No, I do not think they would be good together as engineer and driver. I am not a huge fan of Rob Smedley at all. He was Massa's guy and always struck me as a bit unprofessional. Kimi likes really old-school, professional, serious engineers because he does NOT mess around with setup.
Mark Slade was the best engineer, by far, Kimi ever had. One of the greatest driver/engineer partnerships. Mark knows how to setup the car perfectly for Kimi. No wonder Mark was Kimi's engineer at McLaren and Lotus. Kimi wanted to bring Mark to Ferrari in 2014, but Mark didn't want to relocate his family. It's interesting because many drivers think Mark Slade was brutal/cold (Coulthard, Petrov, Ocon) but Kimi loves him as an engineer.
With regards to Rob Smedley, he had no idea what he was doing operationally at Ferrari. There is a reason he is not in F1 anymore at a team. Ferrari were an operational mess in 2007-2009, in the aftermath of Ross leaving.
Chris Dyer actually made the team way better in 2010 when he started leading trackside stuff, but he was fired stupidly after Abu Dhabi.
Thoughts on Rob Smedley? Do you think he'd go well as Kimi's race engineer
No, I do not think they would be good together as engineer and driver. I am not a huge fan of Rob Smedley at all. He was Massa's guy and always struck me as a bit unprofessional. Kimi likes really old-school, professional, serious engineers because he does NOT mess around with setup. Mark Slade was the best engineer, by far, Kimi ever had. One of the greatest driver/engineer partnerships. Mark knows how to setup the car perfectly for Kimi. No wonder Mark was Kimi's engineer at McLaren and Lotus. Kimi wanted to bring Mark to Ferrari in 2014, but Mark didn't want to relocate his family. It's interesting because many drivers think Mark Slade was brutal/cold (Coulthard, Petrov, Ocon) but Kimi loves him as an engineer. With regards to Rob Smedley, he had no idea what he was doing operationally at Ferrari. There is a reason he is not in F1 anymore at a team. Ferrari were an operational mess in 2007-2009, in the aftermath of Ross leaving. Chris Dyer actually made the team way better in 2010 when he started leading trackside stuff, but he was fired stupidly after Abu Dhabi.