donskar wrote:If true (will this break some rule on amount of testing allowed?), this should be a good thing.
I think if ESPImperium's post is current and accurate, there'd be no problem. It's just that if Kimi would really use up 9000km in testing runs, then he'd be using up SFM's remaining allowed testing KMs for this year. Which then would lead me to assume that Kimi will be taking up all remaining pre-season development duties for the F2009 car. If true, the big question for 2009 is how Massa will "fit into" the new car Kimi will be developing. But I digress at that point.
donskar wrote:One thing I've never forgotten this season: a quote in MotorSport attributed to a Ferrari insider - "Technically, they [Kimi and Massa] are useless."
One wonders how well Ferrari might have done with a top quality development driver.
I don't know...Kimi's mechanics and engineers from his McMerc days always say that he's a good development driver and can give very accurate feedback. It was just back then, he (or McMerc) had always been plagued by unreliability. IMO, if he was still working for that team today he'd have won the championship last year by a considerable spread.
About top quality development drivers...they'd always relied on Badoer and Gene in lieu of their racing drivers even during the MS days. But test drivers are just that...test drivers. They can only do so much in developing a car for the race driver. It's always up to the race driver to drive the "tested" developments and fine tune it to his own liking. Like I said in my previous post on this thread...it might just be down to how much time Kimi had tested this year. And any reason why he hadn't put down those testing times when it had counted for this season is any one's guess.