Heikki doesn't get the same treatment as Hamilton, but the team doesn't demand the same from him either. No one demands that he beats Hamilton to keep his seat. He just has to show that he is really fast from time to time. So far Heiiki hasn't shown that ability, so it's no surprise if he is replaced next season.

Same treatment? If so, it is only because he hasn't proved able to push to be equal.

In 2007, at the start it was clear, Alonso was the prime driver but by performing aswell as he did, Lewis was able to push for equal standing, Heikki hasn't able to force the issue like that.

Ofcourse. It is and always be like that. If there's a number one driver and the number two performs better than expected or even better than the number one, the balance changes. Ofcourse Barrichello was the number 2 at Ferrari, ofcourse he did not get the same material as Schumacher, just like Piquet at Renault. But if either one really showed only a PROMISE they could be as good or even better than the number 1 the balance in power will change.

Teamowners are in F1 for winning Grand Prix and titles. Not for the driver himself.

Kovalainen is not as talented as Hamilton but his position in the team has never been comparable to that of Hamilton. Hamilton is a McLaren/Ron Dennis product, they "made" him. Hamilton's success is McLaren/Dennis' success so obviously they were understatably going to do everything they could and more to make him succeed.

If Heikki was better or as good, do you think they would hold him back? no. If you had new parts coming but only enough time to get 1 set finished for the coming race, would you give them to Heikki or Lewis? Lewis. Beyond that the cars have always being the same, it is up to Heikki to peform and make his point to the management. He has not being able to do that and until he does, like with piquet, but unlike both Lewis and Massa.

I have already said thet he's not as good as LH. I would do what McLaren did with Hamilton if he was my product, but without telling any stupid stories afterwards.

I give you five more posts before you drop the A bomb...

what exactly stupid stories? Everything they say is probably the truth.

I have never seen Renault and Ferrari, come out and say the disadvantage the 2nd driver.

Heikki's qualifying pace has been quite good for last year and this but in the race he is absolutely hopeless.

The faster Kova is out of Maca the better. I would love Nico but not Kubica as he is another Alonso. Too much ego as Lewis and Alonso so not good for the team. Kova is not up to standard, he can go back to Renault or retire. The sooner the better....infact i would give him only Valencia to pull his socks off or else fire him. He is a mediocre driver and in the current grid only Piquet was worser.

The other fact is with Kubica, you will have the polish fan brigade.....mad if not more madder than the spanish in their support. The moment their idol is beaten by Lewis and having been in Poland and seen how they treat minorities, it would be worse than Spain....that i can guarantee.

Thats something that puzzles me from the start. He's quite close, frequently even faster than Hamilton in qualifying, but the performance gap in the races is usually huge.

A case of Trulli-disease?

Your world is simple, eh?

But don't worry, in F1, and racing in general, it's always the non-english that are in the minority. So Hamilton shouldn't have much to fear from the evil aliens...

Well, Whitmarsh disagrees with you, and has decided to give Kovalainen a sporting chance to show that he's up to standard. All it takes is a couple of good races from Kovalainen and he secures his seat at McLaren for 2010. We'll see how it goes.

It's not about getting a couple of good results, it's about showing that he is better than the other drivers that could take his seat. If McLaren have better options they'll use them

Any other countries you hate?

Dude, bring something to the table for once.

I must admit that I don't quiet understand why McLaren kept Kova up to now. Sure McLaren knows more than I do. But from my POV he pales even against DC by a long shot.

I do think there are better drivers available. Even since the end of last season. In any case, from certain teams I'd expected better drivers.

I think (from a team morale point of view) he was the right man at the right time. He was (and still is) a very popular personality within the team (and gets on very well with Lewis) according to what I read. I suppose the problem is it may not be enough to simply be 'a nice guy'.

Very true. He does seem to fit in well, and the two drivers seem to get on also. But as nice as he is, he should have been there more when the team needed him last season. Why was he not fighting the Ferraris more often? McLaren needed two drivers to be finishing ahead of or between them, but a lot of the time Heikki was too far back to provide such assistance. There wasn't a single McLaren 1-2 either. And when Lewis was fighting for the title, Heikki clearly tried, but couldn't consistently provide the same assistance that Raikkonen was providing for Massa, and Massa was providing for Raikkonen the year before. It's because he wasn't quick enough in races, sadly, and he finished behind a Renault and 2 BMW's.

McLaren could have had a shout for the WCC last year, and at least some of those 21 points in that gap to Ferrari, should have been scored by their second driver. I do respect Heikki though, and I hope he does improve, because he's a very nice guy and I hope he has a great career from now on.

No matter how well Kovalainen drives, Rosberg's, Heidfeld's and Kubica's fans will always say that Kovalainen still hasn't shown he's better than their favourite driver. So all Whitmarsh is actually asking from Kovalainen is that he drives some strong races, where he extracts the maximum performance from his car. If Kovalainen can do that, he proves he's worthy of the McLaren seat. Watching how Kovalainen rises to the challenge should make the rest of the F1 season a bit more exciting.

He was far from first choice though and very lucky to get the drive. He has had 2 years now in which to show his worth and has failed. With the drivers that will likely be avilable come the end of the season it will be a real surprise if he retains his seat on merit.

Why is everybody neglegting that LH and HK does not have the same car? HK's parts are lagging 1-2 races behind. If McLared does not have new development parts between races, HK's car catches up and they are equal. McLaren knows this and thats why they re-signed him for this year. However the question is that is HK 's perfomance acceptable with those cimcumtances. Well IMO in qual he has done enough to secure his position, but the races he too often just fades away.

For example: If they believe that a new front wing is worth 0.2s per lap and HK's paycheck is 1/5 of Lewis (they would want LH to be for example 0.3s/lap faster in equal conditions), then they would be happy if HK would be lest than 0.5s/lap slower in races with the old front wing. However he has been more slower, I dont know the acceptance level they have. This looks worse to the outside than it in reality is. They don't expect Heikki to be on LH's level at all.

Julli

There was a long quote from him last year wasn't there, about how he was going to change his cornering style away from the classic long arc to Lewis' style of straightening the car up earlier to get the lateral load off the rear tyres before really nailing the power. This was around the time the team rebalanced the car IIRC - according to the engineers' theory and a bit away from Lewis' personal setup which was too on-the-nose karty. But I never noticed any difference for Kovy, it was the same decent Q and fade away in the races. I think he can't drive the oversteer that Lewis uses to get the car straight so early, and that means he uses his rears harder.

Plus I think he just isn't such a predator by nature, so his racing aggression is always a little bit forced, not quite instinctive, and so error-prone.

I like Heikki, like everyone else, but for me a change would be good. It will be interesting to see how someone else copes in that seat.

Probably not all the time, but that doesn't account for Heikki's lack of race pace.

And he's made quite a few unforced errors this year, such as slinging it off with a first-lap tank slapper in Malaysia and crashing at Monaco.

That would be right in a perfect world. In Formula One, there are often other motives at work.

Take the Alonso situation. Briatore is his manager and gets a percentage of his earnings. Renault pays Alonso a lot of money so Briatore gets a percentage of a lot of money. If Piquet had done extremely well, Alonso would not be as necessary for Renault and his wages would reflect that reality. Which would mean Briatore would get a percentage of less money......even if Piquet adds some to the kitty....

Then there is the Schumacher issue. Todt convinced Ferrari that they needed Schumacher, at any price. Ferrari then lured him from Benetton, paying $25m which was a record at the time....Had Irvine or Barrichello upstaged the star signing, Todt would have been the idiot who wasted a fortune on Schumacher when a much cheaper driver could have done the trick......

In short, teams are not monolithic entities. They are filled with people who may not have the same interests as their team beyond the obvious survival of the team. The employee who steals printer paper and staplers isn't out to bankrupt his company and lose his job but his actions certainly aren't benefiting his company....

Why wouldnt I doubt something of which there is no proof? do u have any?

Does anyone really think Rosberg would be any better?

McLaren should man up and hire Kubica, Button or Massa. Red Bull has quickly become a favourite team for me this year in the way they've handled the Vettel and Webber situation, managing them so both can push each other to drive the team forwards.

Ain't gonna happen. I have a feeling that with RD gone, McLaren will go for the "team harmony" route.

During the last decade, RD would always snatch any available top driver in an instant (Montoya, Alonso), not worrying if he upsets his current star. It was probably an ego thing to a certain degree, "the best drive for Mclaren" or so.

In hindsight, that didn't work too well. I consider Whitmarsh more of a business man than a racer, he'll likely approach it more analytical.

But it's mighty difficult to find the ideal 2nd driver: loyal, quiet, ready to play 2nd fiddle without making a fuss, almost (but not quite) as fast as the no.1.... Kova has a lot going for him, except that he's a tiny bit too slow. It's really hard to find the perfect solution like they once had with Häkkinnen/Coulthard...

Of course it's not going to happen, but that doesn't mean that it shouldn't. The Alonso/Hamilton affair was a great example of horrible mismanagement of drivers. Never mind the fact they are both raving primadonnas, with the correct management they could have been devastating over the next few seasons.

I don't think Monaco is a good example - both Lewis Hamilton and Heikki Kovalainen crashed there and both got zero points.

Also, let's consider what happened at the Hungaroring. Heikki was stuck behind Webber for one stint, he was faster, but as all the F1 drivers know, it's very, very, difficult to pass anyone there.

It was hardly a bad performance from Heikki.

Absolutely agree.



I'm not sure if there IS such a thing as "correct managment" in a situation like that. It's bound to explode, or end with one driver leaving, or both of those things. Already Piquet/Mansell and Prost/Senna turned out that way. Sure, the latter was a success in terms of result, but only due to the cars superiority over rival teams. McLaren in 2007 and Williams in the eighties (arguably again with JPM/RS) paid dearly for their "two primadonnas" lineup.

Do you ever read McLaren's post qualifying comments?

Or those of any team?

Lewis overtook Webber after a few laps in Hungary.
Heikki didn't. Despite KERS.

That's Heikki's story at Mclaren in a nutshell. Underperforming since day one.

Just remind me what Hamilton did when stuck behind Webber.

It might be difficult to overtake, but some drivers still try and often do make it happen where others just accept it and do nothing, I rather think HK to often falls into this latter category.

As I mentioned earlier, I don't think Kovalainen is a bad driver.

He's OK, but not quite good enough to warrant a seat at McLaren.

He was good when the team needed stability.

But there are better options on the market now.

Button? He'd blown away and lose motivation. Massa? Would not have a prayer in an equal car. Kubica would be interesting to see. But you're way overestimating what the teams do and don't do. Vettel and Webber are at the start and end of their careers respectively, and they both knew what to expect - Vettel came into the team as the young hotshot already. Lewis and Fenando were at the start and prime of theirs, everyone thought Lewis would struggle but he was leading the championship after 4 races and that caught everyone by surprise. Red Bull's management would have had the same or even less luck. And don't forget that Lewis and Fernando were coexisting until Hungary, which the team did everything they could to salvage - and would have probably if the FIA hadn't stuck their noses in.

I don't see why Massa would leave Ferrari, Button ditto with Brawn. Kubica is likely to join Renault.

I think you are underestimating Button and Massa, yes Hamilton will probably beat them (also I think this would happen) but it would be close IMO.

Perhaps they'll hire Alex Wurz.

Then we can say 'From Bad to Wurz".

Indeed. Actually if PDLR is heading to Campos then they'll need Wurz back (or similar 'senior' driver), quick smart.

you need to either stop the drink/drugs or take a look at the drivers table as that shows how wrong you are.
He is not as fast as LH but heck who is.
The fact that he is 12th having started with a dog of a car says far more than your non-facts.
Yes he needs to improve but in no way is he as bad as you try to say.

Well it's hard to find any actual data to argue with, but consider Jense's second year - blown away completely by Fisi, in a bad car, and very nearly without a drive and out of F1 after it, just picked up by Honda at the last minute. And Fisi in his prime was about Ralf standard, sort of upper midfield. At Honda Jense is only better than Rubens in a very good car and with Rubens at 37 years old.

Massa, well it's an enigma how he's so fast and I don't really believe it. If he could drive understeer and oversteer, like Alonso, I'd be more convinced, but he can't. Can't even find the apex half the time and for me that means the car could go quicker.

And both of them would be smashed by Lewis' all-round game and dominant personality, as we see in the video with Jake this week, how he goes round all the departments asking how they're doing, what parts they're working on for his car, and why weren't they ready sooner . We can see how Fernando lost out, right there. Kovy in many ways has the ideal personality to cope with that, but it's coping by not really going head to head.

Its all getting a bit HSJ in here ...

Well if you have to hold a whip over a drivers head for him to perform better, then he's not worth keeping imo. Bottom line is Heikki doesn't bring home enough points.

Great qualifying by Kova and almost clinched the pole if not for the slight error in the final corner.

Hope he delivers tomorrow. Go HEIKKI!

Not really Xman you seam to ignore the fact that LH was on an even faster lap but decided to abort due to not needing to complete it.

It would be good to see his race results improve.

I guess the old "rocket up the bum" approach to driver management really does work then