Anonymous asked:
i’m new to f1 but santander got kimi booted from ferrari!? do you mind explaining? are they not just a ferrari sponsor? i’ve seen ppl talk about them and carlos but i didn’t realise they had much power
karmacharmeleon18 answered:
“There are many reasons. In F1 there is always a lot of money and there can always be different options. That’s what happened in the end. It’s nothing to do with racing or what I do in the team.”
- Kimi Raikkonen
…
I suggest checking out this article for a more in depth explanation:
Santander is not just any sponsor, it’s one of Ferrari’s MAIN sponsors. It’s also a Spanish business conglomerate/bank with almost 150 billion dollars in assets. It’s a financial powerhouse not only in Europe, but all over the world, especially Latin America (which is important, as you’ll see).
Santander sponsored Ferrari when Alonso joined the team (2010), cut ties with Ferrari 3 seasons after Alonso left, and only started sponsoring the team again when Sainz joined the Scuderia (2021).
In 2007, Kimi Raikkonen joined Ferrari and started racing alongside Felipe Massa.
Unfortunately for him, that’s when Santander expressed their interest in starting to sponsor Ferrari.
From that moment on, the Spanish press and media started a huge smear campaign against Kimi, saying that he had no passion or interest for the sport, that he was cold and only in for the money, that he was washed, etc.
When Ferrari defended Kimi, said they were happy with his results and that his contract would not be broken, the Spanish press and media said it was all a smokescreen to hide the truth: Kimi was going to get sacked! And Spanish motorsport hero Fernando Alonso had actually already signed to replace him!
It didn’t matter that Ferrari, Kimi and Alonso himself debunked these rumors. All of Spain was convinced Alonso was going to debut with Ferrari within the next season.
That didn’t happen, of course, as Alonso only joined Ferrari in 2010 (same year as Santander started to sponsor the team…).
The environment was so toxic that, when Kimi finally left after the 2009 season, he said that leaving was a relief, because “Things don’t last long if you’re working somewhere and the relations are not good.”
… These are the words of the guy that won Ferrari their last championship not 2 years prior.
And yet the situation and the relationship with the team was unbearable for him.
I know people like joking that Kimi is the ice man, the strong and cold Finn… But he’s just a man.
Apparently, for the end of the 2009 season, Kimi was given two options by Ferrari/Santander:
Option 1) 2 year full pay (2010+severance) provided he walked away from F1 for 1.5 years.
Option 2) 1 years pay (2010) + some severance + get the McLaren seat.
After 2009, Kimi left Formula 1 and raced in rally for a couple of years.
He came back in 2012 as a driver for Lotus (which he almost bankrupted, as the team had promised him $50.000 for every point he got, and in two seasons he scored 390 points for a total of 19.5 millions 🤪 Lotus still owes him money).
Now, why was Kimi, a world champion with Ferrari, the target of all of this and not Felipe Massa, a good driver but nowhere near Kimi’s level? Surely if Santander wanted a seat for Alonso in Ferrari, the weakest driver would also be the weakest link, no? But… Felipe Massa is Brazilian, and Santander has a really good relationship with Brazil. The chairman of Santander Bank, said that Brazil is the “number one country in Latin America” and the absolute preference of his institution.
Kimi? Kimi is Finnish. As far removed from Latino blood and culture as you can go.
He had no ties to Santander, and no protection from them.
It seems silly, doesn’t it? But it’s not. Political games, public perception, a bank’s ties to specific countries… They all matter in Formula 1. Even Ayrton Senna, one of the best drivers ever, only got into F1 because Banco Nacional sponsored him. Niki Lauda as well, started his F1 career as a pay driver sponsored by an Austrian bank. You get what I’m saying?
Anyways, Ferrari somehow found their spine, and after Alonso left in 2014, they hired Kimi again, despite still being sponsored by Santander (which cut ties in 2017).
Kimi raced with Ferrari from 2014 to 2018 alongside Sebastian Vettel. And the rest is history.
All of the above is why, when Ferrari announced their renewed partnership with Santander through Sainz, Tifosi started worrying.
Santander is a powerhouse and Charles’ own sponsors are nothing compared to it.
We’ve already seen that in 2021, on top of his bad luck, Charles was also penalized by Ferrari’s strategy. The team seemed to prioritize Sainz. And in 2022, after the 5 races fuckup and the Silverstone shitshow, combined with Santander’s terrible comment making fun of Charles, the whole world finally started to take notice.
Charles needs to go above and beyond to establish himself as the priority in the championship, because Santander and the Spanish press and media are doing their damned best to stop him.
Some Spanish newspapers have already started the rumor that Ferrari sabotaged Red Bull and made Sainz’s engine explode to make Charles win as a PR move after the Silverstone backlash 🙈🤦🏾♀️
Ferrari needs to find their spine again and put an end to sponsors and the international media pressuring them.
If they want a 16th wdc, letting outsiders make the rules is not the way.
TW: animal death / injury / death
For grandma, who loved pigeons, and for grandpa, who did not but
wanted her to be happy.
Please hear me out
<3
WEBTOON
18 month old walked up to me during my lunch break, climbed into the chair beside me, and began monologuing in the most articulate and confident gibberish I’ve ever heard
little guy had things to SAY
I can’t overstate how wholeheartedly he threw himself into the rhythm and inflection of real people words. He would pause for emphasis and then look up at me to see what I thought, raising his voice inquisitively or making impassioned declarations. Absolutely incomprehensible but he was doing a phenomenal impression of human language and conversational tone.
*plays assassins creed to study for my ap history exam*
This is actually really funny. In high school my humanities teacher told us a story about one of the Europe trips he had gone on with the school a few summers past. So him and the group of kids were in the middle of Rome and the tour guide had gotten lost. They could figure out how to get to some church they were going to see. All of a sudden one of the students like call attention to himself. He says he knows where to go and just start walking around the streets, taking back roads and side streets and within 20 mins they’re at the church they needed to get to. My teacher asks the kid if he has every been to Italy before. He says no, he just knew where to go because he played Assassins Creed Brotherhood.
animentality