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Jacques Villeneuve Says Kimi Raikkonen Did Not Deserve His Formula 1 Title

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Jacques Villeneuve says Kimi Raikkonen did not deserve his Formula 1 title

Thursday, August 11th 2011, 09:42 GMT

Kimi Raikkonen did not deserve the title he won in 2007 and he only secured it because he was lucky, according to former world champion Jacques Villeneuve.

Raikkonen took the 2007 title for Ferrari against all odds, after overcoming a 17-point gap in the final two races of the season.

Villeneuve believes Raikkonen's team-mate Felipe Massa deserved the title more.

"If Kimi won the championship, he did it by luck, because he didn't deserve it," Villeneuve told Brazilian website TotalRace after the Canadian competed in the stock car race at Interlagos during the weekend.

"Felipe deserved it a lot more. He was always more capable than Kimi and it was easy to beat him."

The 1997 world champion says he does not understand criticism aimed at Massa for his performances this year, the Brazilian having been overshadowed by team-mate Fernando Alonso.

Villeneuve reckons Massa is performing strongly at the Italian squad.

"The problem is that Alonso arrived and, quickly, became powerful inside Ferrari," he added. "When it happens, it creates an energy that people put inside you, in this case, in Alonso. It seems that, if the car wins, it will be with him. It creates a difficult situation for the other driver, who has a double task.

"That's what Felipe has to do. He has the speed. He is capable of driving strongly, working in the car. I don't have any doubt about that.

"But he needs to do even more, because it's Alonso's team, which is normal, given that he is a double world champion. That's the logic. If your team-mate is a double world champion, it's normal that the team will focus on him.

"He [Massa] has won races and almost a championship, maybe two. He's a great driver. Right now he is driving strongly for Ferrari. I don't get people who criticise him."

I suppose this is Raikkonen's summer thread... Or Massa's? :eusa_think:

Ok, that's finally it whoever gone for good.

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Jacques who? Kimi who? Massa what?

I read that news story too, the best part was where it said he was speaking to a Brazilian website.

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I guess an argument could be made for Lewis deserving it, but Massa? he struggled to match Lewis, Alonso, and Kimi for much of 2007. As far as I am concerned, he won 2 more races than any other driver, and deserved the title. Of course he had some luck, but then you'll find that any driver that's won the title has had some luck on their way to it. Kimi took advantage of that luck and deservingly took the title (as much as it pains me to admit that for a Ferrari driver)

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I read that news story too, the best part was where it said he was speaking to a Brazilian website.

That's not fair.

Who would listen to him other than a Brazilian website... :(

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The real question is did Villeneuve deserve his title. Or Alonso 2005?

Simple.

JV doesn't deserve his nor Alonso's. :)

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'deserve'/'lucky' ... subjective bollocks.

silly comment - sloppy/biased reporting - non-story.

he got the most points. he won. end of.

except to say that JV didn't deserve his WDC he was just lucky to have a great father for a driver and the best car on the grid.

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'deserve'/'lucky' ... subjective bollocks.

silly comment - sloppy/biased reporting - non-story.

he got the most points. he won. end of.

except to say that JV didn't deserve his WDC he was just lucky to have a great father for a driver and the best car on the grid.

i have to say that even if you have father as a great driver you have to make huge effort to be a great driver.

for example, my father is a great tractor driver but i am not even close to him, maybe i could be if i would practice more.

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i have to say that even if you have father as a great driver you have to make huge effort to be a great driver.

for example, my father is a great tractor driver but i am not even close to him, maybe i could be if i would practice more.

Are you Kimi's son?

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i have to say that even if you have father as a great driver you have to make huge effort to be a great driver.

for example, my father is a great tractor driver but i am not even close to him, maybe i could be if i would practice more.

rolleyes.gif

Of course he did. I never said JV got a free ride into F1. No one does.

But had Gilles been a butcher, do you think JV would have made it into F1? Of course not. So (as I said) he was lucky to have a great F1 driver as a father.

Anyway - you evidently didn't realise I was being sarcastic - my comment was a reaction to the silliness of JV's comments/the reporter's interpretation of them.

To be honest I think JV 'deserves' his WDC just as much as any other WDC. He got the most points, he won. Kimi got the most points, so he won. Silly conversations about who 'deserved' their WDC are a waste of time. It all comes down to the usual fanboyism which always bores me. X is better than Y so his WDC is more 'deserved' - tosh. It's all nonsense and as a fellow driver I'm surprised JV said such a thing (more probably, he didn't and it's the usual journalistic hyperbole).

Put it this way - my comment was meant only to demonstrate that we could say any WDC didn't 'deserve' their WDC if we want to cherry pick our evidence. Doing so is childish, unproductive, utterly subjective and demonstrates a lack of grey matter.

Are you Kimi's son?

laugh.gif

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Put it this way - my comment was meant only to demonstrate that we could say any WDC didn't 'deserve' their WDC if we want to cherry pick our evidence. Doing so is childish, unproductive, utterly subjective and demonstrates a lack of grey matter.

It was JV who started all this sh¡t.

So in your opinion he is immature, useless, narcisist and lacks grey matter.

Why woud he deserve a WDC in your opinion? :unsure:

Only because he got "more points"? :rolleyes:

I could meet those requierements but the "more points" thing so I deserve a WDC?

No, wait... :eusa_think:

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It was JV who started all this sh¡t.

So in your opinion he is immature, useless, narcisist and lacks grey matter.

Why woud he deserve a WDC in your opinion? :unsure:

Only because he got "more points"? :rolleyes:

I could meet those requierements but the "more points" thing so I deserve a WDC?

No, wait... :eusa_think:

laugh.gif

exactly

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Are you Kimi's son?

is than some new kind of insult, like, for example,to someone who crashes into your car: " you damn son of Kimi! "

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Utter tosh from Jacques.

A title is a title. Yes, Kimi was fortunate in making up what seemed to be an impossible deficit, but he did it all the same. So more fool the guys who could and should have won it (i.e. Fernando and Lewis). Had Kimi not driven well enough to give himself a mathematical chance, he wouldn't have won it at all. It always makes me smile when people judge a title based on the last few events of the year. The ground work has to be done before that.

Secondly, with regards to Massa, what point is Jacques makiing here? That Felipe can be fast? Well, no sh!t Sherlock. This much we know. He claims that Fernando is doing better because he has enveloped the team around him. Yes, that's what good drivers do. Seem like Jacques is comparing Fernando to an old friend he used to go wheel to wheel with.

More bitter words from Jacques, I'm afraid.

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I actually agree with Jacques. The argument that anyone who gets more points deserves it doesn't work in F1, in my view, because it's not a normal sport. If Nadal wins Wimbledon (to use my old examples) then it's fair to say he probably did so because he was the best player. Not necessarily but probably he was. If Man U win the Premiership, most likely they did have the best players. Not necessarily but probably. In contrast, if Markus Winkelhock leads an F1 race, it does not say anything at all about his ability. So F1 by its own design is subjective and these debates about merit are more important than in other sports.

Imagine if Nadal's sponsors paid for him to have a racquet worth $300m that was demonstrably better than Andy Murray's racquet costing a mere $50m - I think tennis fans would have more debates about merit then too!

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I actually agree with Jacques. The argument that anyone who gets more points deserves it doesn't work in F1, in my view, because it's not a normal sport. If Nadal wins Wimbledon (to use my old examples) then it's fair to say he probably did so because he was the best player. Not necessarily but probably he was. If Man U win the Premiership, most likely they did have the best players. Not necessarily but probably. In contrast, if Markus Winkelhock leads an F1 race, it does not say anything at all about his ability. So F1 by its own design is subjective and these debates about merit are more important than in other sports.

Imagine if Nadal's sponsors paid for him to have a racquet worth $300m that was demonstrably better than Andy Murray's racquet costing a mere $50m - I think tennis fans would have more debates about merit then too!

Does a win by 7-6, 7-6, 8-6, have more or less value than 6-0, 6-0, 6-0? My point being that championships in any sport can be a close run thing. In particular, tennis championships have been won by players where it is so close, it could have gone either way.

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Does a win by 7-6, 7-6, 8-6, have more or less value than 6-0, 6-0, 6-0? My point being that championships in any sport can be a close run thing. In particular, tennis championships have been won by players where it is so close, it could have gone either way.

For me, I always think the 6-0 win has less value because the perception is that there was not much of a challenge, for whatever reason, even though it could be that the winner was just absolutely on fire.

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For me, I always think the 6-0 win has less value because the perception is that there was not much of a challenge, for whatever reason, even though it could be that the winner was just absolutely on fire.

I agree. I maintain that many F1 championships that have been deemed as contentious or undeserving are those judged by the last few races and not viewed as the season as a whole. Put another way, what if Kimi's 17 point accrual from the last two races of 2007 had been achieved half way through the year but then he won the title in Brazil with a win? Would Jacques have viewed it in the same way then? I think not. It would have added up the same but looked different, that's all.

I remember feeling aggrieved at Schumacher's engine blow up in China 2006 because it made it all but impossible for him to win the title in the final race. However, had he not been daft and parked his car at the Rascasse in Monaco qualifying, he may well have had enough points to overhaul Alonso at the last race in Brazil. There are all manner of 'ifs', 'buts' and 'maybes'.

The point is, the events of the races earlier in the year sealed the outcome of that championship. It would have been ridiculous to suggest that had his engine not given way, he would have been champion.

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I agree. I maintain that many F1 championships that have been deemed as contentious or undeserving are those judged by the last few races and not viewed as the season as a whole. Put another way, what if Kimi's 17 point accrual from the last two races of 2007 had been achieved half way through the year but then he won the title in Brazil with a win? Would Jacques have viewed it in the same way then? I think not. It would have added up the same but looked different, that's all.

I remember feeling aggrieved at Schumacher's engine blow up in China 2006 because it made it all but impossible for him to win the title in the final race. However, had he not been daft and parked his car at the Rascasse in Monaco qualifying, he may well have had enough points to overhaul Alonso at the last race in Brazil. There are all manner of 'ifs', 'buts' and 'maybes'.

The point is, the events of the races earlier in the year sealed the outcome of that championship. It would have been ridiculous to suggest that had his engine not given way, he would have been champion.

I completely agree. Sometimes it seems as though the first half of the season never really counts, almost as though it's just the parade lap.

I am sure if Vettel has an indifferent end to the season, which is not looking likely really, then it will soon be forgotten how dominant he has been so far, even if he wins by a fair margin.

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Utter tosh from Jacques.

A title is a title. Yes, Kimi was fortunate in making up what seemed to be an impossible deficit, but he did it all the same. So more fool the guys who could and should have won it (i.e. Fernando and Lewis). Had Kimi not driven well enough to give himself a mathematical chance, he wouldn't have won it at all. It always makes me smile when people judge a title based on the last few events of the year. The ground work has to be done before that.

Secondly, with regards to Massa, what point is Jacques makiing here? That Felipe can be fast? Well, no sh!t Sherlock. This much we know. He claims that Fernando is doing better because he has enveloped the team around him. Yes, that's what good drivers do. Seem like Jacques is comparing Fernando to an old friend he used to go wheel to wheel with.

More bitter words from Jacques, I'm afraid.

Yep.

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I agree. I maintain that many F1 championships that have been deemed as contentious or undeserving are those judged by the last few races and not viewed as the season as a whole. Put another way, what if Kimi's 17 point accrual from the last two races of 2007 had been achieved half way through the year but then he won the title in Brazil with a win? Would Jacques have viewed it in the same way then? I think not. It would have added up the same but looked different, that's all.

I remember feeling aggrieved at Schumacher's engine blow up in China Japan 2006 because it made it all but impossible for him to win the title in the final race. However, had he not been daft and parked his car at the Rascasse in Monaco qualifying, he may well have had enough points to overhaul Alonso at the last race in Brazil. There are all manner of 'ifs', 'buts' and 'maybes'.

The point is, the events of the races earlier in the year sealed the outcome of that championship. It would have been ridiculous to suggest that had his engine not given way, he would have been champion.

+1

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I actually agree with Jacques...

When you actually think about it, you don't at all.

:mellow:

...see.

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I agree. I maintain that many F1 championships that have been deemed as contentious or undeserving are those judged by the last few races and not viewed as the season as a whole. Put another way, what if Kimi's 17 point accrual from the last two races of 2007 had been achieved half way through the year but then he won the title in Brazil with a win? Would Jacques have viewed it in the same way then? I think not. It would have added up the same but looked different, that's all.

I remember feeling aggrieved at Schumacher's engine blow up in China 2006 because it made it all but impossible for him to win the title in the final race. However, had he not been daft and parked his car at the Rascasse in Monaco qualifying, he may well have had enough points to overhaul Alonso at the last race in Brazil. There are all manner of 'ifs', 'buts' and 'maybes'.

The point is, the events of the races earlier in the year sealed the outcome of that championship. It would have been ridiculous to suggest that had his engine not given way, he would have been champion.

+1

A WDC comprises several races and all of them are equally important.

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