Raikkonen rejects Hamilton’s claim Vettel is Ferrari’s number one

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In the round-up: Kimi Raikkonen rejects Lewis Hamilton’s claim that Ferrari is favouring Sebastian Vettel as their number one driver.

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Has the time come for McLaren to take the plunge and break from Honda?

I think McLaren should try and get Mercedes engines for the remainder of this engine formula. During the past three years, Honda hasn’t shown any indication that they are able to build an engine which can compete with engines of the other manufacturers, let alone build an engine that can come out on top. McLaren won’t be able to win championships with a Mercedes engine, not as long as the works team exists. However, I can see them fight for podiums and win a few races. They would surely be in a better position than they have been in, in recent years.

On the longer term, just podiums and race wins are not good enough for McLaren. So for the next engine formula, I believe it is vital the team attracts a European engine manufacturer back into F1. Ideally BMW or Audi. They should insist the same mistakes Honda has made will not occur again. For instance, Honda’s biggest mistake was not using the ability for unlimited testing before they returned to F1. The engine should have been installed in an old F1 car, and been tested non-stop, on-circuit. It was an advantage they had and didn’t use.

In my opinion, this is the path McLaren should take. Ditch Honda and have a meaning in this sport again. And I know it’s much more complex, mostly from a financial perspective, but staying with Honda has zero prosperity from a sportive point of view. There has been no indication whatsoever proving otherwise. Honda is lost.
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On this day in F1

  • Michael Schumacher extended his points lead to 43 by winning the Canadian GP today in 2002

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Keith Collantine
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71 comments on “Raikkonen rejects Hamilton’s claim Vettel is Ferrari’s number one”

  1. Fair play to Grojo writing that into his deal after the Pastor debacle.

    1. Oh and more tantalising news about Kubica….

    2. Interesting that you call it ‘fair play’ when they are treated differently, especially since MAG was under the impression that the clause would be similar ;)

      1. Why should it not be fair?? It’s written in the contracts. It’s Magnussen’s problem if he expected anything else other than what’s written in his contract.

      2. @f1-liners just a turn of phrase really, purely looking at it from Grojo’s point of view. Romain still smashed Pastor that season anyway so something for Kev to aim for. Incidently I think MAG has been a tad unlucky this year and deffo deserves that Haas seat.

    3. Sundar Srinivas Harish
      9th June 2017, 10:13

      Magnussen seems to be too much of a nice guy. I mean, he didn’t even start complaining about Renault’s delaying tactics last year until they actually hired Hulkenberg. I really hope he doesn’t get spit out of Haas like at McL.

  2. Racerdude7730
    9th June 2017, 0:31

    Keith you should make this one of the prizes for next year! It’s to late now but it’s amazing. It’s a Tamiya RC Tyrrell P34 Six Wheeler. One of the coolest F1 RC cars I have ever seen. Good luck to everyone with predictions https://youtu.be/T1BAouNSprE

    1. I have one of those. I’m a huge fan of Tamiya, so I have several of their RC cars and tonnage of their plastic models.

      1. Estaban de los Casas
        9th June 2017, 17:00

        People who are creative and happen to love Formula One should buy a Tamiya scale model kit and build it. Plenty of subjects to choose from and in the end if you follow the instructions you will have a correct well built race car model. The kind that are passed down when you kick the bucket. Not cheap but worth it.

        It is but one rewarding experience in life. Go build something and let it be a Grand Prix Car. A Tamiya Grand Prix Car.

  3. I daydream about a world in which the press demands to know if Bottas is free to race Hamilton on equal terms. Since there is roughly a hundred times as much evidence that Mercedes favor LH over VB as there is that Ferrari favor SV over KR.

    1. That requires coherence and un-biased news report. What’s fun about that?

    2. To be fair, Mercedes have recent evidence of not favouring one driver over the other (last year’s championship), whereas I don’t recall the last time a Ferrari second driver seriously impeded the team leader.

      1. To be fair, Mercedes didn’t need to favor one driver over the other, being that far in front, during the last three years. And this year we’ve seen the signs left and right: BOT asked to move over, BOT being kept on track on tires beyond optimal window.

  4. So Kimi comes in because his tyres felt bad. Vettel stays out because his tyres felt good. That’s conspiring for a Vettel win?

    Given Kimi’s personality I would highly doubt he would come in if his tyres felt good. I still remember a race where Kimi was winning for McLaren on 4 flat spotted tyres, asked to come in to change them, only to decline and have 4 blowouts on the last lap(or second last lap).

    Are we still doing this?

    1. This is how the press creates ideas in the public’s mind even when there is zero factual evidence to support the ideas in question. Just keep repeating “Have you stopped beating your wife yet?” and you can get 50% of the public to believe that there must be some wife-beating going on.

      Look at the number of people who’ve fallen for the “Russian hacking” hoax.

      1. +1 Fireblade. I’ll even go as far as to say the media’s tactics are working brilliantly. Only informed fans of the sport know that the media is making a big deal out of nothing, but take a look on Facebook F1 groups, and you’ll find a majority of casual fans are gobbling up all of this BS. I even saw the Canada GP preview on Sky, and they were actually stating it as if it was a fact. They’re not even openly speculating about it anymore, they openly stated that it’s now a known fact that Ferrari purposely switched the drivers around in Monaco, and that Vettel is definitely the number 1 there now.

        It’s pathetic “journalism” from Sky, who hasn’t even so much as said boo about Mercedes literally ordering Bottas to let Hamilton past him on more than one occasion, and them obviously leaving Bottas out on ruined tyres, to hold Vettel up for long enough to benefit Hamilton. Where Ferrari have left Vettel to find his own way past Kimi in China, and there’s no evidence Monaco was pre-meditated, it seems to me the obvious one/two situation is at Mercedes, and Ferrari still seem happy to let their guys race for now.

        1. We’re getting the Sky coverage here in Canada, and I must say I can’t complain at all, it’s the best we’ve ever had visually, although I loved Murray audibly. And James Hunt.

          Sky has to create a show just as F1 does, but I don’t find them taking too much license. In this case MB immediately defaulted to a Ferrari ‘massage’ of SV past KR. Also said something about ‘grilling’ the team members he spoke to about whether they would do that…probably even opined to them that they should…that they’ll mathematically have to…starting in Monaco.

          But Kimi is not the sugar coating kind, right? I believe him. And certainly when I saw his face on the podium, I wondered if he was exactly as he says he’s was, disappointed at not winning…but not at being ‘massaged.’

          I think if there is a perception that Mercedes’ situation is less harped upon, I wonder if that might be because VB is and always was going to be a natural number 2 by the very nature of his newness to the team, no less against LH. Ferrari’s strength makes Merc’s situation more of a no-brainer to put it behind LH. It’s not ideal but it’s just how it has added up. Is adding up.

          Let’s see what the circumstances dictate this weekend and where the tone heads after that amongst the key players. We’ll know from Kimi if something isn’t sitting right if and when that happens. If something happens that isn’t the natural way that Kimi speaks of, that will make the alleged massage seem more like a real one, but as I say, I believe KR. For now if he’s not bothered, then why should Brundle or anybody else belabour it?

        2. It’s pathetic “journalism” from Sky, who hasn’t even so much as said boo about Mercedes literally ordering Bottas to let Hamilton past him on more than one occasion

          LOL. They were ENCOURAGING (i.e. pressuring) Mercedes (Toto) to treat Hamilton as their Number 1 driver weeks ago!!

      2. Yeah. The same reason why Maybot got humbled, like Lewis, she thinks people are idiots. It’s called narcissistic personality disorder. Be humble ..why is no one calling Ric no.1 driver after Monaco? Botta’s actions over a few races have proven that there is only one team that team orders apply and it’s merc with it’s no 1 driver, the oracle, the superstar that is Lewis Hamilton. I mean look at his last two Championships, pure genius driving ..how he did it..I’m still scratching my head. #Goat. Untouchable.

      3. ‘Look at the number of people who’ve fallen for the “Russian hacking” hoax.’

        Oh, the one just confirmed by the former head of the FBI?

        1. The former head of the FBI just admitted that there was no evidence of Russian hacking. Which is not news to anybody who’s been paying attention and noticed that no evidence of Russian hacking has ever been produced. The former head of the FBI admitted that he simply took the word of the Democratic Party for it when they claimed to have been hacked by the Russians.

          This is what happens when people get their information from the press instead of by watching the things the press is ostensibly reporting on.

          1. @Fireblade

            I watched the whole thing live. Comey said the exact opposite! He said, more than once, there is ‘no doubt’ that the Russians hacked the US election.

            Not sure where you get your info from. Consider reading the transcript perhaps?

    2. I think you mean the 2005 race at Germany. Kimi lost his suspension on the last lap. In 2005, Tyre change was not allowed during the race

      1. Could have been. 12 years is a lot of F1 to remember.

    3. Wasn’t that Cars…?

    4. Are we still doing this?

      Most of us haven’t swallowed that “Ferrari favouring Vettel” nonsense but there are elements with the British F1 media who like to keep whipping that one up as an obtuse excuse if Hamilton does not win a race. If Bottas wins in Canada this weekend, you can bet that morons like Oliver Brown, David Croft etc will start pointing out how impartial Mercedes were to their two drivers in contrast to Ferrari etc.

  5. The problem with mclaren is that nobody wants to sell them an engine because mclaren can then beat them on the track. Renault won’t sell because it would only mean they would have to sell engines to red bull and mclaren. Both of which would beat renault. Ferrari simply won’t sell engine to someone who can and probably would outperform them on track. And same with mercedes. They are most scared of them all about selling engines to anyone who might challenge them on track.

    Mclaren has had some rough years and their last year was no exactly glorious with mercedes engines but everybody makes bad cars sometimes. Mclaren has the resources, engineers, drivers and money to win which is why nobody will sell them an engine.

    Mclaren finds itself in the exact same situation as red bull was some time ago. Hopeless engine, no sign of improvements, all upgrades seem to fail when brought on track and nobody willing to sell them. Just like red bull was stuck with renault so is mclaren now stuck with honda. Engine is massively important piece of the overall performance in this engine formula and all the factory teams are just happy to not sell mclaren an engine and finish ahead of them.

    Only thing what mclaren can do is what red bull did. Just wait and hope renault/honda gets their act together and produces average engine instead of completely sub-par engine. Mclaren has to wait a lot longer for that to happen than red bull needs to (the renault is still not very good engine) but that’s the way it goes. Give too much power to engine manufacturers and they get to choose who wins. And in 100.00% of all cases they choose themselves. But who wouldn’t…

    There is the chance for mclaren to start building their own engines. They are already making their own engines for their road cars and they have some knowledge of working with high tech hybrid stuff too (p1 and p1 gtr) so it is not total impossibility. Although now is probably the worst time ever to start as engine manufacturer in f1.

    The engine rules are such a disaster. Had we better engine rules and we could have mercedes, ferrari, mclaren, renault and red bull fighting for wins. Instead it is just 4 car race and won’t get any better until the next generation engines are decided.

    1. Only thing what mclaren can do is what red bull did. Just wait and hope renault/honda gets their act together and produces average engine instead of completely sub-par engine.

      I just don’t think that’s good enough for teams that want to fight for wins. Heck, the worst part of it is that Honda isn’t even capable of making an average engine. They have shown that as long as there is Honda power at the back of your car, you will not be able to fight for wins, podiums… and even points.

      It’s a no brainer to dump McLaren. 3 years with no progress is enough time to show there are no improvements in the future.

    2. @socksolid ”And same with mercedes. They are most scared of them all about selling engines to anyone who might challenge them on track.”
      – I doubt Mclaren would beat Mercedes with their PUs. The last time they were a Mercedes-customer team they were nowhere near the factory team result-wise nor performance-wise.

    3. The problem with mclaren is that nobody wants to sell them an engine because mclaren can then beat them on the track.

      Proved by the most recent world constructors championship of 1998.

      You are not entirely wrong, but some reasons may be a bit different. Ferrari will never sell them engines because they are eternal rivals, a bit like Madrid and Barça, even if Ferrari knew they would be stronger that would be out of the equation.

      Renault does not seem to have a problem selling engines to teams that have better results than them, and I respect them on that regard, even though they are my favourite brand. Also they already have RB to blame them for poor results, they don’t need another one.

      And mercedes does not have that sort of problem, they beat them already with the same engine. And actually if we believe what McL says about this, you can’t win as a costumer, they were the ones that went another route.

      1. Typo: renault are NOT my favourite

      2. I’m sure renault has as many problems as all the others but red bull were already a renault team. If renault could they would have not sold engines to red bull but in the end they had to. Just like red bull had no other option but to keep going all the while all the manufacturers were busing inventing reason why they can’t supply red bull. And with ron dennis denying honda from supplying red bull.

        I think red bull might try to block the mclaren move to renault just out of spite as mclaren did not allow red bull to become honda team back then. Although looking at the lists mercedes is supplying 3 teams, ferrari has 3, renault has 3 and honda has one. Next season ferrari looks to have one less because sauber is moving to honda.

        I think the manufacturer’s are really looking at the big picture. They don’t want the customer teams to even steal one point from them. It is not about losing championship to a customer team but it is about not even losing a single point.

        1. good points there @socksolid about Renault/RB

          I guess for teams like McL the best long term solution is to survive until 2020, and hope new manufacturers want to play with them (unless Honda magically sorts things out from one weekend to another).

          At least it is good news that brands like the VW group are attending this meeting for the future of engine rules

    4. @socksolid

      Only thing what mclaren can do is what red bull did. Just wait and hope renault/honda gets their act together and produces average engine instead of completely sub-par engine.

      Striking a deal with Rolex to become McLaren-Rolex next year is what would probably work.

      McLaren-Seiko?
      McLaren-Swatch?
      McLaren-Pebble?
      Heck, McLaren-TAG Heuer?
      Or even McLaren-TAG again?

      1. McLaren – Mickey Mouse Watch?

      2. Michael Brown (@)
        9th June 2017, 15:29

        McLaren-Hamilton

    5. “it is just 4 car race “

      I guess I’m a glass-half-full type, because after three years of it being a two car race with both cars from one team, watching a four car race looks pretty good to me. It’s actually quite unusual in F1 history to have four or five teams fighting for victory, so making that the standard seems a bit unreasonable.

  6. “Unless he knows about the whole thing, however he thinks is fine for me. We know what we do and sometimes things happen and it’s nothing unusual.”

    Big Respect for Kimi…. I guess he is too mature to fall for Hamilton’s petty tricks…..

    1. Arad (@just-an-fan)
      9th June 2017, 13:22

      Or Hami thinks that he is too smart!

      1. Hami thinks that he is too smart!

        Of course he does. He is not smart enough to know that he he isn’t smart.

  7. Hey….. the raft race is back!!! I hope they give us some footage of it. Personally I’m hoping Guenther Steiner takes part for Haas. He looks a bit like a pirate.

    1. No way! That has Liberty stamped all over it – if so, we’ll done Liberty, another nice little example of bringing the fun back to F1 in year 1!

  8. I find it interesting that Verstappen just accepts any call to the pits. This is different from Vettel who has often been heard questioning these decisions, and it often turned out that he was right, and not his team. Max should think of doing the same.

    1. To be fair, Vettel is a far more experienced driver. He’s been through all sorts of situations to understands stuffs a bit better and is known to be one of most intelligent ones. (Not meant to be a slight against VER, he’ll get there with time.) And bar some occasional blunders, RBR’s strategy dept. is topnotch, whereas Ferrari have been making so many questionable decisions over the last few years.
      ‘it often turned out that he was right, and not his team’ Given the amount of money and effort by an army of engineers that go into it, that’s almost tragic.

    2. MG421982 (@)
      9th June 2017, 5:20

      He might be doing it from now on. VET started to question the strategies only after Ferrari messed up few races. This could be the last drop for VER. Otherwise, they kinda have to follow the team decisions.

    3. From what I can remember the only drivers that I’ve heard questioning pit strategy are Vettel, Alonso, Hamilton and Raikkonen for a while now. Hamilton is pretty much always wrong, Raikkonen is also wrong half the time, but Alonso and Vettel make some really good calls in that respect. We don’t hear all radio conversations obviously, but we hear these drivers get info about the races of other drivers as well. Vettel even gets the radio conversations between other teams fed to him and we often hear his race engineer Adami repeating all that to him. It’s said to be a different skill for a driver to be able to give some of their attention to this kind of thing in the middle of a race. I guess all good drivers can develop this as they get experience and get better and better too.

    4. Sundar Srinivas Harish
      9th June 2017, 7:17

      RBR knew that they were taking a gamble, and Bottas managed to put himself in front of Max by just an inch. Making decisions in a high-pressure environment with hundreds, if not thousands, of variables to consider is not easy, and you always do it with a margin of error. Decisions made at 95% level of confidence still have a 5% chance of failure, and Max got the wrong end of the stick in Monaco.

      1. If Max is sore about RBR trying the undercut with him and not Ricciardo he should realise that in order for the undercut to work, the driver attempting to undercut has to be as close as possible to the driver he tries to undercut when he dives into the pit. For RBR to have attempted the undercut with Ricciardo, Max would have had to let him past first. Somehow, I doubt Max would have agreed to swap positions and if he had and the undercut had worked, Max would gripe about that. He needs to grow up and realise that he is part of a team and that the team in question does what is best for the team and not Max Verstappen.

        1. Or perhaps if he’d hit his marks in the pitstop he would have been able to pull off the undercut!

        2. Arad (@just-an-fan)
          9th June 2017, 13:24

          Hahaha like when Dani boy was acting like a spoilt brat because he was not as fast as Max was during QP. Redbull shafted Max just to keep Dani the ego happy!

          1. @just-an-fan I think your tin foil hat is a little on the tight side!

          2. Arad (@just-an-fan)
            9th June 2017, 15:17

            What Mr Horner said after the race says it all!! and BTW, you are right, my tin foil hat is on the tight side!

    5. To be fair, some decisions you can question and some you can’t. When your team proposes an undercut you assume they have seen a nice gap you can fall into in order to push. As a driver it’s impossible to judge whether there is a gap, so in this sense you have to rely fully on your team. In this case there was no such gap (Sainz was a few seconds ahead), which is either a rare mistake by the Red Bull or a deliberate manoeuvre to benefit Ricciardo.

      1. No actually drivers have questioned even the undercut on some occasions.

    6. @mike-dee

      and it often turned out that he was right, and not his team.

      Exactly :p

  9. This is why the Cosworth DFV – Hewland produced the golden era of Formula One.

  10. Does anyone know the value of Jackie Stewart’s retainer with Laurence Stroll? Is it as much as his retainer with Rolex?

  11. Thank you very much for the COTD :) It was nice reading other people’s thoughts on the subject as well.

    1. @spafrancorchamps

      Totally agree with your COTD. I basically said the same thing on a different site.

  12. Alonso -> Mercedes
    Bottas -> Ferrari
    Raikkonen -> McLaren Mercedes

    😊

    1. Arad (@just-an-fan)
      9th June 2017, 13:20

      And where Lewis goes?

      1. @just-an-fan nowhere, according to what @sravan-pe said.

        1. Arad (@just-an-fan)
          9th June 2017, 15:25

          And he think Hami can live with having Alo is his team mate? He couldn’t handle Nico!

          1. @just-an-fan
            Lewis stays. He has claimed before that he’d welcome Alonso as his teammate.
            Mercedes won’t mind I don’t think.
            We’ll all enjoy the fireworks sitting on our couches :P

          2. @just-an-fan

            With respect, are you new to F1?

            Lewis Beat Nico 3/1 and Fernando 1/0

          3. Arad (@just-an-fan)
            9th June 2017, 18:28

            With respect, no! Yes, Ham beat “Nico” 3/1. and for beatign Alo, well it was because of Ron wanted to turn Alo into Ham’s lapdog, just like they made Bottas one(With respect). Button outscored Ham in equal machinery. Ham never had proper competition. Look how it turned out in just three races. Bottas already outperforming Hamilton and the British media went nuts and made toto bend. Alonso, Vettel, Ricciardo or Max would destroy Hamilton in equal machinery.

          4. @just-an-fan

            Once again, with respect…..:)

            ‘Alonso, Vettel, Ricciardo or Max would destroy Hamilton in equal machinery.’

            That is a really, really big stretch. Alonso had equal machinery in 2007, there was even an FIA representative at the end the season making sure of that, as Alonso had a meltdown when it became apparent Hamilton was a prodigy who would give him a very hard time.

            Hamilton in equal cars, beat Button 2/1. The points over 3 seasons argument is just too lame to even get into.

            Lewis has had plenty of ‘proper competition’ since cadet karts, and has come out well ahead the vast majority of the time.

            Granted, this year is interesting. The Merc seems to be very sensitive to tyres and I suspect that over the course of the season, the team and Lewis, will learn how to best get the car working in the optimum window. Over the course of the year, I predict Lewis will come out well ahead of Valtteri. If this does not happen I will admit I was wrong…:)

  13. Arad (@just-an-fan)
    9th June 2017, 13:19

    I wonder what’s the next thing Hamilton’s psychological war machine(AKA British media) come up with.

  14. Sky does not care about what you say Kimi. At best they will find a way to twist what you said so that you “meant” you are number two.

  15. Was reading the article about Robert Kubica.
    He’s just amazing and I feel somehow destiny deprived us of an incredible driver in F1.

    Maybe this is only wishful thinking but… I hope destiny (and Kubica’s hard work!) will get him back to F1.

    Go Robert go!!

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