GeneRally International Forum

Aaaaand it's confirmed!!

Ferrari confirm Räikkönen for 2014

Kimi is no doubt the coolest guy on earth.
>Gets paid to drive a Ferrari
>Gets paid to not drive a Ferrari
>Gets paid to drive a Ferrari again

Journo: But I thought you were unhappy at your last Ferrari spell?

Kimi: Yeah yeah yeah, I know what I'm doing.

I really do hope this sort of exchange happened at some point.

Lukeno94 wrote:Hopefully Vettel will blow his engine up somewhere as a result, the guy needs to learn some manners and not be a selfish brat all of his career.

What a nice post.

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I've heard Smedley is moving to Williams and Massa could come along with him.

Joey Zyla wrote:

Lukeno94 wrote:Hopefully Vettel will blow his engine up somewhere as a result, the guy needs to learn some manners and not be a selfish brat all of his career.

What a nice post.

Digging up a sentence from March, 25 out of context? Nice try. Next time, Joey, you may be banned without further warning for such trolling.

When will anything change in F1? Seriously, I can't stand another Schumi.

Do you want "Schumi's line of succession" to be extinct? That barely surprises me.

Aside from that, this race was intense during the final laps whilst the one-man show continued as usual.

Yep, luckily after the safety car racing was pretty tight behind the top. I hope next year will be different with the new rules.

The main question is, how much work did Red Bull do on their current car to achieve this result? And how long ago did their main rivals give up trying to beat them and start on 2014? And on a related note, supposedly the Renault engine is already a little bit behind... will that be exacerbated by the very different 2014 engines?

There is literally no way of telling how the engines will stack up against each other until the first practice session of the first race next season. For all we know, Renault could build the best engine by miles, and have a clear advantage, whilst Mercedes make a dud. The changes are so vast (more than just the capacity change and the added turbo) that there is going to be barely any carry-over from the 2.4 V8s.

Eugh, talk about bad marshalling. Takes ages to do something as trivial as picking up debris. Takes ages to lift a car from the crash scene and instead of doing some pre-work for the car like pushing it to a better location the marshalls just stand and watch. And when there's a fire, the driver has time to leave the cockpit leisurely and the marshalls are still not there. And when they actually get to the scene they aim the fire extinguisher to a totally random area which doesn't put out the flame at all.

You know, the runoffs are really large, it takes a time to walk across it even in a gallop, if a car stops on the other end than where marshals have post. But yeah, other things could go more smoothly, probably they lack opportunities to practice. Otherwise it was quite nice race, more keeping my attention than Singapore.

The gaffe with the fire vehicle (not a fire truck as lots of media reports stated - that would've been even better!) was utterly hilarious. The fire extinguishing was a joke as well. All in all, discarding the fact that the winner was the one we're all bored of, it was a cracking race for the most part! Great drives from Raikkonen (who actually deserved his result this time, and didn't just benefit from others having issues), Grosjean (bar one error) and Hulkenberg, but very worrying moments/failures for Rosberg, Perez, and Sutil!

Trigger Happy wrote:You know, the runoffs are really large, it takes a time to walk across it even in a gallop, if a car stops on the other end than where marshals have post.

Well, the next guy trapped in a flaming car won't be too happy to hear this. But it also looked like the track owners/who ever responsible didn't really provide good enough equipment for the marshals. Something as basic as a broom was missing from the marshal's post. During FP 1 or 2 that poor guy had to pick the stuff up with hands for a long while before a larger clean up squad arrived at the scene. So yeah, on this aspect I don't really want to see the race next year.

But the racing on this track is so good. If that one certain guy was removed from the race, that Räikkönen pass on Grosjean would have been an amazing pass for the lead. A nice drive from Hülkenberg too, although it was mostly down to how the car was set up intentionally to go fast fast fast on those straights. But hey, that's the place where the passing happens so it clearly was a good choice! It's a crime if Renault won't pick him for the second seat.

Am I the only one around who is happy for Sauber and Hulkenberg and a little bit disappointed with Force India in second part of the season?

cocney wrote:Am I the only one around who is happy for Sauber and Hulkenberg and a little bit disappointed with Force India in second part of the season?

No, at least it is two of us. Both these teams are sympathic to fans, so I'm not surpised about your statements, and I just feel the same with them. I'm most glad for Sauber's current high peak, since 2-3 months ago even their existing was in question.

I only wish Force India was still Jordan . But yeah Sauber has my sympathy for long time .

cocney wrote:Am I the only one around who is happy for Sauber and Hulkenberg and a little bit disappointed with Force India in second part of the season?

I actually think Hulkenberg is the best driver in the field and put the Sauber in spots it doesn't really deserve. I feel bad for Force India too because Sutil/Di Resta were also doing some great drives in the first half of the season.

All the teams change pace throughout the year though with development and it's hard for teams to develop evenly when they have to focus on next year and the competition is too far away from them this year, that's why RBR is very dominant now compared to Lotus from round one who were clearly the better team early on because they knew how to manage tyres.

Saying Hulkenberg is the best driver in the field is taking it a little too far. He is one of the best, but is yet to fully prove himself at the top. He's a potential WDC, but Grosjean is just as good (let's not forget just how little a budget Lotus have at the moment, and how comprehensively Grosjean is out-qualifying Kimi - and Kimi has needed safety cars to get anywhere near Grosjean in previous races!) potentially.

Herbal wrote: No, at least it is two of us.

Here comes number three

Lukeno94 wrote:(let's not forget just how little a budget Lotus have at the moment, and how comprehensively Grosjean is out-qualifying Kimi - and Kimi has needed safety cars to get anywhere near Grosjean in previous races!) potentially.

Grosjean regained my support also, I am not satisfied with Kimi's and Mercedes's results though. By the way, let us not forget Ricciardo had the opportunity to claim points before his DTP.

Lukeno94 wrote:Saying Hulkenberg is the best driver in the field is taking it a little too far. He is one of the best, but is yet to fully prove himself at the top. He's a potential WDC, but Grosjean is just as good (let's not forget just how little a budget Lotus have at the moment, and how comprehensively Grosjean is out-qualifying Kimi - and Kimi has needed safety cars to get anywhere near Grosjean in previous races!) potentially.

If I was to correctly say what I meant, I mean Hulkenberg and Grosjean are the better drivers.

I forgot to add Grosjean to it. I wrote the same thing on two forums and thought I added that too. You're absolutely right. Now that Grosjean isn't doing first corner crashing, he's been pretty amazing to watch.

DuklaLiberec wrote:Grosjean regained my support also, I am not satisfied with Kimi's and Mercedes's results though. By the way, let us not forget Ricciardo had the opportunity to claim points before his DTP.

I thought he was having a great race at Suzuka until then. It was rare to see him making such big moves, normally he gains a few positions and just makes the points. Those Toro Rosso's are not great cars this year which makes me feel for Vergne and Ricciardo.

But the Sauber is improving really (e.g. introduced new body around exhausts nearly as effective as RB and Lotus have), his team mate's results confirm it, it's not only about Hülkenberg being that much über-driver.

Honda released their first sound bit from their 2015 engine!

I kind of like it.

It is official: Daniil Kvyat will succeed Ricciardo.

Well done Vettel! This one race pretty much summed up the season. Vettel dominating the field, could have won even more comfortably. Meanwhile the other Red Bull doesn't make it because xyz. Alonso losing the chance on lap one and Lotus having to gamble on the strategy due to bad qualifying.
A well deserved championship for Vettel!

And thankfully the Smog GP is not in the calendar in 2014.

And again, and again, and again. Well there's no question about who deserves the title this year, but good grief I do hope things would finally change next year along with the rule changes.
Basically nothing to add to 1nsane's post, this race represented the whole season in one race.