We are not saying this -- a former McLaren Mercedes engine expert is saying it.
Why so? Seems the quiet brooding Finn is a hard driver - and he bangs the car about a lot, and things can easily break and fall off! Fernando Alonso too is known to be quite the same, by the way. Mario Ellen, the ex-McLaren guy, says Ferrari has a tough job to build a car like that.
"No one drives the machine harder, no one bangs it so hard lap after lap into the kerb," the Swiss, who left Formula One in 2005 and now has an Ilmor MotoGP team, told Sport Bild on Thursday. "Ferrari will have to build Kimi a tank if they want to win the title with him."
Probably. Even with a McLaren F1 that was obviously slower than its competition last year, Kimi still maintained his reputation as the fastest driver on the track. And if one looks back at 2005, remember how blazingly fast Raikkonen was, how fast the car was, and how predictably it used to fall apart everytime it looked like Raikkonen is going to catch up to Alonso?
Meanwhile, barbs are flying between McLaren, Kimi's former team, and the Finn. While LcLaren boss Whitmarsh said that Kimi would have to change his style at Ferrari, and Kimi shot back that whatever the style, it was a slow car which screwed his chances last yeat, and it had nothing to do with his driving style!
In other news, Giancarlo Fisichella is doing a good job testing the Renault R27, setting the pace with a best time of 1:20.193 at Jerez. This is his first chance too, to be out of the shadow of the double Formula One world champion Alonso for the first time and show the stuff that he is made of. If he doesn't do it for Renault this year - the way he had that magnificent win in Australia in F1 2006 - it will be a matter of time before he joins the ranks of the F1 drivers who are never considered potential winners.
Update: Now Illien says he did not say anything of the sort, and that he has not spoken to anyone about such stuff in a month. Guess that was overnethusiastic reporting by someone.Labels: Ferrari, Formula One |
