[chris f]

If I remember correctly, McLaren was trying to persuade Kimi to stay for 2007 to partner with Alonso. This was before Lewis revealed himself to be more than capable of doing well in Formula 1, and many were nervous about him being too inexperienced. It was billed as a possible dream team. I agree with marco here though.

I am still not totally sold on having two aces, with the Prost/Senna, RSchu/Montoya, and Hamilton/Alonso pairings being less than amicable. Modern F1 success has been mainly achieved with clear favorites (Schumi/Barrichello, Alonso/Fisi, Mika/David). Though Massa considered himself an equal last year, he also brought himself out of the championship with his own mistakes, and he gave the lead to Kimi in the final race in his home Grand Prix to seal the championship. Massa started the season pretty poorly last year, too. I think a less impetuous Massa would be far better than some self-defeating rivalry with Alonso and Kimi, if Massa can actually change such a thing, of course. We know Vettel is fast, but he is still a largely unknown quantity--coping with Ferrari is much different than torro rosso or as a BMW tester--but so was Kimi when he was yanked out of formula renault to race for Sauber, and of course the aforementioned Hamilton...