Comments on: Kimi Raikkonen shows Ferrari speed at Bahrain

By: George

George — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 18:36:32 +0000

Yeah, Michael K, I tend to agree with you, and Ferrari have announced a huge Aero update coming. As a fan of McLaren I suppose I’m following the practices of Ron Dennis and just deluding myself!

Let’s hope some team has something for Ferrari to keep it interesting. And who knows, maybe Kimi will be the fastest thing on four wheels without TC the sports ever seen. Even I wouldn’t mind that.

By: sriram

sriram — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 14:46:48 +0000

History is going to repeat itself.We are about to see another 2004 Ferrari season.
Reply to Keith Collantine comment:
Even though we cannot come to a conclusion with these testing results but we cannot undermine the pace of ferraris.If the gap between Ferrari(in short KIMI)and others is around 4 tenths or so,we can say its close to call.But its not the case,they (other teams) are 8 tenths to 1 sec slower than Ferrari.

By: Michael K

Michael K — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 07:51:26 +0000

Mind games by Ferrari which would just motivate the other teams more? I really don’t think so. Testing time is so limited already that nobody will have the resources to start stripping ballast in order to try and fool anyone. Nope, that will never happen, each team is just going through their program, the only people who have the opportunity to send messages are the drivers. Kimi doesn’t really get involved in all those things as you can see from his time at McLaren where he was many times slower than his teammate during testing only to come out and beat him in the real races. If anything the fast teams would try and not show their real speed (which they rarely do in testing anyway), so that the competitors don’t get too worried. George, the new Ferrari is bloody quick, how much faster than the competition we will all see when the season begins. I think it will be quite significant…

By: George

George — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 06:14:53 +0000

Are the Ferrari’s stripped of all ballast, just to play mind games with the competition? Mislead them into thinking they need more radical steps just to catch up and possibly commit design mistakes? it wouldn’t surprise me.

Testing times are always misleading, sometimes intentionally.

By: AmericanTifosi

AmericanTifosi — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 13:22:30 +0000

It’s too early to start making predictions, but even if McLaren isn’t doing as well, Williams, Renault, and BWM are on the rise. That should be interesting.

By: Rohan

Rohan — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 12:54:08 +0000

Oh, ok. Thanks.

By: Keith Collantine

Keith Collantine — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 12:52:30 +0000

Yes, ordinarily I do post links but I think you need to a subscription to read this: http://www.autosport.com/journal/article.php/id/1442

By: Rohan

Rohan — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 12:46:51 +0000

Do you have a link for the Hughes article?

By: Keith Collantine

Keith Collantine — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 11:18:44 +0000

Mark Hughes on Mark Webber and Felipe Massa after watching the Jerez test:

Watching how great a job [Webber] was doing in an unsorted car and seeing Massa struggle in the Ferrari, it was difficult not to ponder how they might each get on if they swapped cockpits. I read an opinion somewhere recently to the effect that ‘Webber would be as good as Massa, given the car’. On the evidence of Jerez, I’d say Mark’s in a different league now that the toys have been turned off. Felipe has a lot of adapting to do before Melbourne.

By: oliver

oliver — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 10:12:13 +0000

The main speed advantage of the Ferrari comes from the tighter packaging of the car, and its components. Toyota are only just learning about that. I very much doubt, Kimi can be even that fast if he was driving the older car.