Kimi talks with Williams? - No. Signs with Lotus Renault for 2012

[TayTheDay]

Yeah I know Alonso pushed him, I wasn't trying to say it was Romain's fault. I'll admit I was kinda arguing one side of the story to make Kimi look comparatively better I suppose I should hold back on the Grosjean bashing as well... I will be cheering if/when he wins a race.

I just hope Lotus & Raikkonen have a long and happy future together and I want to see what he can do with a car that he's 100% happy with.

 

[prisonermonkeys]

I say; Give Kimi what he wants and let the results speak for themselves.

Except the problem - going by Hughes' article - is that Raikkonen isn't telling them what he wants in the first place.

Let's be fair... that wasn't Grosjean's fault.

None of his retirements have been. He was hit by Maldonado in Melbourne, by someone (it was never worked out who) in Malaysia, and now he got squeezed by Alonso and Schumacher in Monaco.

 

[Hun200kmh]

Yeah, it was Hamilton's fault (sorry, couldn't resist )

 

[Kamuifanboy]

None of his retirements have been. He was hit by Maldonado in Melbourne, by someone (it was never worked out who) in Malaysia, and now he got squeezed by Alonso and Schumacher in Monaco.

I recall watching Grojean go too deep and hitting Schumacher at Sepang. Maybe that wasn't the cause for Grojeans retirement but, not everything is not his fault. I'm honestly very puzzled by hearing this from Renault. Generally most teams look at results, regardless of what happens. And the fact of the matter is that Kimi is consistently finishing and finishing in the points (All but China). While Grojean being equally (and sometimes faster) than his teammate, has been found sitting on the sidelines for half of the season.

Don't get me wrong. I was very wary about Grojean coming back to F1 after, in my opinion, he failed on his first attempt. And he's showing the team that he should have gotten the second attempt. But, he's got to start doing something to finish races.

 

[Blaze_409]

I think its this awkward situation where Lotus have the quickest car...but only when its hot. He knows the car has so much potential and was pretty upset about only managing 5th when many people thought he would be in with a shout for pole position. When your only looking forward at the places you think you should be in you never give a thought about backing out of a squeeze such as in Monaco.
If he had been more humble about it all he probably would not have had that situation happen to him.

similar to when Maldonado started on pole in Monaco he said he only thought about finishing on the podium. Grosjean only thinks about winning.

 

[Ardius]

Hmm, I don't know what to think about this really. All this time Boullier/Renault laughed at the prospect of hiring Kimi. Then they praise Kimi when they hire him. Now apparently we are expected to believe they don't like him again?

I don't remember any of this rubbish about steering issues before with Raikkonen and all of the teams before (bar Ferrari 2009) were pretty satisfied with his input.

Raikkonen has been plenty faster than Grosjean every race so far except Monaco. Thats not to say Grosjean has been slow - he's been very good and he can't be expected to beat Raikkonen. But lets create conspiracies, why not?

I think the motorsport media are getting bored and writing up grand stories on the smallest issue. I'm sure Boullier has a vested interest in Grosjean doing well as his manager, Total are onboard for Grosjean and it would be nice for Renault too.
But to suggest after just one race that the team are giving up on Raikkonen is completely laughable. What on earth would they gain from that? If this is true then this is almost McLaren-2007 stupid.

by someone (it was never worked out who) in Malaysia,

I think you need to re-watch that race.

 

[Blaze_409]

But to suggest after just one race that the team are giving up on Raikkonen is completely laughable. What on earth would they gain from that? If this is true then this is almost McLaren-2007 stupid.

.

BMW Sauber 2008 stupid.

 

[prisonermonkeys]

I recall watching Grojean go too deep and hitting Schumacher at Sepang.

While Grosjean did hit Schumacher in the opening laps, it was a separate incident. Grosjean hit him somewhere around Turn 4, but he himself was pushed off somewhere around Turn 9.

 

[Prince.M5]

While Grosjean did hit Schumacher in the opening laps, it was a separate incident. Grosjean hit him somewhere around Turn 4, but he himself was pushed off somewhere around Turn 9.

You mean the one where he spun into the kitty litter at turn 8? That was all on himself...

I had massive aquaplaning into turn five and unfortunately ended up going backwards into the gravel.

 

[RTSolvalou]

Given the way Boullier defended Grosjean's questionable DNF, I'd say that they indeed have already moved to favor him over Raikkonen.

 

[prisonermonkeys]

Given the way Boullier defended Grosjean's questionable DNF, I'd say that they indeed have already moved to favor him over Raikkonen.

I don't think so. If the team had done that, we would have heard about it by now - Raikkonen might not say much, but that doesn't mean he says nothing at all. He joined Lotus under the belief that they could provide the best car available, and they had to be pretty convincing given how close he was to signing with Williams. If he thought that Lotus had already given up on him and started supporting Grosjean before him after just two races, he'd certainly have something to say about it.

No, I think Boullier's defence of Grosjean comes from the way he was pushing for Grosjean to join the sport. Boullier was part of a "task force" (you know things are serious when people start describing themselves as a "task force") aimed at getting the French Grand Prix back on the calendar. It was decided that the easiest way to do this was to make Formula 1 relevant to the French people again by getting a talented French driver into the sport. As Grosjean was the reigning GP2 champion at the time, he was seen as the ideal candidate for this.

The problem was that although being GP2 champion, Grosjean had already had a shot at Formula 1 in 2009. And even though the Renault R29 was not a very good car, he still visibly struggled; as Martin Brundle put it, Grosjean spun so often that he spent most of his time looking back at the part of the circuit he'd just driven on. As has been established several times before, success in GP2 does not guarantee success in Formula 1, and after two early DNFs in a car that was clearly quick, Boullier was probably feeling - or at least a anticipating - some pressure to justify signing Grosjean in the first place.

So I don't think Lotus are favouring Grosjean over Raikkonen just yet, but if Raikkonen continues to do what he did in Monaco, it wouldn't surprise me if Lotus start favouring Grosjean before too long. The topsy-turvy nature of the championship fight this year leads me to believe that teams will start throwing their full support behind one driver much sooner than they would earlier. I'm predicting it will come once someone scores his second victory of the year, especially if his most-immediate results were good.

 

[Ardius]

Given the way Boullier defended Grosjean's questionable DNF, I'd say that they indeed have already moved to favor him over Raikkonen.

Are you suggesting it was Grojean's fault? What was questionable about it? Alonso forced open a gap and Schumacher went for a gap that was there. Grosjean got surprised by Alonso and never even saw Schumacher so tried to avoid Alonso and give him the space but in doing so drove into Schumacher.

If that isn't the definition of "racing incident" then I don't know what is. Its also a very common and typical grid-start incident as they jostle for position. You can't expect the drivers to be looking ahead and in two mirrors all at once.

The driver that started it all was Alonso forcing a gap that wasn't there. He effectively muscles himself through. Equally Schumacher was being highly optimistic to go around the outside and go 3 almost 4-wide into a corner that barely copes with 2-wide. He was never going to make a move stick around the outside like that.
But still, no one was really to blame for their actions as its all fair. Its just that way it goes that they ran out of space for the kinds of moves they trying to pull off and it didn't work out.

The last person I would blame for that is Grosjean - even if he hadn't swerved into Schumacher, the gap for Schumacher was going to disappear eventually into that corner. Schumacher should also understand the risk in going 3/4-wide into turn 1 and realising those other drivers are going to be a little busy avoiding each other.

 

[Hun200kmh]

^^^^ Fairest analysis of that 1st corner incident I read to date. 👍

 

[niky]

Actually mind-boggling how anyone could fault Grosjean for that incident at all. Like blaming the pinball for the tilt...