Prost: Kimi’s off year will be good for F1
November 25, 2009 by SJ Skid
Filed under People & Events
Former F1 champ apparently has told French radio that Kimi Raikkonen’s off-year (unless a Mercedes deal miraculously appears) will be good for F1.
I say “apparently” because I’m translating the item from Finnish site Sportti – and I’m having a tough time believing it. But a few different translation programs pull up the same thing:
Four times F1 world champion Alain Prost told French Europe 1 radio station that Kimi Räikkönen gap year would be good for Formula One ykkösille. Prost said that Kim has a lot of fans who would like to continue Kim’s F1.
Prost himself had to gap year in 1992 and won the following year, the World, but it is not easy in his view was.
- Kimi wants to try the careless attitude of rallies. He likes a drink consumed and the celebration. During the year off, but the attitude must be right, because the return is to be prepared both physically and emotionally, Prost commented on Europe 1 to.
At the same time Prost told the attaches Räikkönen brilliant driver.
- He has had a sometimes difficult to work with the team because of his relationship with engineers, has been distant, Prost said.
Raikkonen F1 series is negotiating an agreement Mercedes Grand Prix team with. If agreement is not reached, ajanee Raikkonen holds Citroen World Rally Championship series.
Now, certainly parts of what Prost says makes sense, including that Kimi’s distant relationship with engineers has been part of his problem with teams. Not to mention the focus on Kimi liking a little drink now and then.
My reading of it suggests that Prost thinks the year off would re-focus and re-energize Kimi. My question is: Is Prost right? Is there a way that a year without Kimi will be good for F1?
For what it’s worth, I found Prost’s comments when looking for the original source of a story at Autosport that has WRC’s Mikko Hirvonen questioning Kimi’s ability to compete at the top level of rallying. That story I couldn’t find, so here’s the Autosport translation:
“Kimi is fast and with driving he doesn’t have problems,” Hirvonen told Finnish website Sportti.com. “But preparing to drive with pace notes is a difficult case for him.
“We WRC drivers have so much more experience, and almost all the rallies will be unknown to Kimi in advance. It’s difficult to imagine that Kimi could succeed, at least in his first season.”
Hirvonen’s manager Timo Jouhki, who also brought Juha Kankkunen, Tommi Makinen, Toni Gardemeister and Jari-Matti Latvala to rallying’s top level, agreed that Raikkonen would need time to get up to speed.
“Kimi is a really talented driver. No other F1 driver has been driving a rally at that level,” said Jouhki. “Rallying, however, requires so much experience that I basically cannot see him having any chance in the first year. Rallying is such a difficult sport and experience counts.”
Despite suspecting he might struggle initially, Hirvonen reckons the chances of Raikkonen appearing in next season’s WRC are high.
“That man does not surprise me in anything,” said Hirvonen. “I would not be surprised if Kimi took a year off, and did for example five World Championship rallies, or pushed for the whole season.”
[Quick note: I think Todd should get Grace to read this, or at least the paragraph with all the Finnish driver names.]
So a second question for everyone: How well do you suppose Kimi will perform in WRC next year, if that’s where he ends up?
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The fact that Kimi is heading into unknown territory where he will need experience to get better is probably what will draw him in and keep him in rallying for a while.
People said Kimi lacked experience when he entered F1. He had only 20 or so car races total. That’s unheard of. But he did fine his rookie F1 season. I’d say Kimi has the best chance of anyone to step into a new form of motorsports and do respectably right off the bat.
With the being “distant” and Communication issues well documented and well publicized about Kimi, Is WRC racing a really good idea :-?, what kind of Co-Drivers they provide in WRC btw, Kimi would need one who should be well versed in all forms of communication, sign languages,smoke signals, morse codes, and maybe even NLP :D.
On side node – what is the divorce rate in rally drivers :-? Their spouses can’t give “inability of communicate” as reason to communicate can they :-?
He will struggle in the WRC but notas much as Hirvonen suspects.. The Finnish come out of the womb with a co driver. I actually think that a codrdrvier is going to benefit Kimi an his Attention Deficit Disorder style of driving just because it will help him focus.
There is a serious downside to all this… SPEED TV doesn’t broadcast WRC any more. Their coverage was spotty, renamed something different every few weeks (making Tivo try and guess), the time slots were at 2am and drifted (meaning we often lsot the tail end of the show)… and for one year we could not get WRC… then HDTHTR started broadcasting a 1 hour round up of each rallye… BRILLIANT!
If Kimi does WRC, then darn SPEED will be forced to pick it up I guess, which means it will be the same old problems all over again. If it ain’t NASCAR (slot cars all of the same design) then SPEED doesn’t really care.
Finally JPM Fans can score a point over Kimi Fans ;-)
Yes, you have to pop for HD but it IS there. Next up 11/29 @ 8:00 PM. Rally Finland. How Ironic. Coverage is fair, but I do not hsave to watch NASCARTV (Speed) to see it, and it IS better than nothing. Some cool features with virtual comparisons of lines thru corners. F1 and MotoGP could take a page out of the book.
Begin Rant. I am SO disappointed with SPEED, they had been so cool in the early days, before they went corporate. No Isle of MAN, no WRC, idiotic US motorcycles announcers -Shaheen and HIM! Oh, as if the fact they are owned by FOX makes it likely they will ever change their programming. End of Rant. There, I feel much better now. Get yer butt out of bed and watch MotoGP on the Web, like I do. Money where mouth is.
Kimi is an exceptional racer, I think ge can race a grocery shopping cart… No doubt he will have an excellent rally year but I am not sure if he would want to come back to F1 afterwards. Money is not an issue for him and his decision would probably weight a lot more about how he feels with the more informal atmosphere at the WRC. Personally I think Kimi needs a little more of consistency and that blow-of-death multi-champ in F1 have shown when it is time to win, get the points you need and drive risking the least the full season to preserve the advantage. He has the speed to win multi-WC but speed, driving a racecar as fast as you can, is not the only thing you need to win a WC. In the end, it is a nonsense what Prost said; nothing bad is gonna happen with Kimi gone, but is not gonna be good either, it might not be good for Kimi if he still wants to come back someday…
The translation is NOT very good, I have read the article and it says that Prost has said that it is NOT a good thing if Kimi is not on the grid because he has so many fans
All hype. He might like rally and all that, but I think he will only drive those rallies he’s supposed to do according to what’s left of his contract with Ferrari.
It would be pretty unrealistic if he could match the other rallydriver’s pace in a different class. Although F1 and WRC are both racing with cars with 4 wheels, they are driven in a completely different way. It’s like comparing badminton to tennis. Even if a tennisplayer maybe could play badminton very well, he’d be far far away from close to the professional badmintonplayers skills. It would be pretty strange if a guy from a different class/category could walk in and perform at top level without any practice or experience in same category. The rallytalk about Kimi is pure media-moves from Ferrari to get some marketing from him. Until Kimi doesn’t drive another car than Fiat( =Ferrari )in a rally, there will definitely not be any rallying for Kimi after F1.
Carreerwise it’s a strategic suicide to step down to a lower level as well. It’s either stop completely, or continue to fight at top level. That’s probably why he doesn’t wan’t to drive for a team that “doesn’t have a winning car”.
If he isn’t ready to lower his salary quite a bit to join Merc next season, he can start writing his Book-of-life. And that would be one of the most depressing moments in F1 history.
The best opportunity to be competitive in rally is 2011, when the car specification will change. I think Kimi planned to skip f1 after 2010 and start a rally carrier in 2011. In this case they should drive in some events in 2010, and I think it is still a plan. But the best practice for 2011 is not a WRC, rather a S2000 spec car, which will be the base of the new spec WR cars.
As he has never race with a WRC, I think Miko is right, Kimi has no chance to be in the top5 or top10. Some good stage results, and many crashes…
maybe Alain wanted to say Kimi’s sabbatical will be good for him , not for f1.
I don’t understand how loosing a top driver could be good for f1..
sadly i think we won’t see anymore Kimi in f1 if he take a sabbatical.
till mercedes won’t announce the second driver there is still a little hope to have Kimi on the grid next year..
It is quite impressive to see how the team who won both WC could not retain any of its drivers…strange, isn’t it?
I wonder if Brawn wants more competitive drivers or drivers with more PR/money capabilities?
I read Prost’s quote on the Europe 1 website. Here’s a quick translation:
“Kimi has a lot of fans. It is sometimes difficult for him to work with a team. The Ferrari people have particularly disliked his distant relationship with engineers, but he is a superb driver. What will he become? He will try to race in rallies, but he is a bit lazy, he likes to party, and drink a bit. When taking a year off, one must be extremely serious, prepare physically and mentally. This risks being difficult for him. People in the F1 community might have a hard time trusting him again in 2011.”
He believes it is bad news.
In the same interview, he talks about Mercedes having always wanted to have their own team. He goes on to say that “Mercedes has always wanted German driver to have the image of a national team. I am also not sure that the Mercedes people were Button fans. In the end, a Rosberg-Heidfeld team is likely, unless there is another surprise.”
He is happy about Button going to McLaren. “Hamilton is intrinsically faster than Button. But we’ve seen this year how great a finisher Button is. It could make for a great balance. Now, he might be a bit disappointed, but really, did he have a choice? He was offered the choice to stay under certain conditions, and not just monetary ones. Did the new management [Mercedes] need him? That’s the real question.”
He also gives a slight edge to McLaren over Ferrari. “The Hamilton-Button appears a bit stronger to me. At Ferrari, we have 2 Latin drivers [Alonso-Massa] in a Latin team. That won’t be easy to manage, even they are both exceptional drivers. That’s the miracle of F1. When everything goes bad, and no one can say that things are going well right now, we still manage to have a new team, Mercedes, and then 2 or 3 other teams with top drivers, who can make us dream”.
Whew! Translation, even shoddy, is hard.