Am I, no insult intended? You seem to take great delight in trashing Ferrari on this forum, having said that I am critical of their stupidity which goes back to the days when SF ditched Ross Brawn as team principal for Italian personnel. Bad strategy calls, poor aero and a failure to recruit the right people. Even when they do get the right engineers they dont give them the freedom and are strangled by internal machinations. We can all marvel on the successes of the MB team and continued dominance for several years but in my book if you handicap the opposition (perhaps by design) for that period then their achievement is hollow. Kind Regards tony
Kind of wild that teams aren't allowed to compete in a competitive sport. This token BS was absurd when they came up with it and it hasn't gotten less absurd over time.
I agree, but the teams signed for these rules, including the ban on testing, the number of power units, the token system, etc ... I am sure they knew what they were signing!
Things ran very smoothly for them at their big German anniversary race. Maybe it was the German costumes they were forced to wear...
You seem to forget the fact that Schumacher WANTED to stay with the Scuderia for the 2007 season; but was FORCED OUT by Montezemolo .
LdM on Michael's return to the Scuderia: “I was very sad when Felipe had this terrible accident in Budapest, so I asked Michael to come to my office,” Di Montezemolo said at the opening of the Schumacher exhibition in Cologne. “I said to him, ‘Listen Michael, you have to do that for me and for Ferrari – you have to come back’. “For half an hour he could not be persuaded. After an hour he said: ‘Okay, I can not refuse this’.” But, Schumacher was ultimately unable to return on medical grounds after a recent motorcycle accident, despite blowing off the cobwebs by testing in the F2007. “He went into the racing department and was full of enthusiasm, like a kid or a young driver,” di Montezemolo added. “Then he went to Mugello and did a very good test with the old car. “Unfortunately his doctor had to stop him from returning. “He said [Michael] was not ready, which was bad for all of us.”
The problem was the triple contractual commitment between Massa-Raikkonen-Schumacher and Ferrari. Schumacher sacrificed himself not to ruin Massa’s career. But it also seems that LDM did not hold him back too much..
Not true: Ferrari offered the contract to Schumacher a couple of times with ultimatums and MS never signed. Eventually it got so late in the season that Ferrari had to make the decision for him and they kicked him out at Monza. But MS could have prevented all that by not being a prima donna and instead signing the paper earlier.
WDC came down to the last corner at the last race against one of the better drivers out there. Nothing to be ashamed about.
With severe support from the FIA who took away points from Hamilton and gifted some to Massa. Remember Fuji? It was a contrived championship where they were trying to keep it interesting. Should have been decided a while ago in Lewis' favor.
What made me a Massa fan was at the post conference he said i know how to win and i know how to lose. That showed character in defeat.
I think the Spa race stands out also that season. Rain, Hamilton & Raikkonen go off the circuit, Hamilton passes Raikkonen, concedes the lead back and then immediately attacks him and passes him in the chicane. Penalty of 25 seconds and demoted out of the points. Controversial decision in that there is no real standard for when a driver may re-engage an attack following an off-circuit pass. I think the penalty was more due to Raikkonen crashing out while trying to challenge back for the lead, so the stewards felt both drivers should be, in effect, penalized.
I don't recall him winning the WDC... and this was Hamilton's 2nd year in F1 vs Massa's 6th. None of them had a very dominant car. Massa should have won against the rookie.
To be fair the F2008 was a slightly better car than the McLaren this year. Hungary and Singapore didn’t help him I have to say..
Kimi didnt show up to race that much for that season. He was the biggest joke and still is. He lost or was going to lose to Massa 2 out of 3 years. FA exposed how poor Kimi really is in comparison to other drivers. Kimi is beyond over rated and is the perfect team mate for that other over rated WDC Vettel. Be gone both of you soon hopefully. I rate Massa above both of them. Actually MS was not wrong about Felipe at all. He is and was a good F1 driver. Kimi is lazy period. Vettel has the operating window of a .001. If its not a car perfectly suited to him he cannot compete. Same for Kimi. I have zero enthusiasm for either driver. I liked Kimi until Massa blunted him for his lost WDC season and then the next where he was leading Kimi AGAIN before his very serious accident. Kimi - fun for about 4 minutes then he fades out. Ferrari FIRED him. They paid him off rather than keep him. Thats all anyone needs to remember. His legacy is one title and lots of races where he made zero impact. Years now. Years. His seat has been utterly useless. The Vettel-Kimi years = DISMAL for Ferrari. Vettel needed another driver to push him and keep him under threat. It was much too relaxed with Kimi. Ferrari have it correct now with driver pair. Hope the next car will see both drivers able to excel rather than 1!!!!!!!!!!!!
I couldn't agree more with your post. The rot started with those 2. Having 2 previous WDCs in the stable didn't help the Scuderia at all. The present pairing of Leclerc and Sainz is the best hope of recovery for Ferrari, but the car has to be better.
Not sure it was, i think they were very similar, and a bit track dependent, i just think massa os the best driver and was making the diference. Massa lost points due to the FIA giving the ECU to Mclaren, who built them for everyone. Fisrt race Ferraris blew up because they didn't knew how to operate them, that alone was enough to give elton the title. If you add the incredible luck elton had in Monaco (a race he was nowhere), and Massa's misfortune at Canada, Germany, Hungary and Singapore...he would have won it by a "landslide!