Silly Season 2017/2018

[FrukostScones]

Kimi logical choice? I think he is Vettel's choice. Kimi single handedly losing Ferrari the constructors and for once in a long time they have the fastest car for the first half of the season.

so you confirm VET is faster than him then?

[ChrisDanger]

If you were the boss of a company would you renew the contract of an underperforming employee just because he's friends with his colleagues?



Perhaps we can at least agree that Ferrari has more data on which to base their decision than the championship points tables.

[PlatinumZealot]

Kimi logical choice? I think he is Vettel's choice. Kimi single handedly losing Ferrari the constructors and for once in a long time they have the fastest car for the first half of the season.

so you confirm VET is faster than him then?

We haven't heard that message yet because there hasn't been a need for it, sadly. Kimi is like a gentle friend who is well experienced in the written rules at Ferrari and he accepts playing second fiddle at this stage of his career. For him the championship is just a dream once Vettel is fit to drive. I bet a win is all he seeks, and if he can get an extra one that's a bonus. So to put it simply: Kimi is the obedient lapdog that Vettel knows and loves, and want to stay.

[Zynerji]

Or, this pairing has simply led the best development they have had in several years.

[GPR-A duplicate2]

Or, this pairing has simply led the best development they have had in several years.

In this age, if anyone believes it is the drivers who develop the cars, they must be living in some kind of a bubble. Gone are those days where it was driver's input that used to drive the development of the car. Now that input is good to have. With all those sophisticated devices that are put on the car, the engineers gets the data to see what they want. And those development drivers clocking mileage on simulators provide all the confirmations that the engineers need.

For example: This year's Ferrari is born out of a completely new set of regulations and a base that is so completely different of which drivers had no idea until then jumped in the car at winter testing. The car just went faster.

In 2015, the car was definitely a competitive one off the box, for which Vettel had no contribution whatsoever. And if I were to believe that drivers develop the car, then I should also believe that Vettel and Kimi SCREWED the 2016 car, where they were comprehensively overtaken in development by THE DEVELOPMENT EFFORTS of a new bee Max and Ric at RB.

Ferrari has this classical trend of developing one good car and the following year, a donkey.

It would be absurd to take credit away from the designers and engineers and attribute it to drivers.

[Manoah2u]

If you were the boss of a company would you renew the contract of an underperforming employee just because he's friends with his colleagues?



Perhaps we can at least agree that Ferrari has more data on which to base their decision than the championship points tables.

apart from in black and white that it is silly, have actually seen things like that happen on more than one occasion.
looking at it from a non-black and white perspective, it's not as simple as that.

One person who is relatively not as 'proactive' or getting the same results as his colleageas, can be the link that keeps the entire team together and is a postive aspect on the workfloor that keeps his co-workers happy and doing their work.
And then there is the aspect of evaluating a seemingly underperforming employee in a realistic view. Armchair outsiders hardly have a realistic view - hell, even coworkers hardly have a realistic view because they fail to know the ins and outs. The employee might actually be told by the boss to take it a step down for whatever reason compared to his colleagues, just to name one. Then there's simply the possibility that the employee is simply performing temporarily under his normal capacities, which actually is way higher than any other potential employee.
So would you not renew the contract because of that? than that could be very silly as you could hire a potential new employee with good credentials who is able to perform better than your current one, but does not have the same glue or bonding possibility with your current employees and then you get those other employees to underperform all together and it's a mess, only to see that new employee bail a year after somewhere else.

There's a lot of logic in keeping Raikkonen.

It would be interesting to see another choice, but the important thing is what's relevant and beneficial for Ferrari.

[marvin78]

Why would a firm let an employee decide to keep another one, if the latter is not good for the firm? Ask yourselves that. No firm would do that. They have data, we don't have and won't have. That's all. I don't believe this BS that any driver decides who drives next to him. It could be, that they have a certain influence on that decision, but they don't decide it.

[GPR-A duplicate2]

Why would a firm let an employee decide to keep another one, if the latter is not good for the firm? Ask yourselves that. No firm would do that. They have data, we don't have and won't have. That's all. I don't believe this BS that any driver decides who drives next to him. It could be, that they have a certain influence on that decision, but they don't decide it.

Ferrari had data in 2009, but still fired Kimi (younger and much faster at that stage of his career) in favor of Alonso and I am sure there was no data to hire Alonso. Again, they had no data about Kimi in 2013 to know how well he was driving, but still hired him. In both of those decisions, it was what they saw on the track that mattered and that is why they hired. So, the decisions to retain or fire, need not have to be just data.

if data was to be the basis, what kind of data would there be that belies the following statistics that would have prompted Ferrari to Keep Kimi after 2014?



Qualifying: Alonso (84.21%) Vs Kimi (15.79%)
Race Finish Ahead: Alonso (93.75%) Vs Kimi (6.25%)
Laps spent ahead: Alonso (84.64%) Vs Kimi (15.36%)
Team Points: Alonso (74.54%) Vs Kimi (25.46%)

[marvin78]

I did not say that. But in this case it might be data that supported the decision. For all we know it even could have been a chocolate cake, RAI baked for the boss . I like to go with Occam's razor. And that a driver has the right to say, who will be his teammate, even if he or she is bad for the team, is not very likely.

[WaikeCU]

Barcelona 2014 anybody?

[Manoah2u]

I don't believe this BS that any driver decides who drives next to him. It could be, that they have a certain influence on that decision, but they don't decide it.

I agree that is not their decision, and also agree they have influence.

interestingly though, it has been said Hamilton blocked Alonso going to Mercedes.
I have no clue if there is any truth to that, i don't think so actually, but if there really is,
there should be some 'proof' of that in some sort, and i would like to see that source.

If it is true, then there is one shining example of how a driver has sufficient influence.

But funny enough, there are some valid examples.

Prost came back from his sabbatical with Williams. Senna wanted to go to Williams because they were the best. He offered to drive for free. Prost blocked it because of their history. Senna was upset and called Prost a coward.

In McLaren Senna was receiving engines with his name on them. Prost confronted Honda boss about it, because of the doubt of those engine being better. They reassured him they would stop it, they never did. So he quit McLaren and vowed to never had Senna as a team mate again, because his godly status made everyone in the team take special care for him.

In 1993 Senna managed to get the right connections and Sir. Williams personaly went to Prost asking his permission to have Senna in the team (Prost had a contract for 1993 and 94 where Senna was not allowed).
Why Williams wanted Senna is not known, what is known is that he got the pressure to sign him (probably Senna higher marketability meant a lot of sponsor money). Prost fed up with all the sh*t of the past said f*ck it and retired from f1.

So a shining example of actually having a decision over what driver is hired or not.
Vice versa another interesting thing though - the driver going to the team just as well (indirectly) decides who is his teammate too somehow since Senna caused Prost to leave.

Again, i think it's mere speculation and will use that as an example; but that could be the exact same situation with Hamilton-Alonso @ Mercedes. Hamilton might have said/veto'd/have a contract clause where he prevented Alonso from signing with Mercedes when Rosberg called quits. Likewise, had Mercedes decided to sign Alonso anyway, that could have caused the shock result that Hamilton up and left Mercedes - which would then see Alonso indirectly having the influence that that happened, just like Senna had with Prost. It's interesting to think about whether Ferrari might there and then ditched Kimi and replaced him with Hamilton this year and it would have been Alonso - Bottas @ Mercedes and Vettel-Hamilton @ Ferrari and surely Button - VanDoorne @ Mclaren, or Perhaps Raikkonen would have went there. who knows. It would have been the craziest seat dance ever.

It didn't happen though, but that doesn't take away that it doesn't mean drivers dont have significant part in diver signing for the team they are contracted.

Last but not least 'der Weltmeister' Michael Schumacher was known to have a Ferrari contract that saw the 'other' driver @ Ferrari get a clause in his contract - which he was free to sign or not, but signing means adhering to that and not signing means you're not driving for Ferrari - that he must give way for Schumacher and not (try to) beat him.
Damon Hill for example mentioned this in deciding after having talks about signing not to go to Ferrari after Williams ditched him right after snatching the Championship and ended up at Arrows instead, imagine that. Choosing a lousy team over Ferrari because you'd be driver nr2. It was a bad decision imho for Hill, as it really meant no change in all reality. He was nr2. to Michael also in signing with Arrows because the Arrows wouldn't be ever able to compete against the Ferrari so he had no chance of a WDC or anything worthwile there, and Arrows neither payed Hill the salary Ferrari offered him.

Hill should have went to Ferrari imho, and take that agreement or, be total ballsy, and just beat him and cause a stir. It might have cost him his seat at Ferrari in all worse case scenarios, and saw him needing to take another seat at another team mid-season or so, but i still think he would have made a statement and i really would have liked to see Hill in the Ferrari against Michael.

But that never happened, so there you have it. Plenty of situations where a driver actually has a say in the other signing. There are chances Vettel has that clause too, id expect it actually being something like he doesnt want Ricciardo there and i also think he might update / have updated it with Max, especially since both come from the RedBull park. But I do believe that the biggest reason for siging Raikkonen is that he's still fast and good and the relationship with Vettel is great AND he moves aside like Massa and Barrichello [that other clear example] when asked for.

[PlatinumZealot]

Last but not least 'der Weltmeister' Michael Schumacher was known to have a Ferrari contract that saw the 'other' driver @ Ferrari get a clause in his contract - which he was free to sign or not, but signing means adhering to that and not signing means you're not driving for Ferrari - that he must give way for Schumacher and not (try to) beat him.

In a recent interview, Barichello said this is not true. None of the number 1 status clauses every came up in his contract; they were all written into Schumacher's and executed on barichello by team orders.

[Zynerji]

Or, this pairing has simply led the best development they have had in several years.

In this age, if anyone believes it is the drivers who develop the cars, they must be living in some kind of a bubble. Gone are those days where it was driver's input that used to drive the development of the car. Now that input is good to have. With all those sophisticated devices that are put on the car, the engineers gets the data to see what they want. And those development drivers clocking mileage on simulators provide all the confirmations that the engineers need.

For example: This year's Ferrari is born out of a completely new set of regulations and a base that is so completely different of which drivers had no idea until then jumped in the car at winter testing. The car just went faster.

In 2015, the car was definitely a competitive one off the box, for which Vettel had no contribution whatsoever. And if I were to believe that drivers develop the car, then I should also believe that Vettel and Kimi SCREWED the 2016 car, where they were comprehensively overtaken in development by THE DEVELOPMENT EFFORTS of a new bee Max and Ric at RB.

Ferrari has this classical trend of developing one good car and the following year, a donkey.

It would be absurd to take credit away from the designers and engineers and attribute it to drivers.

Once again for the cheap seats...

Compared to the people that make these multi- million dollar decisions, you know nothing.

Simply spewing your opinion does not change that, no matter how much you wring your hands.

[LionKing]

But I do believe that the biggest reason for siging Raikkonen is that he's still fast and good and the relationship with Vettel is great AND he moves aside like Massa and Barrichello [that other clear example] when asked for.

I remember Bottas moving aside for Lewis a few times this season,but don't remember Kimi doing that for Vettel.

[Zynerji]

But I do believe that the biggest reason for siging Raikkonen is that he's still fast and good and the relationship with Vettel is great AND he moves aside like Massa and Barrichello [that other clear example] when asked for.

I remember Bottas moving aside for Lewis a few times this season,but don't remember Kimi doing that for Vettel.

Shhh! Don't expose the fanbois!