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Best Kimi moment was the “Did you win the Championship?” question he posed to Hamilton

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Or when he won and his mechanic told him he won the race, his response was “F#&@ing finally”. Classic Kimi

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Bwahaha I thought I misheard him! He is the one person I will always support no matter what.

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Interviewer: “What kind of a relationship do you have with Peter Sauber?”
Kimi Raikkonen: “He is my boss.”

Interviewer: ”What makes TAG Heuer special?”
Kimi Raikkonen: “It’s okay.”

What are Kimi’s thoughts on helmets?

“It protects my head.”

Interviewer: “Kimi, what happened?”
Kimi Raikkonen: “I spun.”
Interviewer: “And a bit of a disaster then for you and for a few others with the yellow flags?”
KR: “I don’t care what happened to the others.”

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Or the fact that he never answers his phone either :stuck_out_tongue:

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Or when asked about his helmet ritual :

“I wipe it so I can see”

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But in all seriousness, the Finnish people are just like that. Kimi is just on the extreme end of the scale. Remember Mika HĂ€kkinen? He used to give two sentence answers to everything and had the personality of a wet tea cosy. Even Bottas (being on the complete opposite end of the scale when compared to Kimi) will only ever answer a question using as little words as possible in order for the answer to be clear, grammatically correct and to the point.

I work with some Finnish people, and you’ll ask them a question like “What do you think of that?” and you’ll get a response along the lines of “it works”

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https://www.pitpass.com/63273/Ocon-and-Magnussen-disqualified-from-United-States-Grand-Prix
Esteban Ocon and Kevin Magnussenhave both been disqualified from today’s United States Grand Prix.

The Frenchman, who finished eighth, was disqualified for exceeding the fuel mass flow during lap 1, a breach of Article 5.1.4 of the technical regulations.

“We didn’t get an advantage,” insisted team boss Otmar Szafnauer before the stewards reached their decision. "There are track limits but if you go outside track limits, which you shouldn’t do, then if you haven’t gained an advantage they don’t do anything. If you have gained an advantage then they do something. This is another limit where we haven’t gained an advantage. I think it is unprecedented.

“What happened was that there was a spike of flow and then a trough,” he explained, “so if you look at it over a lap it was neutral. If you look at it over the lap there is no infringement, but it depends how you chop up the lap. This is the first time it has happened.”

Magnussen, who finished ninth, behind Ocon, was disqualified for another fuel infringement, in this case consuming more than the allowed 105kg of fuel over the course of the race.

Magnussen’s disqualification wraps up a dreadful home race for Haas, teammate Romain Grosjean having been handed a 3-place grid penalty for next weekend’s Mexican Grand Prix after colliding with Charles Leclerc on the opening lap, the Frenchman forced to retire shortly after.

The disqualifications promote Sergio Perez to eighth, Brendon Hartley to ninth and Marcus Ericsson to tenth.

https://www.pitpass.com/63272/Another-penalty-for-Grosjean
Romain Grosjean has been penalised following his collision with Charles Leclerc in today’s United States Grand Prix.

The pair were seen to collide during a frantic first lap at the Circuit of the Americas, the Haassending the Sauber into a spin after colliding at T12.

The stewards, having reviewed the video evidence and heard from both drivers and their team representatives, deemed that the video showed that entering turn 12 Grosjean locked tyres and made contact with Leclerc.

As a result of the incident both cars suffered damage and while Grosjean retired after just 2 laps, Leclerc also retired, albeit 29 laps later.

The Stewards noted that Grosjean lifted and braked early because of the positions of the cars in front, but nevertheless made contact with Leclerc.

Handing the Frenchman a 3-place grid drop for next weekend’s Mexican Grand Prix, a penalty point on his licence brings his 12-month total up to 10, just 2 short of a mandatory one-race ban.

Meanwhile Haas teammate, Kevin Magnussen, who finished ninth, is under investigation as his car consumed more than 105kg of fuel, from the time at which the signal to start the race was given to the time the car had crossed the line after the end-of-race signal had been given.

Also, under investigation is Esteban Ocon, who finished 8th, for an allegedly exceeding the fuel mass flow during lap 1.

From what I gathered they said he would have come out in heavy traffic which would have slowed him down. With new tires he would only have had a certain window to really work them and gain an advantage. Using the tires in traffic would have just been a waste.
Lewis was not 100% happy with the decision in his post race interview.

I must say what a race! Nice to see Hartley beating Gasly even though Gasley suffered some damage.
I also enjoyed the brief moment when Danny lead Nico Hulk in the early parts of the race.

Personally I think their was less effort put into the setup of Bottas’ car in order to get Lewis’ car blessed beyond words. I saw a post above saying he shouldn’t be with Merc. For now he is the best option. He will never really be a WDC contender, has the pace to qualify just behind hamilton and whether they admit it or not, his job is to slow the race down to let Lewis do his thing.
My prediction is Lewis has mentioned to Toto he is only really here for the next couple of years and Bottas will be dropped end of 2019 to make way for Ocon. Merc need to nurture talent in order to stay competitive post Hamilton.

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My feeling is that Hamilton will stick around for 2019/2020, but I doubt he’ll stay in F1 for the 2021 season. Bottas might stay until then, but Merc will start looking for a Hamilton replacement (which might be Verstappen) and a teammate/blocker for the new No 1 driver, which might very well be Ocon.

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Interesting, you think they’ll try and pull Verstappen? I wonder if Merc doesn’t have plans with George Russel, seeing as he’ll be in the Williams next year, and Toto still has a considerable investment in that team. Plus George was walking around the pit lane during the race with Merc clothing.

I think you are right, Russel is a merc groomed kid, I suspect we will see him there soon

Lewis is definitely not gonna stay longer than 2020 - he is working very hard on his career after F1.

Toto’s no fool, he’ll work Russel in at some point. The huge vacuum that a Hamilton exit will leave needs to be patched in such a way that they have a “star” capable of winning races with little to no push from support staff. Whether that’s Russel or someone else we’ll have to see. There’s some good talent bubbling up through the ranks at the moment.

However I expect plenty of current drivers to retire from F1 end in the next 3 years.

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Best of the rest surprise driver of the year.

With the 2019 grid filling up, just two seats are available.

I thought it would be interesting to discuss which two drivers you think will surprise us outside of the top 3 teams.
A surprise is a sudden jump in performance ie Lance Stroll sitting within the top 10 in the WDC.

My first guesstimate goes to Danny Kyviat - He once fell into the top 6 in terms of names in big teams. It is reported his downward spiral also had something to do with personal problems. Him and Red Bull believe these problems are resolved and he is hungrier than ever.
I think Danny’s talent will be pushed to the max next year. He will be in half a 2018 RBR chassis (as reported) coupled with what promises to be a fantastic Honda engine (we can only hope). I think Danny will sit around 10th this next season.

Out on a limb here, my second guesstimate goes to Mr Stroll! yip, lancealot.
He might come from money and have Daddys help, but he really did well in his build up to F1. I feel they bought the first seat they could find and it turned out dismally.
Look at Monza 2017 - he qualified 2nd. Monza has shown some surprises in qualifying, but play it on Xbox and see how flat out the course is. No room for error whatsoever. Personally I think Monza is a course that shows hidden talent. Lancealot also managed a 3rd in Azerbaijan in 2017. He sat in second up until the last straight where Bottas powered past him.
I think Lancealot has talent and a new car will show what he is made of.

I did consider Danny Ric and Kimi, but as they have just left a top tier team I don’t want to classify them as best of the rest.

Biggest flop might just be Gasly.

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Also who else heard the cat?

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Hahaha this! I laughed for that.
Also now that we see Vettel crack, I want to see Hamilton in a non competitive car XD

Me waiting for @GregRedd 's summary post about the Mexican GP


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