The Utterly Smashing Kamui Kobayashi Love Thread

[watka]

Huzzah! Great to see Kamui-san back and I hope he can live up to expectations and put in some Kovalainen-level performances in comparison to the poor machinery he's likely to have. I'd really like to see him in the mix and not just trundling around at the back.

I too will celebrate with tea; Lapsang Souchong.

[Ataxia]

Huzzah! Great to see Kamui-san back and I hope he can live up to expectations and put in some Kovalainen-level performances in comparison to the poor machinery he's likely to have. I'd really like to see him in the mix and not just trundling around at the back.

I too will celebrate with tea; Lapsang Souchong.

Enjoy your barbecue water...

[Yannick]

Kamui is the best Japanese F1 driver out there (or maybe ever) and it's great to have him back in the series. Yet, Caterham may be 2014's HRT. Where is Colin Kolles when you need him to steal Sutil away from Sauber and in the process, hand Kamui the Sauber seat back?

[takagi_for_the_win]

Time to celebrate...with tea.

My sentiments exactly! Break out the darjeeling!

[Copersucar]

I haven't posted on here for a long time. But this was the first place I thought of as soon as I saw that news.

[TomPryce]

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.ph ... ostpopular

Much respect for Koby right now.

[Cynon]

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/112216?source=mostpopular

Much respect for Koby right now.

Indeed -- he'd rather go racing now instead of waiting around for maybe a guest drive if someone gets sick/be forever a test driver. Can we call this the Alex Zanardi route? If only so that after his Caterham tenure ends, he can be a boss in IndyCar?

[tristan1117]

He's back! Truly a great signing for Caterham.

[CoopsII]

Very pleased about this. Yes he's bringing money with him, I believe, but he also happens to be a great driver too. Im not expecting much as the Caterham will obviously be bobbins but he's all set for a crack at the 2015 title with Ferrari (after Raikkonnen walks out ).

[Minardi Man]

BANZAI!
KAMUI WC 2014!

[dinizintheoven]

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! PIKKU CHARUSU GOES OUTTA! KOBAYASHI-SAN WA CHAMPIONU DESU! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

I won't get my hopes up too high, though. Jarno "Power Steering" Trulli, Heikki "Perkele!" Kovalainen, Timo "We Will Never Forget" Glock and Tonio "Brylcreem" Liuzzi all tried to stay in F1 via the same route...

...but maybe I will dare to dream.

[DanielPT]

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! PIKKU CHARUSU GOES OUTTA! KOBAYASHI-SAN WA CHAMPIONU DESU! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

I won't get my hopes up too high, though. Jarno "Power Steering" Trulli, Heikki "Perkele!" Kovalainen, Timo "We Will Never Forget" Glock and Tonio "Brylcreem" Liuzzi all tried to stay in F1 via the same route...

...but maybe I will dare to dream.

You are allowed to since those you mentioned used to drive for bigger teams the year before that change. Only Kobayashi could spend a year driving GT's and go back to F1. Unlike those 4 it isn't a dawn, it is a new start!

[Shizuka]

I think Ferrari will look at Kobayashi as a yardstick for Bianchi. Maybe a background plan to see who they should build Ferrari around for the future later on...?

[Waris]

Hooray! Koba-san is back! All is well and good now in F1.
If only Barrichello would return as well

[mario]

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! PIKKU CHARUSU GOES OUTTA! KOBAYASHI-SAN WA CHAMPIONU DESU! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

I won't get my hopes up too high, though. Jarno "Power Steering" Trulli, Heikki "Perkele!" Kovalainen, Timo "We Will Never Forget" Glock and Tonio "Brylcreem" Liuzzi all tried to stay in F1 via the same route...

...but maybe I will dare to dream.

You are allowed to since those you mentioned used to drive for bigger teams the year before that change. Only Kobayashi could spend a year driving GT's and go back to F1. Unlike those 4 it isn't a dawn, it is a new start!

It's also worth remembering that Trulli was already in the tail end of his career by the time he joined Caterham, such that he was always likely to be moved aside if the team could get a better or wealthier driver (although I do feel that Caterham could and should have treated Trulli with more dignity than they did).

Moving on, Heikki's career had been, to a certain extent, battered by two indifferent years at McLaren - he'd already had his chance at two major teams (Renault and McLaren) and not managed to make a serious impression, so Caterham were unlikely to offer him that opportunity anyway.

Glock's misfortunes, in some ways, were perhaps of his own making - Renault offered him a race seat, but Glock rejected it because he thought that Renault were too financially unstable. Now, that team is certainly facing financial strife, but being in the 2010 spec car might have given him an opportunity to move elsewhere if he had compared favourably with Kubica - so, to a certain extent, he had an opportunity to move to a more competitive team and spurned it.

Last of all would be Liuzzi, and I suspect that his seat at HRT was Red Bull placing him there as a yardstick against which Ricciardo would be measured. The seat really was only a temporary one - Red Bull were unlikely to move him up into Toro Rosso anyway, and there was no commercial incentive to keep him at HRT once he had served his role as yardstick for Ricciardo. Asides from that, he was well and truly demolished by Sutil whilst at Force India only one season earlier - and Sutil seems to be regarded as an average driver at best - so his career was already on a downward slope before Ricciardo outperformed him anyway.

[AndreaModa]

Was Liuzzi still part of Red Bull when he went to HRT? I thought he'd already been dropped by them by that point.

As for Glock, he was just a victim of Marussia's financial troubles this time last year. If they'd finished 10th in 2012 and as they did this year, I dare say he'd still be at the team, that is, if he hadn't tired of driving for them.

[hootie]

hi everyone,

turns out that Kamui has been busy on his iPad
http://www.mixcloud.com/kamui0913/
mix number no 4 was released yesterday and its pretty good

details from his twitter feed https://twitter.com/kamui_kobayashi

dj sakon yamamoto has competition
hootie

[watka]

hi everyone,

turns out that Kamui has been busy on his iPad
http://www.mixcloud.com/kamui0913/
mix number no 4 was released yesterday and its pretty good

details from his twitter feed https://twitter.com/kamui_kobayashi

dj sakon yamamoto has competition
hootie

I love his twitter bio - "Let's have a fun on Twitter"

[shinji]

hi everyone,

turns out that Kamui has been busy on his iPad
http://www.mixcloud.com/kamui0913/
mix number no 4 was released yesterday and its pretty good

details from his twitter feed https://twitter.com/kamui_kobayashi

dj sakon yamamoto has competition
hootie

I love his twitter bio - "Let's have a fun on Twitter"

No multiple funs, don't want to be getting carried away here.

[LionZoo]

I like that it appears the original Kamui's Mix was borne out of a flight delay. I hope for a future Kamui's Mix borne out of a rain delay at a Grand Prix.

[hootie]

dj sakon yamamoto has competition

actually
the competition should be coming from DJ Giedo
https://soundcloud.com/gvandergarde

hootie

[sswishbone]

Jaimie Algersuari seriously needs to consider royalty claims!

[Ferrim]

Great race today! If he can put up this kind of giant-killing performances with any regularity, it will have been worth to have him back.