Yes this is true, with the exception of Kimi being overrated, I do think he is genuinely fast, although I think Massa outperformed him when they were team mates, but Massa is(was before his accident) fast too lets not forget just how close he came to winning the WC the year Hamilton won it. A two year contract with Kimi is perfect for the team, he is a proper driver, not a 'backed driver' I think it's a good move, perhaps a gamble but I am happy to see him back in F1 if only to shake things up a bit

 

still no decisions about second seat in Williams and Renault, and both drivers at Force India and STR.

 

Ferrari and Red Bull leave FOTA ... no surprise there then, they both have been spending more money than others developing their cars and they want to continue, typical Ferrari tactics ... so next year it will be the 'big' spenders who stick to the top once again ... not that they don't anyway ... of course the above is pure conjecture on my part, but I suspect I am not far from the truth ... that we'll never know.

 

Isn't this just Ferrari and Red Bull throwing their weight around to get what they want in the RRA ?
As I undertand it there is a 2 month notice period to leave FOTA, so expect to see the above withdraw their requests to leave once they get what they want.

No surprise that Ferrari want things to change, they just aren't at the races, but Red Bull, I don't understand their motivation.

 

Red Bulls motivation is that they can spend huge loads of extra money that is available to them of course. Currently they can (officially) only spend the same as the other teams, they can also test for much longer periods of time (testing costs money too of course). Call me cynical if you like

 

As far as I'm aware, testing and engines are covered under FIA regulations, so no team, regardless of being part of FOTA or not, will be able to dodge those rules. Of course wind tunnel testing has no such restriction in place, and this is the really big factor in modern F1. Any team with the ability to spend extra cash on this would be at a big advantage.

Red Bull have said that they will only stay in F1 as long as they're competitive, but with Ferrari looking to be freed from the RRA, they can't stand idly by while the Ferraris start to dominate again.

Ferrari I think are in a bit of a dilemma, they're under tremendous pressure to return to form, they have a tough act to follow, with the domination we saw while MS was racing there. Of course the old Ferrari under Todt and Brawn were well known for spending a fortune, especially on testing, so Domenicali's team are trying to get back on top despite the spending restrictions in place. I think they would prefer to stick with the RRA if possible, but the pressure from management and the fans is forcing them to look at spending their way back to dominance.

On the other hand, the teams are legally committed to the RRA until 2017, so I'm not sure how they can work around that, although it hasn't stopped them before. Like Bernie himself said, F1 is about stretching or breaking the rules and not getting caught!

 

I don't think that's entirely true. Jim Clark used to rally Lotus Cortina's reasonably successfully, as did Graham Hill.

I seem to remember Derek Warwick running in the top 6 of the RAC Rally one year in a Subaru before he fell off the road in, in think, Kielder.

And the other way round, Loeb has been competitive driving GT cars at Le Mans and I seem to recall that Colin McRae really surprised the Jordan Team when he tested one o their cars at Silverstone in spite of the seat meaning that he was sitting far too high...

Having said that, I agree, Kimi sucked at rallying.

 

Probably not fair to say that he sucked at rallying. He was invariably in the top 20 of the WRC guys. Which means he probably could have been a national champion. Just not world class.

It's a very different discipline from circuit racing which may well not have suited Kimi's lifestyle.

And he was quick, but ultimately had too many accidents

 

Loeb is very impressive/freak of nature (delete as appropriate).

I think he could step straight into an F1 car and be competitive in his first season.

 

I don't think he did badly in WRC, but it's a little hard to judge. Unfortunately in today's WRC everybody sucks, except for Loeb.

I was watching Race of Champions yesterday, and that was won by Sebastian "Seb 2.0" Ogier, beating Schumacher, Vettel, Button, Petrov, Grosjean and others.