blake
GilesGuthrie
I think that the Kimi/Ferrari thing is a smokescreen. I think that they're after Alonso.
Well Ferrari have said who they would prefer to have ... and it wasn't Alonso.
"I consider a young man, who drives for a German-English team, to be the better choice."
--Jean Todt
It's interesting that you quoted me and then Jean Todt. I read that quote too, and personally I believe that specific statement to be the smokescreen I was talking about. In my view, the fact that Briatore is saying he's not for sale (which is about as credible a statement as Jenson Button saying he's going to drive for a specific team next year), and the fact that Todt is making overtures about Alonso's big championship threat, are two classic indicators that there is misdirection going on.
Ferrari is driven as much by the Tifosi and the Italian media as anything else, and I believe that the comments made about Raikkonen's personality in this thread, whilst not affecting his ability as a driver, do reflect a lack of personality, a lack of anything behind which the media and the Tifosi can set their store. Compare that with Alonso, and his quiet but apparent determination, and you can see that Alonso is the better fit at Ferrari, even if he is probably not as absolutely quick as Raikkonen.
Plus, McLaren will try to hold on to Raikkonen at all costs. And we've seen in the past, that when they wish to hold on to someone, they make
dramatic stuff happen. Witness Olivier Panis becoming the first ever multi-million-dollar test driver, and the talk of a TAG McLaren America's Cup team when Newey was thinking of going to Jaguar. But most remarkable was that when all the active electronics were banned, between them McLaren and TAG (owned by McLaren 40% shareholder Mansour Ojeh) bought the highly-respected British hi-fi company Audiolab, and turned them into TAG McLaren audio, just so that they could hold on to all of their electronics engineers.