motorsportmania

Recently there has been a rash of people using the tag Mr Excitement to describe Kamui Kobyashi, or Kobykrashi as others have long called him, but to me that is something of a travesty.

There is only one Mr Excitement in motor sport and that is NASCAR’s Jimmy Spencer. Kamui is a nice enough lad by what we see of him and all credit to him for having managed to carve out an F1 career since his Toyota stand in days, but Mr Excitement? No, not for me.

Whilst he has had some good results he had also got in the way and shoved others off with too much regularity and the radical tyre strategies that Sauber employ have given him several opportunites to play out the former role of spoiler later in the races. He may not have won a Grand Prix in his time, but he may well have decided the outcome of more than one.

In many ways he has been a joy to have around, and certainly his willingness to put his hand up, admit that something was his fault and say sorry is very much to his credit and at odds with the surly attitude of some others, but incidents like that at turn three of the Korean GP just underline his bad side. More Mr Liability than Mr Excitement we would say.

When we called last week for someone else to take the title of Mr Bad Guy away from Romain Grosjean we didn’t expect it to happen so suddenly, nor that Kamui would be as keen to take it back, but that is what he has done, even if he has not faced any sanction from the governing body for it. It does, however, look as though it may have been the final straw for his employers and he could be out of a ride in F1 for 2013.

Given the level of talent waiting in the wings, and with big budgets, it is doubtful whether his experience in F1 will find him another ride. If he does go we’ll miss him, for both the good and the bad.

Filed under: Drivers, F1, Teams | Tagged: F1, formula one, MotorsportMania, OfficialSF1Team |