I'm a Ferrari loyalist and they just extended their 5-year run of making things difficult for even a diehard fan like me.
Ferrari's the only make to enter
every single season and race since Formula One rose from the ashes of pre-war Grand Prix racing in 1950.
They're also the only team to build the whole car, chassis and engine, completely in-house.
Everybody else sends their engines out to the dedicated construction facility (chassis builder) even if they happen to own said chassis builder.
Things were a lot more interesting back before the great recession when BMW, Toyota, and even Ford (through Jaguar) were all in the series too.
These days there are only 4 and that only because Honda got back in a couple of years back.
My favorite driver of all time is Kimi Raikonnen.
Posted the fastest lap time in F1 history last year.
For Ferrari.
Before Kimi it was Niki Lauda.
It was easy to be a Ferrari fan in the Schumacher era, and even when Kimi was their number one driver and took their last championship in '09, but while Schumacher might have actually had superior skill sets he didn't have the same type of guts to keep going that Kimi and Lauda do/did.
He was a lot better with the press than Vettel, though, so I can get why Ralf isn't a fan just because he's German.
To tell the truth I thought he was kind of full of himself when he won the 4 championships for Red Bull Renault from his rookie season, saying "
Anybody can do that if the
car's dominant enough."
Which it was.
He grew up a bit at Ferrari but started sliding again with whining about the team's goofs.
Which might have been true enough but something Schumacher
never did which just made him a more appealing and classy character.
I have to say the most incredible piece of driving I ever saw was this, Schumacher at Spa in '98:
One needs to understand that just before this impact, Schumacher was coming up behind Coulthard at the apex of a turn in blinding rain, as one of he commenters on that video recounts:
"...if your were watching it he was incredibly fast (in the rain). Michael was about to overlap David witch was 2nd position in this race when he suddently slow down to let him pass (should't do that in the rain cuz visibility is way reduced) and you know the rest."
I still have this on video from the live feed (I used to record the season) and the overhead shot is even more astounding because you can see how suddenly Coulthard slows down and when Schumacher rides over his rear tire, the Ferrari does a little fishtail wiggle
in the rain while Schumacher casually gathers it up and proceeds down the road as if nothing happened, 3/4 of the way around the track back to the pits.
And neither Raikonnen nor Lauda were ever accused of unethical shenanigans
like this:
"Monaco GP 2006 - Michael Schumacher v Fernando Alonso
Whether it was deliberate or simply driver error, Schumacher's reputation was hardly enhanced during qualifying. With title rival Fernando Alonso on a flying lap and likely to claim pole position, the German 'parked' his car at the penultimate corner, bringing out the yellow flags, and guaranteeing him pole position. However, after qualifying the German was stripped of pole and forced to start the race at the back of the grid."
These days even when Vettel makes an honest mistake and hits Hamilton (as opposed to when he did it on purpose last year after thinking Hamilton brake-checked him), or gets hit by him, even in the dry he takes a spin.
I was able to forgive him in Abu Dhabi this year when Hamilton finally got by him because he really had no choice if he wanted to keep position, and that particular track is the worst in the calendar for traction, it's got sand blowing across it randomly, for C's sake.
But watching Leclerc lose his turbo when he was clearly set to win was just one more Ferrari let down of a driver.
Last year I quit watching whole races because of that kind of BS.
And Räikkönen - he must be passionate about racing after so many years. Hope he gets better car in future.
I kind of wish Ferrari'd kept him and let Vettel go although that wasn't until yesterday watching Leclerc perform (before that I would have said keep the Vettel/Raikonnen pairing).
To be fair Alfa's as close as you can get to Ferrari, being literally the factory "B" team, Ferrari engines in Alf chassis so there's tons of development potential there, and I think they offered Kimi a whole lot of undisclosed incentive to take that position.
Like maybe even a piece of the team.
And he's well known for being able to communicate well with engineers, if not necessarily his race coaches:
"On another occasion, he was racing for Lotus at the 2012 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
The team had not won any races for a very long time and Raikkonen was leading the race. A nervous Lotus radioed Kimi some instructions but Raikkonen shut them down with a retort. He said, “Leave Me Alone, I Know What I’m Doing”.
He won that one.
More Kimi
here:
Interviewer: “The most exciting moment during the race weekend?”
Kimi Raikkonen: “I think so it’s the race start, always.”
Interviewer: “The most boring?”
KR: “Now.”
Tell it, Kimi!