Zehnder: Raikkonen 'drives without instructions'
Alfa Romeo, formerly Sauber, is more than impressed with Kimi Raikkonen.
Raikkonen actually started his F1 career at Sauber as a controversially-inexperienced 21-year-old, with Beat Zehnder as the team manager.
Zehnder is still at Hinwil, and he told Auto Motor und Sport he is now even more impressed with Raikkonen after his 21 wins and the 2007 title.
"Kimi drives without instructions," Zehnder enthused. Indeed, Raikkonen is famous for once telling his Lotus engineer over the radio: "Leave me alone, I know what I'm doing."
Alfa Romeo is even somewhat of a one-driver team at present, as Antonio Giovinazzi has scored just 1 of the team's 31 points so far in 2019.
"We let him down a bit at the beginning of the season," Zehnder said of the Italian. "But now he is improving more and more." But 39-year-old Raikkonen, he says, is a different thing entirely. "Kimi does it all by himself," said Zehnder. "He understands everything.
"The engineers discuss with each other whether we need to change an engine setting, but at that very moment, Kimi changes it on his own. He knows exactly what he has to do and when," he said.
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Nice to hear such comments about Kimi! Even at this stage of his career he will be a huge benefit to any team. Would not mind if he could join HAAS for a year or two..
Must be the best season that Alpha/Sauber have had in a while.
There's an old saying that you can't teach 'experience'. Sometimes I think that drivers retire too soon, remembering that Fangio never sat in a F1 car until he was nearly 40 years of age, Jack Brabham was still highly competitive in F1 into his 40's, Mario Andretti raced Indy cars into his mid-50's and raced Le Mans at the age of 60, and AJ Foyt not only raced Indycars into his mid-50s but still holds the world closed-course speed record of 257.123 mph (413.788 km/h), set when he was 52 years old. The paradox is that your reflexes get slower but your knowledge and experience grows. I think that as long as a driver has sufficient natural talent and they're still actively interested in racing for its own sake, rather than just as a highly-paid career, they can carry on for many years.
"...still actively interested in racing for its own sake, rather than just as a highly-paid career, they can carry on for many years..."
This is so good, absolutely true.
Anyone who follows Kimmi will agree, I think, that this is him!
Kimi is now a hobby driver. How cool is that? The office is near home. The gang are friends from his early years. No no no, not HAAS.
Yea Big norm, I understand what you say :)). Shortly after Kimi joined Alfa, he said racing is now a hobby for him. The team boss replied; "if Kimi says his racing is a hobby, all I can say is that his (Kimi's) contribution to the team is more than any driver I ever worked with". Why I mentioned Kimi for Haas is exactly because of his ability, knowledge & experience. I believe Haas has big potential but desperately needs a driver like Kiwi to "push" them in the right direction...
Had kimi remain in the ferrari team this year I am very confident ferrari will perform very well and secure a few WINS. Kimi is the last driver to to win a championship for ferrari in 2007 and the last driver to win for ferrari last year that is USA GP. I strongly believed that ferrari poor performance this year is due to the team blessed with KARMA (for kicking out KIMI and replaced him with rookie Leclerc).
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