words as world champion back in Europe: "I am so happy it almost hurts! This is like a dream come true."

"This is something I wanted to reach since I've been a child. I was seven years old when I first saw a race track: it was an old, small kart circuit called Bembole; just five kilometres from where I lived. It was like a second home for me. Now, 22 years later, I have many favourite race tracks, but the most important one is Interlagos, more than 5,000 kilometres away from home!"

"I've always said that the aim of my career is to become world champion. I came very close a couple of times and in the end everything turned out fine. We have always given our best to try to win. Doing that in sport you have to always push to the max until the end. You never know what may happen in a race; you only have to look at the last three races and you know what I'm talking about. Fuji was really terrible for us: we were at the back of the pack and our race was over almost immediately."

"We left Japan and were 17 points behind, without the possibility to fight back. I think I can say that not more than ten people outside of the team would have bet on us. But we didn't give up. In a certain sense we believe in miracles. China was our joker: we won and the driver on the top of the standings didn't make any points. That gave us some hope, but there weren't many chances for us left. The last race was really emotional.
Cliquez ici...
The first four drivers in the field didn't retire, but there was a tough fight for positions between us and our competitors. Maybe I had the best start of the season and maybe I could have passed also Felipe at the first corner, but I had a plan and it didn't involve a fight with my teammate. I could see in my mirrors that Hamilton was next to Alonso in turn 3 and that he had a problem. I realized that we had the chance we had hoped for: this first lap seemed to be decisive for the whole championship."

"It was a great race and I think that I've never experienced such emotions in the cockpit. Everything worked perfectly fine. It was like a birthday present from heaven! We could have had more pace and I want to thank Felipe again for his support: he did what he could do, just like a perfect teammate. As a team we couldn't do more than a double-win, but when I had crossed the line the most important thing to know was what Hamilton had done. I asked for information over the radio but there was just silence for a couple of seconds: finally Chris told me that he came in seventh and my heart nearly went into flames due to happiness! This is it: now we're world champions!"

A.Wayne

They already have bob .... WWF1 .......

Nano

I was talking about this year, see my hamilton comment, your #4 is wrong. (although there are examples in past years of the team being penalized without the driver being penalized).

4- Freaking mclaren team is found to be "cheating", as they illegally benefited from Ferrari documents, they USED the data (only ALonso obviously), lied. Nobody knows how much of that car is legit. Drivers keep points and keep racing.

Ironically, this year.. the ONLY driver I believe to be penalized for a team f*ck-up, was Alonso.

A.Wayne

Nano,
From the beginning , we all knew Lewis would not lose his points the decision by the FIA not to touch the drivers points was understandable , if they did , it would have shut the season down. The FIA in my estimation should have waited until season's end to remove mclaren from the WDC or apply the penalty towards 08 , there decision disrupted the season in away that was purely negative..As guilty as Mclaren was , some , if not most will now see them as the victim........

Flying Finn

Here's photo of where it all started, Bemböle's Kart track where also Hakkinen, Salo, J.J. & even Keke raced.
As you can see, Finns definately are not fast because they have very exeptional conditions to practice, and of course, 2-4 months per year all tracks are covered with snow...

Nano

I agree, disregard my colorful description of the events, that was just that... colorful. I have always sustained it was better to let the drivers race.

But then you apply the same "logic" in Brazil, and I don't see how the drivers can be penalized on a team mistake (that can't even be properly verifyied, and there is no way of knowing fuel temp as it enters the car.... but I'd like to know more about the fuel temp issue). One thing is being found guilty, one thing is losing points, and one thing is GAINING points from someone else's **** up. This to me is just ridiculous, If you think this is how Hamilton should GET points, then I sustain my idea it would have been better to just give a stop and go penalty to everyone in front of Hamilton in the middle of the race.

FIA always disrputs races, nothing new. I believe they failed the viewers more than once this year. But Mclarent isn't a victim of anyone but themseleves. I don't see them as victims, I actually pretty much blame everything on Mclaren.

A.Wayne

Finn,
It's been 3 days and you are still emotional, i'm now very fearful of Daytona

PeanutinCA

Slightly off topic, we had some Italian family come stay with us this week. A big F1 fan, Ferrari of course, wouldn't expect any less. His mother called on Sunday morning as we were headed to the Zoo and let the cat out of the bag to him. Fortunately he had a great poker face and I was unaware until we watched it unfold that night. But, he mentioned a location in Italy that allows you to drive (older) F1 cars. I figured there might be some participants here with bigger budgets than myself that might like to know about it.

The website;
http://www.puresport.it/

The website in English (there is a button on the page);
http://fe-bud.mag-news.it/nl/b.jsp?Ni.0.0.Da.A.A.A.A

Enjoy!

P.D.