Speculation-thread: Will Kimi be in WRC or F1 next season?

[spinster]

I still think that Kimi has enough long period plan to WRC that he gives himself enough of time to become as top driver. I am not sure how serious he think that could win champion but I am sure that some podiums in single rallies are realistic. AND this will be fantastic achievement what is in my eyes much more than two or three champions in F1.

Hi Moominpappa...

I really can't believe that our Kimi is going to be happy with some podiums...

To be honoust...What do we think of a champion of Michael Schumacher (which i don't like)... do you think he'll just keep driving around to make some numbers and to destroy his name? Nope!

So will Kimi...he won't drive around for 2/3/4 years without fighting for the win. I'm damn sure of that...

I'm sure something is going on and to be honoust it's much too silent from all f1 journalists on Kimi... I think the Robertsons and Kimi having a big deal which can only be announced after the season because if they would announce at this moment there would be too much confusion for championship contender MW to concentrate on what he needs to do

[sleenster]

I think it's Red Bull F1 or nothing, he's not going to drive for some midfield F1 team. He doesn't want to drive for Renault so I think he wouldn't want to drive for Mercedes either.

The only problem I think is that James Allen (I think?? ) was saying that the only seats left in F1 are the pay driver seats. But we'll see, only a few more months of crazy speculations peeps, so enjoy it while you can!


Hi spinster

[spinster]

I think it's Red Bull F1 or nothing, he's not going to drive for some midfield F1 team. He doesn't want to drive for Renault so I think he wouldn't want to drive for Mercedes either.

The only problem I think is that James Allen (I think?? ) was saying that the only seats left in F1 are the pay driver seats. But we'll see, only a few more months of crazy speculations peeps, so enjoy it while you can!


Hi spinster

Hi sleenster

Well I think also that it will be RBR for 2011 but you never know that Norbie crushed Kimi and the robertsons to sign for Mercedes

But if every journalist would know what's going to happen and what's still an open seat and not there would be no silly season. Did James knew about MS Comeback last year? Or even DC didn't know that Kimi could go to RBR(and he's in the red bull family). So in F1 everything is possible and do not forget how clever Kimi and His managers are...


Kimi himself is honoust BUT HE IS VERY INTELLIGENT, much more than than every single journalist can imagin...

[sleenster]

Good point, spinster.
Kimi was intelligent enough to know that Mercedes was going to be a crappy car this year, even Schumacher didn't see that coming

[spinster]

Good point, spinster.
Kimi was intelligent enough to know that Mercedes was going to be a crappy car this year, even Schumacher didn't see that coming

I remember a chat that I had last year in Spa with Kimi first engineer Jacky Eeckelaert. He said that Brawn was just very lucky of having the resources of Honda (He was also engineer at Honda in 2008) and the double diffusor in the first 6-7 races. After that you could already see that Brawn couldn't follow the speed of upgrading like Mclaren, Red Bull,... and he said it was because all good engineers, workers were already gone from the team because Brawn didn't have the budget to deploy 900 persons like Honda did. Mercedes this year have that problem and you can notice that too again... Look to Renault, Williams who even develops faster.

A week ago i saw an interview where someone of mercedes said that they need new and good personel to work...

And Jacky said that Kimi is very well informed about such situations...

And he said Kimi call him sometimes at night when he's completely TUUUTTTT I thought i was going to die i laughed so hard

[Boudica]

I don't think there is actually anything new for this article
http://www.rallye-magazin.de/index.php? ... e1132b50ff

But from what I can make out from the garbled google translation...

Citroen is going to able to produce 5 DS3s for next year: two for Seb 1.0 and Seb 2.0, two for Sordo and Kimi in the Junior team and one for Petter Solberg, if he can bring the money. So it seems like even though Sordo and Kimi have not signed yet, Citroen are assuming that they will be in the JT next year? I think the article also says that Red Bull is only sponsoring the main team next year, so the funding of the JT is in jeopardy.

If someone can confirm that my interpretation of the article is correct please help

That is interesting. I didn't see any reason for Red Bull to stop sponsoring WRC entirely, but if they are thinking of lessen their WRC expenses then they might as well start with the junior team. Of course that doesn't mean that Red Bull will stop sponsoring Kimi, they have sponsored him for many years, so I guess it is all a question of how much they are going to sponsor him.

Hi Everyone,

It's a long time ago that I left a message but I'm reading all your quotes everyday...and to be honoust I really don't know what to think of kimi in 2011...

To be honoust this are my thoughts...

I believe that Kimi really like the world of WRC. But to be honoust it's a little bit the same as in F1. Everyone wants to interview Kimi and keeps asking the same questions about his future and what he wants to do. so that's quite the same as it was before. As for sponsors he also did some things for red bull and he knows damn very well that he needs to do the pr, as well in wrc as in f1.

But the big thing is that I can't believe that Kimi wants to drive for 8th places or in the best case a 5-6th place. Next year (if he'll be in WRC) it's very likely he'll fight for even lower places because there will be a lot more competition as this year. Kimi always said that he is not interested in just driving around... and guys I'm a huge Kimi fan but I don't believe he will ever be TOP in WRC. And that is what I think Kimi is thinking about...

My guess he's eyeing an f1 comeback together with a couple of rallies. It's now or never for F1 and that's not the case in WRC. He easily can have a seat there in the next years and if he thinks after some years he want to quit because he can't match the top than no one will ever blame him for that.

But if he would quit f1 now he could have a big regret later on...

My guess is Kimi wants to come back otherwise he would have really ruled out F1 a long time ago and that's something he didn't do

Hi!

Personally I think it is a bit premature to say that Kimi will never reach the top, sure he might not be winning championships. But he has plenty of speed for someone who doesn't have the necessary experience. I am pretty sure that Kimi realised before he entered WRC that it wasn't going to be a quick and easy road to the top, he has already rejected a Red Bull and a Mclaren seat, and realistically there isn't any viable seats in F1 at the moment.

[Boudica]

Good point, spinster.
Kimi was intelligent enough to know that Mercedes was going to be a crappy car this year, even Schumacher didn't see that coming

I remember a chat that I had last year in Spa with Kimi first engineer Jacky Eeckelaert. He said that Brawn was just very lucky of having the resources of Honda (He was also engineer at Honda in 2008) and the double diffusor in the first 6-7 races. After that you could already see that Brawn couldn't follow the speed of upgrading like Mclaren, Red Bull,... and he said it was because all good engineers, workers were already gone from the team because Brawn didn't have the budget to deploy 900 persons like Honda did. Mercedes this year have that problem and you can notice that too again... Look to Renault, Williams who even develops faster.

A week ago i saw an interview where someone of mercedes said that they need new and good personel to work...

And Jacky said that Kimi is very well informed about such situations...

And he said Kimi call him sometimes at night when he's completely TUUUTTTT I thought i was going to die i laughed so hard

[SpaMaster]

Hi spinster, welcome here. Thanks for the Brawn/Mercedes story.

Thanks to sleenster and meizi for the article. It makes sense for Red Bull to continue sponsoring the main Citroen team while pulling the plug on the Junior team, if they want to reduce sponsorship.

Boudica: Just because Red Bull has sponsored Kimi over many years does not mean they would go out of their way to hang onto Kimi. As Kimi said it is just one year contract. The previous personal sponsorship may not mean much.

[brendakarli]

Hi Spinster,

Welcome and why did it take you so long to come and join us? Your insights have added more color here and I was just thinking about what you said regarding brawn's need for new and better personnel - this may sound silly but I wonder if Renault may be looking to hire brawn and schummy to get more sponsorship as I think they are much better than petrov's ability to get sponsorship (which is paid until the last race for season 2010 and petrov is certainly no 7 time WDC )...and that may be why EJ was saying how brawn and schummy were on their way out and haug visited kimi some time ago... I feel that Mercedes surely has the money to catch up on the development race with the other big boys. The only issue is the engineering team (how good are they etc) and maybe this is in kimi's mind - he needs to be sure the team has what it takes to see him driving at the top of the order.

As for Redbull, it certainly doesn't start with the letter "M" but after reading what DM said about equality etc, I do think they would continue with MW unless he wins the WDC and would really like to retire - which again depends on whether he wins it or not. Hinsta speculates that the black horse would win it this year and I concur since the horoscope indicates he has the best luck of all the contenders I think this will then lead to MW to continue for one more year - although RB may very well sack him for failing at the very last race to clinch the WDC (for example). In any case, if RB has the WCC in their bag, I dun think they would really mind if they did not get the WDC as well. I believe some teams value certain titles more than others

So it seems we are back to square one - and yes, it is getting more and more suspicious why kimi wouldn't come out to confirm that he is out of F1 for good even with the renault incident infuriating him. good thing is that renault may have stopped using his name or commenting on it now Let's make a side bet that we''ll take this thread to page 300 before kimi announces where he'll be for 2011

[sleenster]

I'm not sure if Kimi actually needs to come out and make a statement that he definitely won't be returning to F1. As far as I can see, the only purpose it serves would be to satisfy our curiosity. Kimi really really dislikes talking to the press so I don't see why he wants to give any statements to the press right now whether he will or will not be going back to F1?

I mean, this is the same guy who for weeks didn't say anything at all when Renault was just using his name to get every little bit of publicity they could get. After like 2-3 weeks of Boullier giving an interview every single day saying bla bla bla Kimi Kimi Kimi, only then Kimi got fed up with the whole situation and put an end to it.

Maybe he already made his decision already, I don't know. But whatever Kimi is thinking, he's only going to be sharing it with his inner circle, he's definitely not the type of person that needs to issue a press release every time his mood changes.

[Vida]

And I'm sure that his inner circle wont say a word to the press and keep it quite till the time to announce it.. which makes us the outsider standing on a limbo....

[beefree88]

Hi Spinster,

As for Redbull, it certainly doesn't start with the letter "M" but after reading what DM said about equality etc, I do think they would continue with MW unless he wins the WDC and would really like to retire - which again depends on whether he wins it or not. Hinsta speculates that the black horse would win it this year and I concur since the horoscope indicates he has the best luck of all the contenders I think this will then lead to MW to continue for one more year - although RB may very well sack him for failing at the very last race to clinch the WDC (for example). In any case, if RB has the WCC in their bag, I dun think they would really mind if they did not get the WDC as well. I believe some teams value certain titles more than others

So it seems we are back to square one - and yes, it is getting more and more suspicious why kimi wouldn't come out to confirm that he is out of F1 for good even with the renault incident infuriating him. good thing is that renault may have stopped using his name or commenting on it now Let's make a side bet that we''ll take this thread to page 300 before kimi announces where he'll be for 2011

Well, if anything, last year taught Kimi that never say never. He always avoided giving promises and stating things. He knows that circumstances might change and then the whole thing just leads to more questions and talking instead of doing, which is a scenario he hates.
I doubt RB would break Webber's contract if he doesn't win the WDC. That's a logic people started to accept as normal after Ferrari used the same kind of lame excuse to kick out Kimi.

[Julia]

That is interesting. I didn't see any reason for Red Bull to stop sponsoring WRC entirely, but if they are thinking of lessen their WRC expenses then they might as well start with the junior team. Of course that doesn't mean that Red Bull will stop sponsoring Kimi, they have sponsored him for many years, so I guess it is all a question of how much they are going to sponsor him.

about Rb sponsoring citroen. They have sponsor the main team since 2008 so in 3 yeas now. The juniorteam they have only sponsor since the beginning of this year, and the only reason for starting to sponsor even them is Kimi... so the question for RB seems to be is it wort putting 10 miljon more into WRC and have Kimi as their name also or do they get as much exposure as they can by only sponsor the main team... I have to say that it is a quite sensible question to ask and it can be that the rational answer at the moment is no... but then again is it long term better to keep Kimi if they risk to lose him to the monster squad? Seems that RB isn't ready to do any decisions before the end of the year... How much do they get if they win the WCC in F1?

About that he hasn't ruled out F1 completely:

Well Kimi has in different words and a couple of times stated that never say never but he will probably not go back to F1 and also that he will probably drive rally next year...so he has stated what is the bigger chance he do next year but not ruled out anything completely... don't see any need to do more accurate statements before contract announcements.

[beefree88]

That's right...but he told that already enough that he always wanna fight for a win and I never believe that Kimi will keep racing for low places and be honoust guys the difference is more or less the same as always between the top WRC drivers and kimi...

and we all looking forward when he really can drive on tarmac...why? because he's a circuit driver and no one will ever be and F1 WDC and WRC champion...

Have you ever seen someone quoting that he or she is sure Kimi is absolutely Rally champion material?

Kimi needs to come back...

He's not racing for low places, he's racing for improving his skills and to find his limits. He probably does not assume he already reached them after only about a dozen of races.
Kimi knows that to achieve anything he has to learn the ropes first, than put a lot of energy into whatever he does. The first part is hard for him, because he's extremely competitive, but if he feels he's improving, and he could achieve more, that helps to keep his motivation up. That was how he rose through the ranks in circuit racing, persisted, and finally suceeded in F1. I think he probably has moments, days, or even weeks when he feels down, but he's used to fighting hard for his goals.

[brendakarli]

hmm, all very valid points - we are all outsiders, so we remain mystified about kimi in 2011...and the thread is approaching 220 pages

I'll point to the hint made by hekki kulta though, that drivers and teams usually negotiate quietly and discreetly until a deal has been well and truly confirmed and even then, they wait for the right time to make announcements; not like how renault was making so much noise in public.

And it seems the paddock is extremely quiet even among teams indicating they have available seats etc. I think this year is really special as there could be major shake-ups despite the many drivers with extended contracts in top teams...esp after what ferrari did in 2009, the public can no longer trust what these team bosses say anymore


Leanne Rhimes: Shame on you if you fool me once, shame on me if you fool me twice!