SAVE PRIVATE KIMI!! now on change.org

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cbk57
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Re: SAVE PRIVATE KIMI!! now on change.org

Post by cbk57 »

We all know F1 seats are for the young, Kimi is pushing 40, he is not the future of Ferrari, Sauber or any other F1 team. If Ferrari feels it is time for someone new then so be it. I am not angry, sympathetic or anything else. Kimi has had his time and a great career. If he wanted to go out without the risk of demotion then he should have announced his retirement. However, if he is passionate about driving, you only live once and he should drive an F1 car and I mean any F1 car until no one will sign him.

Like any mature athlete he has to make a choice now, personally I would not blame him for driving until no one under any circumstances would let him drive their car and if he can wangle another year or more after that by hook or by crook he should keep driving.

Time and racing will move on with or without him. He just has to decided what he wants his place to be.
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Re: SAVE PRIVATE KIMI!! now on change.org

Post by MoFo »

cbk57 wrote:We all know F1 seats are for the young
Farina, Fangio, Ascari, Brabham, Graham Hill, Andretti, Lauda, Piquet, Mansell, Prost, Damon Hill and Schumacher would all disagree.
Je ne regrette rien.

cbk57
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Re: SAVE PRIVATE KIMI!! now on change.org

Post by cbk57 »

About half of the examples above help your argument a little but they are still the exception, most of them from a time so long ago the cars of that time are irrelevant to now. I watched the Monaco Historic coverage and the cars of Farina, Fangio, Ascari, and Brabham are not relevant to what are driven now. You are also pointing out a handful of exceptions that somehow disprove the facts of life, we get old and our skills diminish. Age caught them all. It is catching Kimi also.

I saw Fangio at the Chicago Historic races years ago, wonderful old man and the all time great, but he was not driving race cars.

On the other hand Mario proves my point as to Kimi, he go older and slower, still wanted to race, kept racing with Michael long after his prime. I did not say Kimi should be out of F1, I would not take such a position. I only say I understand why Ferrari would go to a new driver. Kimi should drive as long as he wants, and someone will let him.
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Re: SAVE PRIVATE KIMI!! now on change.org

Post by Seiiki »

cbk57 wrote:About half of the examples above help your argument a little but they are still the exception, most of them from a time so long ago the cars of that time are irrelevant to now. I watched the Monaco Historic coverage and the cars of Farina, Fangio, Ascari, and Brabham are not relevant to what are driven now. You are also pointing out a handful of exceptions that somehow disprove the facts of life, we get old and our skills diminish. Age caught them all. It is catching Kimi also.

I saw Fangio at the Chicago Historic races years ago, wonderful old man and the all time great, but he was not driving race cars.

On the other hand Mario proves my point as to Kimi, he go older and slower, still wanted to race, kept racing with Michael long after his prime. I did not say Kimi should be out of F1, I would not take such a position. I only say I understand why Ferrari would go to a new driver. Kimi should drive as long as he wants, and someone will let him.
Many of the successful recently retired drivers drove some of those classic cars from the golden days. They all said the same thing. Those cars of the '50 and the '60 era were designed for real 'men' where today's are more for the 'boys'. Why? It is really simple, the older cars had a huge steering wheel and skinny tyres compared with the opposite of today's GP cars. If you wipe out from a dangerous incident today, there are a lot of safety features in place to ensure the driver's safety. In those days, the drivers were either trapped in a flaming tin can or hurled out like a speeding projectile (no seat belts) and a helmet barely stronger than a coconut shell.

Modern guys like Hulkenburg, Vettel and others tried the turbo charged cars of the 1970s and the 1980s. They couldn't even shifting gears properly. Even legends like Schumacher said he would poop his pants if he had to drive Fangio's W196 at the GP in the 1950s, simply he wouldn't know how to stop the car properly from full racing speed.

You must be a pretty young guy. So I will encourage you to watch some of the classic footage of the GP from the 1930s all the way to the 1970s. If you really wanted to see the art of mastering a modern GP car. 1986 with their 1.5L Twin Turbo V-6 qualifying engines (1,300 to 1,500 bhp) with the nastiest qualifying fuel and the stickiest tyres compound. For the races, they are tuned down to about 950 bhp.

As Gerhard Berger said, "You need to have cajoles to drive those cars."
Canice

cbk57
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Re: SAVE PRIVATE KIMI!! now on change.org

Post by cbk57 »

So the point is now modern cars are easy to drive? We know they are safer, but give me a break. The modern car and the vintage car are not the same skill set, I would agree both are hard to drive really fast.

We know the drivers took their lives in their hands to drive the old cars, that does not mean that age does not effect driving skill at the limit. A different kind of driver was best suited to those older cars than the modern driver.

I am simply agreeing that Kimi is getting older, he has not won a race in years, rarely has improved his position during a race in recent years and it is understandable why Ferrari would go to a younger driver.

I am old enough to believe a 48 year old super star of the 50’s is probably not going to cut it in a modern F1 car. That does not mean Sebastian Vettel would cut it in a Alfa 159 either. That is not my argument.

Why are we arguing that old drivers, could handle modern cars but young drivers could not handle old ones, that makes no sense in any event. There is no absolute rule and there would be an outlier to either position.
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Re: SAVE PRIVATE KIMI!! now on change.org

Post by JamesB »

To make things lighter, I just twitted this drawing for a TV caricature contest (or kinda)...
hope you like it. :D :D

Image

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Re: SAVE PRIVATE KIMI!! now on change.org

Post by stubeck »

Seiiki wrote:Modern guys like Hulkenburg, Vettel and others tried the turbo charged cars of the 1970s and the 1980s. They couldn't even shifting gears properly.

When'd you see this happen? I don't think I've seen any of them have issues with it. There have been tons of broadcasts of drivers driving these older cars.

Any of the comments about the cars being "easy" to drive are typically when someone is driving them without being timed as well, so I'd take the "easyness" with a grain of salt. All cars are easy to drive when you're driving slowly!

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Re: SAVE PRIVATE KIMI!! now on change.org

Post by cbk57 »

If I am reading right after a quick check there are only 4 active drivers over 30:
Kimi. 38
Fernando. 37
Lewis. 33
Sebastian 31
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Re: SAVE PRIVATE KIMI!! now on change.org

Post by daveyman »

When you have a current driver jump into old machinery of course they are going to question the safety of the old cars because they have the new cars to judge against but if they'd been around in period they would have been competing in whatever car was the best available to them.
As for Kimi, I just don't get the cult status, doesn't do much for me. Good solid driver but not quite the top level now, complemented Seb very well but it's probably time to move on. Surprised at the Sauber switch tho.

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Re: SAVE PRIVATE KIMI!! now on change.org

Post by stubeck »

Grosjean is 32, Hulkenberg is 31. Just for interesting data, Stroll is 19, Verstappen is 20 and Leclerc is 20 as well.
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