It’s finally almost over. @Electrifying
Q1 in Abu Dhabi: Vettel, Bottas, Hamilton and Ocon.
Q2: Hamilton, Verstappen, Vettel and Bottas.
I give up. Vettel was fantastic today and yet nothing. Fuck off british dictator. Pole again.
Normal start.
Oh fuck! Hulkenberg almost killed himself here!
He is ok though.
Meanwhile, Leclerc is showing he is a WC driver.
Leclerc wants to overtake Kimi 
Ocon vs Verstappen again :lol:
Verstappen finally overtakes Ocon.
Raikkonen has to retire. Leclerc 4th.
Pit stop for Hamilton and Leclerc.
Hamilton goes until the end.
Fantastic battle between Hamilton and Verstappen.
Vettel looks to struggle with his tyres.
Slow pit for Seb.
Verstappen pits as well.
It rains!
Ricciardo finally pits. Interesting to see if he can still win it.
YES SEB! He overtaks Bottas.
Bottas is struggling with his engine.
What an overtake by Verstappen!
If Bottas survives next year at Mercedes I’ll be amazed
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Bottas having a mare lol!
Might be a close end between Lewis and Seb.
Nah…Vettel can’t do it.
Hamilton wins, then Vettel and Max. See you next season 
@Mysty tribute to a true Ferrari legend, the last Ferrari champion, the last Ferrari race winner and the last Ferrari pole-sitter.
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Guess who was the fastest driver in Abu Dhabi during Pirelli test :kos2:
Cheers @Electrifying , I’m glad Kimi’s final year at Ferrari proved to be a really good one. I can’t help but feel though that I wish they’d fully got behind him during his two stints. They always seemed to screw him over too often and could’ve focused on him better. But like I say, he managed to create some good memories from there.
The WDC and his recent win at Austin were really special. I don’t know what I want him to achieve at Sauber, it’s gonna be weird seeing him in a midfield team. I guess if he gets a podium anytime in the next two years, would be a great achievement for them.
What did you guys make of this season? I think it was a really good season. Quite a lot of really good races, and some good battles. Guess the only thing missing was the title battle going all the way to the end.
I really hope the rest of the field can close up though. The gap between the top three and the rest is just ridiculous. I’m somewhat desperately hoping Renault can bridge the gap. Ricciardo/Hulkenberg mixing it up the sharp end would be so good to have!
2019 in general has so many interesting changes, what with various talents like Leclerc moving to Ferrari. Red Bull going the Honda route. Feels like a real shake up.
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I think it was a fantastic season until the summer, with lot of twists and turns, then it became a bit boring. I was really sure Ferrari would have won the title this year 
Tbf he wasn’t blameless. 2008 was a disgrace, how he didn’t win the title in that car and let Massa take the Ferrari charge, his pace and performances that year were perplexingly terrible.
And of course some of the same applies to his later stint.
But on the whole, the good bits overshadow the bad ones for me, and I will love him.
My favourite Kimi Ferrari moments:
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The whole second half of 2007. After France I really felt he was coming for the title, and by Spa he had the McLarens SHOOK (of course this was after they had themselves shook lol)
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That Monza pole this year. Everyone went mental at an all Ferrari front row. It was great
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Belgian GP 2009. Shit car, shit year, but Kimi rescued a win from it in a brilliant drive.
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The Austin win this year. Relief as Kimi finally won again.
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2008 Spanish GP. Dominant win and his second from the first 2 races. It looked like it would be an easy stroll to his 2nd title with his teammate being his closest competition, but alas that wasn’t how it went down. Had no idea what happened to him after but at the time this felt pretty good.
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I somewhat disagree about 2008 being a disgrace though. Without going into massive amounts of details, but there was a lot of politiciting going on behind the scenes around then. I’ll have to find you a link I came across ages ago, that timelines certain events that happened from his title, to when he left the first time that properly got screwed over by.
Sure, I agree that in 2008 he did make some silly errors here and there but I always hear the line of “He lost motivation” etc, but he lost of a lot of points that year. Without he’d have been right with Lewis and Massa. Of course, racing is all about ifs and buts, everyone drops points but some were out of his control.
To break it down:
Australia: Problem in Qualifying, has to start way down in 15th. Of course this is pre DRS days, so passing is a problem, but he some how recovers to 3rd place, before he dropped down the order and then car packed up.
Canada: Jumps Hamilton in the pits, waits by the pit lane exit by the red light, but plonker Lewis smashes into the back of him and is out. Lost the bare minimum of a podium that day.
France: Crusing to victory when his exhaust begins to break off and loses power. Has to let Massa by and settle for 2nd.
GB: First 20 laps, he’s the fastest man on track and catches Lewis for the lead, before the rain falls and Ferrari’s wet weather performance turns to shit. Eventually recovers for 4th, while Massa spends the day applying for Dancing on Ice.
Valencia: Retires with an engine failure while running comfortably in the top 4.
Belgium: Crusing to victory until late race shower brings him towards the clutches of Lewis. They then have the epic battle. Unfortunately Kimi decks it with two laps to go, but god damn, should’ve won or at least 2nd.
Singapore: One of several drivers fucked over by crashgate incident. Not as severe as Massa, but he rejoined right down the order. Some how managed to get up to 5th, though unfortunately clipped the wall near the end.
Lastly China. Gave up second to Massa, to help his title bid against Lewis.
So yeah, sure 2008 wasn’t his best season, but it was skewed badly by ridiculous amounts of stupid things out of his control. Points alone, he lost between 30-40. And again like I say, that’s not even going into the politics of the team taking development onto Massa early that season, even though Kimi was ahead. But that’s another story for another time.
Sorry I’ve gone on massively here (so much for not going into details 
), it’s been a good while since I had a proper debate on F1 
Me either. Let’s do it buddy 
Aus: yeah agreed, but he could have won the race from that position. Like you said, masterfully gets himself up to 3rd, but he dropped down the order because he spun himself out like a mug (like Seb this year) trying to pass Heikki.
Monaco: crashes into Sutil comically.
Turkey, Bahrain: slower than Massa which is fine because he was a super Saiyan at those places.
Canada, France, GB: fine, agreed. Kimi would have won had Lewis not been a moron.
Germany, Hungary, Valencia: this is where I have problems. Horrible races with shit pace then a fastest lap out of nowhere at the end. Much slower than his teammate.
Italy: nowhere
Belgium: agreed
Singapore: his pace was still pretty bad that race iirc. The retirement was almost a reprieve for me, iirc.
Japan: pretty poor pace again, outpaced by Massa.
Agreed re China.
Brazil: slower than Massa again but again that was a Massa track.
I’m sorry man, I just don’t believe the front suspension stories.
Kimi was always Ferrari’s best shot at the title, they wouldn’t purposefully screw him. They just added bits to make the car faster and maybe Kimi couldn’t adapt.
He seemed to improve towards the end of the year anyways, but by then it was too late.
I’m almost as angry at him for 2008 as I am for Seb for 2018. But Kimi gets a pass because of 2007.
Maybe not purposefully screw him, but there’s definately a shift in how the relationship changes after he won the title. I think some of that boils down to the fact Jean Todt, who was a big fan of Kimi, left the team prinicipal role after the season ended. He ran the team perfectly and the balance was just right parity between Kimi and Massa. From 2008 onwards though, Domenicali took over and things began to shift slightly.
I also don’t think it helped having Schumacher as an advisor. He should’ve left the team completely after 2006, instead of hanging around like a bad smell. He always had a good relationship with Felipe which carried over the next few years. Remember Malaysia 2009? He played his part in the pit call on putting Kimi out on full wets during his stop, on a bone dry circuit 
One of the worst pit decisions I’ve ever seen.
Also around 2008 there was a lot of stuff going on with trying to sign Alonso and wanted to get part ways with Kimi, which I’m sure wasn’t exactly much of a boost in confidence either for him. I don’t think di Montezemlo was much of a fan of Kimi, and perhaps expected something else from him.
I think the trouble was at the time, Kimi needed a team where they can build him the car and he does the rest, while Ferrari wanted a Schumacher clone of really rallying the team and that’s not really Kimi’s style. Kimi was most suited to Mclaren I think, even if he hated Ron’s restricted methods. Kimi with age or his time away from F1, I think gave him some new perspective on things and came back a better driver and person. So it’s stuff from his side and stuff from Ferrari it’s fair to say. I think the second stint has worked out better between them this time. Probably helped having a team mate like Seb supporting him last few seasons.
Brilliant
What on earth is going on with Vettels top lip 
Some more
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It’s so weird to see Kimi conveying normal humsn emotions lol
Saw that on Instagram earlier. Brilliant 
Thought this was a pretty interesting article. I’ve got no knowledge of F1 history, well I was only 10 when this went down, but pretty interesting accusations by Michael. What do you think @mysty would Mclaren purposely sabotage him or is it just sour grapes?
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