Who will have no. 1 spot at Ferrari? (merged)

[chrisp2006]

Thanks for the replies, This will be interesting to follow next season all I ask for is a fair fight unless one driver is clearly ahead by a lot of pts near the end of the championship.

[JeremySmith]

Originally Posted by chunterer

Yeah, but I honestly believed JPM would thump Kimi and win at least one WDC with McLaren...

You never know.

I did not expect that to happen at McLaren..Kimi is on a whole other level, which is why Kimi was the apple of Ron's eye don't you think?

[chunterer]

Originally Posted by JeremySmith

I did not expect that to happen at McLaren..Kimi is on a whole other level, which is why Kimi was the apple of Ron's eye don't you think?

Well I just think that Ron had been desperate to find a new Senna or a Schumi beater for years, so signed both him and JPM up as soon as he had the opportunity as he thought they were both going to fit that category.

However, neither really turned out as he would have generally expected, so he signed Alonso and maybe now he's got what he wanted for so long.

[chrisp2006]

Originally Posted by chunterer

Well I just think that Ron had been desperate to find a new Senna or a Schumi beater for years.

Bit late though for that? I bet he wishes Schumi was carrying on now so he could beat him.

[JeremySmith]

Originally Posted by chunterer

Well I just think that Ron had been desperate to find a new Senna or a Schumi beater for years, so signed both him and JPM up as soon as he had the opportunity as he thought they were both going to fit that category.

However, neither really turned out as he would have generally expected, so he signed Alonso and maybe now he's got what he wanted for so long.

McLaren have not produced the hardware needed though have they, so Senna, Michael, Kimi, JPM or whoever quite honestly without a winning car would not have won Championships for them. As good as McLaren are, it has not come to fruition for them recently, now next year might, and I hope will be quite diferent for them.

[Bononi]

Originally Posted by Bononi

Kimi was hired to replace TGF. Ferrari's view was "the next best thing for us". Massa was hired based in his potential, knowledge of the car and being a natural within the team.
The potential factor in Massa will make difference if he consistenly beat Raikkonen, then he'll be the #1.
It's not a game for Ferrari. It's a long studied roadmap for Ferrari's post-TGF era. At some point, back a couple of years, Rubens has fallen out from being suitable to this plan, and Massa was almost ready to replace him. View things from a business perspective, I would keep my options carefully open, watching over my drivers and looking at potential replacements in the newcomers. The 2007 Ferrari pair is a strong one, but everything must settle down before drawing conclusions. There are a lot of factors that can affect the balance of both drivers in the team. My current view is :
Massa looks confortable in the team, he speaks italian fluently, and has a so much needed empathy within the team to influence their decisions. Race wise he started some good results mixed with bad ones in a car he knows well.
Raikkonen is the newbie around, he doesn't speak italian (IIRC), and has proven to be influential in his former team. Race wise he is a consumated winner, fast, reliable and mostly suffered from a bad car and now will have a brand new one, which has the best background of reliability.
All I can see is that the chances are open to both.

Sorry to become repetitive, but I already post the above in some other thread.

[JeremySmith]

I am sorry I did not see that Bononi. Nicely written by the way!