Dude, where the hell are you people on qualy? Some fans you are...

Chicken wings FTMFW!

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are the mclarens going to be penalized for blocking heidfeld & alonso ?

 

Yep penalized 5 places each....

http://www.itv-f1.com/News_Article.aspx?id=42094

"The McLaren drivers have both been moved five places down the Malaysian Grand Prix grid as a punishment for impeding Nick Heidfeld and Fernando Alonso in qualifying.

Heikki Kovalainen and Lewis Hamilton will now start the race from eighth and ninth positions respectively."

This race will be a wet track. Now I'm stressed about having Glock and David "the spear" Coulthard behind them. If you wonder about DC, think Monaco 07 here.

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when i was watching i couldnt understand why hamilton and kovalainin didnt move off the racing line when they slowed down...

looked mighty dangerous for heidfeld.

 

Now we'll see what Hamilton is made of. Only once he's started outside the first 2 rows (P10), and he only managed a P9 finish.

 

Race starts at 15:00 in Sepang, Selangor, Malaysia.(half hour after this post) It is being carried live on SPEED. It is hella hot here, sunny and bright, about 90F, but rain clouds are whispering. Go Vodafone!

 

solid race by kimi woot!
great to see rk and hk on the podium as well!

 

massa is gonna get dropped from the lineup if he keeps choking. haha

 

if they drop him, i doubt that any other team would want him.
i am totally convinced that he is contracted as a # 2 driver.
what a waste, maybe they should have him testing, and get anyone else.

 

Give a poor fella a break.... He did his best and ended up in a ****ty situation.
I'm sure he'll learn from his mistake and finish strong in the end.

S-F FTW!!! Great race!

 

Interesting question. Who would they bring in?

Trulli? Always a brilliant qualifier - has he finally matured enough to last the distance, every time? Perhaps.

Promote Badoer or Gene?

Heidfeld or Kubica? Kubica is best-of-rest thus far, and NH posted the fastest lap at Sepang while also pulling one of the best manuevers this weekend to simultaneously pass DC and Alonso. With BMW seemingly pulling it together, would they let either driver leave?

 

they could bring heidfeld, vettel, alonso , or kubica. Plus i beleive that it is any drivers dream to drive for ferrari, so they should not have any problems when it comes to recruting drivers.

 

After Shumacher left, Ferrari treated both drivers as equal, you could see that there was a competition between Raikkonen and Massa during the first 2 stints, right after Massa lost the car, Raikkonen eased up his pase. It was said last year that Ferrari has signed Massa until 2009 or 2010 but they should be able to brqake his contract if they chgoose to. There are rumors that Shumacher recommended Vettel to replace Massa next year, nothing has been verified.

Massa qualifies well and drives fast as long as he is upfront but if he finds himself driving in the infield he is done, he cannot overtake many people and he does mistakes as well, he was the first to complain about the bann of driver aids. To his defence though, mistakes like that are very easy to do, just ride the curb a little bit deeper and the car immediately brakes into oversteer, its very hard to catch. For drivers of that caliber though...these kind of mistakes are unacceptable. In the start of the race he almost took Raikkonen out when he tried to block him to save his position! If he had hit him that would have been the end of his carrier at least at Ferrari.

 

It's not a question of having trouble recruiting the drivers. Heidfeld, Kubica, etc are all under contract, right? They can't just get up and leave. AFAIK.

I'm sure David Beckham was more than willing to leave ManU for Real Madrid. But that didn't stop Madrid from having to spend megabucks on his transfer fees.

So the drivers have to be either out of contract or have their current team willing to let them go or have the new team (Ferrari) pay up to buy them out of their contract.

Ferrari probably feel they have a lot invested in Massa. Add to that a huge expenditure to buy out the contract of a Kubica or an Alonso, and they will have some second thoughts.

PS: of all the names mentioned here, Alonso seems a little unlikely, don't you think? I would presume there's some perception of disruptive influence - since Ferrari came out of the dark ages post 95, they've been a relatively harmonious team - certainly nothing like the type of infighting which plagued MM last season.

 

+1. While not sure that the McLaren drivers did this intentionally , it sure as heck was imprudent, probably unsafe while the other drivers are gunning like hell to top-qualify, and stupid on Lewis' and Heikki's part. Had the shoes been on the other foot, would they NOT have also *****ed??

 

Maybe, but no so fast in the season while the drivers are already under contract. Plus, how to bring them up to speed so quickly and shuffle out the departing driver?

 

It seems to me that Ferrari has a capable test driver.

What's his name??? Michael Schumacher?? Something like that.

 

Then you are spending alot of money on both drivers, just not financially smart imo. Plus you have two drivers used to being number 1, that could cause a rift.

 

if they (Ferrari) want a particular driver they will be able to negotiate with any team , except mclaren & maybe williams.
Plus dont forget that Alonso signed 1 year with renault & Vettel drives for a team that uses ferrari engines as well as co-owned by Berger.
Plus a driver cannot perform against his will with a team (remember Button with williams).

Asfor Massa im sure they can keep him as a test driver or exchange him with STR or maybe send him back to the simulator

 

Luca Badoer and Marc Gene are the full-time test drivers. MS is probably retained as an ambassador as much as anything else. In the grand scheme of things, I doubt they are paying all that much for his test driving. Has he done much/any testing since Catalunya way back in the off season?

Not sure if you're referring to KR and MS, or KR and Massa.

If you're referring to MS, I doubt there's much reason to worry (see above). He is probably the least involved (time-wise) of all 5 drivers at the team (2 race drivers, 2 full-time test drivers). It's not like he's competing for the engineers' attention to get his setup race-ready. And if he really wanted to, he could just walk back into the team, it's not like he has to sabotage either KR or Massa to come back.

If you're talking about the current race drivers, well there's nothing new or uncommon about competition between drivers on the same team. Most teams have no defined #1 driver. The Senna and MS years were more of an exception than the rule.

Look at it this way: any driver would want to be his team's designated #1. If you were the driver, wouldn't you? Problem is, the teams don't want to sign people like that, unless it's the only way to get a Senna or a Schumacher. Even Alonso was not considered good enough to be a contracted #1 driver (MM fans don't give me any koolaid here about Ron Dennis' principles and how he always treats both drivers equally )

 

I think he's referring to KR and FA on the same team.

 

Well, FA found out the hard way that he won't be the designated #1 at the current frontrunners (MM, Ferrari). MM made that embarrassingly clear last year, and there's no way Ferrari would subordinate a reigning world champion like KR just to get FA.

In general, I agree that the perception of disruptive influence will make it unlikely for FA to replace Massa (if that was what FThornton was trying to say).

Looking at it another way: in Kimi, Ferrari have a driver with a realistic 50-50 shot at the drivers championship. In that scenario, all they need from the other driver is enough points to help secure the constructors' crown.

There's a decent-enough probability Massa scores enough points as HK or close to, in which case KR's lead over LH gives Ferrari the constructors'

So what's the upside to hiring FA? Very little. FA whoops HK and helps Ferrari dominate the WCC, so what? Dominating the WCC is worth the same as winning it by a couple points. The WDC gets all the media attention anyway (how many people know Mika won the WDC in 1999 and yet Ferrari won the WCC?). Maybe the WCC is great for sponsorship deals - even then, they simply need to win it - the margin does not matter.

OTOH, there's plenty of downside to hiring FA. So why risk it? Either keep the faith (and investment) in Massa for the time being, or just get another young driver who can match points with HK.