German Car Zone

This discussion was bound to happen sooner or later.

I know alot of you called him a car wrecker before this season and I wonder, do you still stand by that?

Never said that about him and don't think that about him.

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^ As I said it before, YES and NO.

Both the McLaren's and for a while the Ferrari's he drove were fragile cars and in most cases he didn't took good care of them.

Raikkonen seems to lack(ed ?!) that capacity to truly feel if his car is suffering and manage it properly like the great Alain Prost who was the master in this discipline (and let's not forget Schumacher and Alonso).

The worst of such case was Monaco 2006, where instead of backing off he was right behind Alonso's gearbox, when considering the McLaren's engine cooling problem, would be the last thing he should have done. Also fastest lap at the end of a race is a another NO - NO.

If Raikkonen would have been more in touch and gentle with his car and also be a technical-total package type, by now he would have been triple world champion.

there's no car wrecker driver. drivers are meant to push the car to the limits. it's up to the team to provide the driver a car that can be pushed to the limit to do his job.

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^ On the contrary, managing ones car and working on it with the team were and are considered qualities of a top Grand Prix driver.

Give today's drivers the fragile/unreliable/death-traps of the past and you'd have to hope/pray for the drivers to safely wreak the cars before they'll suffer fatal accidents.

During his stint @ McLaren, I think it was a combination of him pushing the car too much and McL providing a very "sensitive" car.

When he moved to Ferrari, they gave him a more robust car... but I'm still conviced they asked him to modify his driving a bit to easy the abuse on the car. I believe that might have partly contributed to why he had a hard time adjusting @ the beginning of the season.

My toughts exactly.

And McLaren didn't tell him to adjust? Or tell him over the radio not to stay so close behind in Monaco? If they thought it was bad I'm positive they would've said something.

Didn't he set fastest lap near the end of the Brazilian GP two-weeks ago? You know, the same race where he was getting ready to "win" the WDC. That will be a quadruple No-No!

I still stand by the car breaker claim. He has never driven for a really low-level team and still has a ton of DNFs. I think his driving style and management skill has something to do with at least a few of those DNFs. Now, by car breaker, I don't necessarily mean he does something blatant to cause the car to go kaboom. I think he "breaks" cars because of what he doesn't do.