2025 Scuderia Ferrari F1 Team

[f1316]

Prime-Kimi, especially 2003-2007, was fast. Without an unreliable Merc engine, he would have been a three-time champion. Ferrari did sign him even when Schumi was reigning champion, so he surely was fast. It did pay out when Kimi won the championship in his Ferrari debut season.

Have to mention also 2012-2013 at Lotus, which was a magnificent comeback when he almost bankrupted the team. After 2014, Kimi was aging like wine.

This is insanity to me. Genuinely.

You talk about Kimi's 'prime', but he was only 27 years old when he joined Ferrari. In what world is 27 not somebody's prime?

Ferrari bought into the same myth that people like you did - that Kimi was a top driver. But the hiring quite obviously proved otherwise. Even in 2007, his advantage over Massa was slight. And then in 2008, the reverse happened and Kimi was convincingly beat by Massa. He was beat by Felipe Massa in a title winning car, when things mattered most.

This would never, ever happen to any top driver. And just to make things super clear, in 2009 with completely new regs, Kimi again proved no better than Massa overall.

Then Kimi leaves to Lotus and Alonso replaces him and monsters Massa. While Kimi again doesn't face any sort of tough driver as teammate, but has a great car.

How do you honestly not see the pattern? So many of y'all had this impression of Kimi as some top driver, but when this was disproven quite definitively, y'all still had a lingering memory of thinking Kimi was great, instead of actually ever revising your opinion. Basically, your first impression of Kimi was too strong for clear evidence to overcome.

Have to disagree. Kimi at Mclaren surely was fast, why the hell Ferrari were hiring him to Schumacher's seat? Massa after the spring accident wasn't Massa anymore.

You even dislike Kimi's Lotus season, meanwhile the team principal ranked him at the time P3 and P4 best driver on the grid, and AGAIN Ferrari hired him because he clearly was the best available driver at the moment. But after that, we know pairing with Alonso is like pairing with Schumacher, and prime-Kimi was gone on the second Ferrari stint.

I think the reality was that the Michelin tyres particularly suited Kimi’s style and with them he was very fast and able to beat the likes of Montoya. His change in form has nothing to do with his “prime” but the switch to Bridgestones and the fact that, if he no longer drive the way he ultimately preferred, he was only a good and not a great driver.

It’s debatable whether Massa was a different driver after his crash but also a myth that he was getting close to Michael in 2006 - Michael had a very clear speed margin throughout the season, including the final two races where Massa got pole (Japan because Michael had A LOT more fuel; Brazil because Michael had reliability issues). So I think it’s unlikely that he suddenly got better in 2007 and then fell off again from 2010 - he was also just a good but not great driver. Then you look at Kimi’s other teammates: he was generally fairly successful at Lotus but in hindsight there were too many times that Grosjean beat him, given we now know that Romain was nothing special; Alonso then destroyed him and so did Seb, by and large.

So on both Bridgestones and Pirelli’s, he was unable to adapt sufficiently to be a truly top guy. If Michelin had stuck around, might have been a different story.

[dans79]

Vasseur said that the '25 car is 99% different than the '24 car.

And you believe that blatant hype?

[Jurgen von Diaz]

This is insanity to me. Genuinely.

You talk about Kimi's 'prime', but he was only 27 years old when he joined Ferrari. In what world is 27 not somebody's prime?

Ferrari bought into the same myth that people like you did - that Kimi was a top driver. But the hiring quite obviously proved otherwise. Even in 2007, his advantage over Massa was slight. And then in 2008, the reverse happened and Kimi was convincingly beat by Massa. He was beat by Felipe Massa in a title winning car, when things mattered most.

This would never, ever happen to any top driver. And just to make things super clear, in 2009 with completely new regs, Kimi again proved no better than Massa overall.

Then Kimi leaves to Lotus and Alonso replaces him and monsters Massa. While Kimi again doesn't face any sort of tough driver as teammate, but has a great car.

How do you honestly not see the pattern? So many of y'all had this impression of Kimi as some top driver, but when this was disproven quite definitively, y'all still had a lingering memory of thinking Kimi was great, instead of actually ever revising your opinion. Basically, your first impression of Kimi was too strong for clear evidence to overcome.

Have to disagree. Kimi at Mclaren surely was fast, why the hell Ferrari were hiring him to Schumacher's seat? Massa after the spring accident wasn't Massa anymore.

You even dislike Kimi's Lotus season, meanwhile the team principal ranked him at the time P3 and P4 best driver on the grid, and AGAIN Ferrari hired him because he clearly was the best available driver at the moment. But after that, we know pairing with Alonso is like pairing with Schumacher, and prime-Kimi was gone on the second Ferrari stint.

I think the reality was that the Michelin tyres particularly suited Kimi’s style and with them he was very fast and able to beat the likes of Montoya. His change in form has nothing to do with his “prime” but the switch to Bridgestones and the fact that, if he no longer drive the way he ultimately preferred, he was only a good and not a great driver.

It’s debatable whether Massa was a different driver after his crash but also a myth that he was getting close to Michael in 2006 - Michael had a very clear speed margin throughout the season, including the final two races where Massa got pole (Japan because Michael had A LOT more fuel; Brazil because Michael had reliability issues). So I think it’s unlikely that he suddenly got better in 2007 and then fell off again from 2010 - he was also just a good but not great driver. Then you look at Kimi’s other teammates: he was generally fairly successful at Lotus but in hindsight there were too many times that Grosjean beat him, given we now know that Romain was nothing special; Alonso then destroyed him and so did Seb, by and large.

So on both Bridgestones and Pirelli’s, he was unable to adapt sufficiently to be a truly top guy. If Michelin had stuck around, might have been a different story.

I don't know what you guys expect from a comeback, but surely Kimi's comeback was way more successful than other champions like Alonso's and Schumacher's one. Kimi even advanced back to the top team, Ferrari.

[Jurgen von Diaz]

Vasseur said that the '25 car is 99% different than the '24 car.

And you believe that blatant hype?

As much as that 1,5 year ago sacked driver is guilty for their problems nowadays.

[ClarkBT11]

No one knows anything it's all speculation, move on... Life doesn't have to be that difficult