Current Fernando Alonso

Suprised there's no thread (although I had one for his blogs), so i'll start off:

A double world championship vs Raikkonen and then Schumacher in 2005 and 2006 respectively elevated Alonso's status but, apparently, no one told his rookie teammate at his brand new team of a theoretical 'pecking order' the following season ... and the Spaniard was 'seen off' by the young Englishman, Hamilton, into two years of Wilderness while both Hamilton and an even younger Vettel began to make their mark through '08 and '09.

Arguably, Alonso was in the Top 3 of all the Formula One 'Aces' in the 2000s following Hakkinen's retirement - up there with either Schumacher/Raikkonen and, then, Raikkonen/Hamilton - and remains so in the early 2010s along with Hamilton/Vettel...with only Kubica knocking on the door until the Pole's horrible Rallying accident.

A question mark initially over 2004 during which Trulli lead him in the standing until the Italian fell out with ex-manager and team boss Flavio Briatore (Alonso's then business manager) under dubious circumstances after the French Grand Prix.

Another question mark is...Who has progressed more since the end of 2007: Hamilton or Alonso?

A fan. Then came the unfortunate blackmail allegations against McLaren boss Ron Dennis on the morning of the 2007 Hungarian GP which came to light at the highly costly FIA 'Spy-Gate' hearings before Spa...followed by the odour of the deliberate crashing of the Number 2 Renault car at Singapore in 2008 which lead to Alonso finishing 1st in the event and ended in the banning of Briatore and Pat Symmonds a year later.

2009 was a poor year with 'Nando's' mind likely on the prospect of Santander paving the way to better prospects at Maranello one year earlier.

2010 was a fresh start at Ferrari (who no longer had Schumacher walking through the premises regularly) but first half season mistakes ultimately cost him a title inspite of being infamously aided by a Team Orders switch w Massa at Hockenheim (which lead to more world-wide criticism).

Relatively fast, relatively consistent but prone to mistakes and a possible insecurity complex (*) based on wanting sole focus from a team and being only happy with a Number 2 in the other car running behind him. Anything else and it seemingly rattles him.

(*) This is my own personal opinion.

..and so to 2011...

He's underperformed only at Malaysia (hit Hamilton) and China (invisible while Massa challenged McLarens and Red Bulls) and, arguably, Canada...but has maximized his chances in the other 6 races culminating in the British GP win.

He said in his post-Monaco blog that 'Silverstone would be the WDC cut-off'...and so, after some major upgrades, the Ferrari looks a winner again. It might be too late for 2011 given Vettel's finishing rate...but the 2012 regs means they should keep the hammer down at Maranello.

He's signed on through to 2016...So hopes are high of a WDC at some juncture...but not yet.

 

[Il_leone]

Luca's assessment of ALonso's season 8 out of 10

Bernie suggests ALonso's performance dropped whilst he was engineering a move to Red Bull

There could be fireworks at Ferrari if Alonso is having to play catch up against Kimi - I donlt think we will hear " Kimi , Fernando is faster than you . Do you copy?"

 

[teabagyokel]

I don't think he'll copy.

 

[no-FIAt-please]

I don't know... Raikkonen values his pay slip at the end of each month, I'm sure he'll have that in mind. The trick is to not be in a points deficit position to Alonso. Easier said than done though.

 

[no-FIAt-please]

teabagyokel

Just about the 2010 title. Alonso made something like 6 mistakes that season, too many to win the title IMO, he also had an incredibly reliable car losing just 2 points with an engine problem in Malaysia.

Conversely Vettel lost something daft like 65 points to reliability and Hamilton around 35.

Hamilton was the most consistent driver that season IMO with two mistakes I can recall.

 

[RasputinLives]

Disagree no-FIAt-please Lewis overtook the safety car in Valencia, crashed at Monza, Singapore and at Japan. He pretty much took himself out of the championship.

Although Vettel had his thing at Turkey he was pretty much hampiered by car failures not form failures.

 

[teabagyokel]

no-FIAt-please - He should have won that title given the position he found himself in when Vettel's engine spread itself across the back straight in Korea. All he had to do was to fight the remaining two races as he would if the title wasn't on the line, which Ferrari (it is fair to say) did not.

 

[no-FIAt-please]

RasputinLives The safety car situation actually benefited Hamilton, whether or not McLaren and Hamilton knew there was in actual fact little risk in trying to beat the safety car, who knows.

I don't see how Hamilton can be blamed for the collisions in both Monza and Marina Bay, similar incidents where he was in the opposite position in both situations (I think he was to blame in Italy but was blameless in Singapore).

In Japan he crashed in practice, I believe. It had no real affect on his race or the championship as far as I'm aware, I seem to remember he was ahead of Button until he had to cede the position due to a dodgy gearbox.

For reference, in addition to his mistake at Monza he also went wide after the SC restart at Yeongham. I don't think he would have won but still a mistake.

Also in addition to Turkey, Vettel made mistakes in both Hungary and Belgium. (Possibly Silverstone trying to block Webber got him a puncture?)

teabagyokel I agree with you on the position he found himself in after Korea he should have won. But Ferrari (they have the lion's share of the blame) and himself managed to fumble it, over a season though I don't think he was consistent enough.

 

[Mephistopheles]

Alonso great driver, great bloke an all round good egg except for in 2007 when he was a wrong'un....

 

[Kewee]

Mephistopheles ….. 2010 was called growing-up, we all do it at around the same age as Alonso. I liked your posting Mephistopheles but disagree with your wrong'un comment. Alonso expects honesty, Ron Dennis gave him his word regarding driver status but failed to keep it. It really was that simple. Worth remembering Alonso was in the position of replicating Fangio's achievement of winning back to back titles in different cars, an opportunity that will never come again in his career. Considering he was the current Champion and feeling that as champion he had earned the right to be given the best possible opportunity to defend his title, he was absolutely gutted. I honestly believe, although no one on this site would ever be in the position Alonso's was in, if we were our behavior would be much the same when so much was at stake.

 

[FB]

He should have done a better job job of beating his rookie team mate in 2007 Kewee, then he wouldn't have needed to throw such a big hissy fit.

 

[Kewee]

Very difficult for Alonso FB when the majority of the garage were all misty eyed over their rookie who was performing beyond expectations which is precisely why Ron Dennis became absent minded regarding his promise to Alonso. Despite the ill feeling directed at Alonso from within the team, he proved beyond doubt he was very capable of beating his rookie teammate by outscoring Hamilton during the second half of the season. Considering over half the team had stopped talking to Alonso I've never seen a driver dig as deep as Fernando did during the second half of that year.
During the history of the sport I can't recall any season when the reigning World Champion wasn't favored to give him the very best chance of defending his title, other than 2007, but then what would you expect, McLaren have never made a very good job of handling their drivers. Sadly for McLaren, had they handled things differently they would have achieved many more titles, constructors and drivers, and in doing so would have possibly held Red Bull at bay. I have no doubt at all Hamilton and Alonso would have both achieved multiple titles with McLaren and may well have both stayed with the team. In 2009 I think it was, Whitmarsh stated his biggest regret in his 25 years with McLaren was loosing Alonso.

 

[RasputinLives]

I think you're in cloud cuckoo land Kewee. Name me a team over the years thats grown stronger from having two compeating drivers?

Prost and Senna lasted 2 years before that blew up.

Alonso and Hamilton lost out on the 2007 title because they were too busy fighting with each other.

A team needs a team leader so it was one or the other. They went with Hamilton and I see nothing suggest if they'd gone with Alonso they'd have had any different results.

 

[FB]

Williams sacked both Damon Hill and Nigel Mansell after their title wins. Not very favourable.

Anyway, we'll have to agree to differ on the way Alonso behaved at McLaren and the fact that he was allowed to leave after only one season says much about the way he acted within the team as much as the way the team treated him. It's a two way street.

 

[Olivier]

It was not uncommon for Ron Dennis to favour one driver over the other. Particularly the Rookie over the established. Off the top of my head, it happened to Lauda, Prost and Alonso. '84 was almost a carbon copy of '07 in terms of how the season unfolded for McLaren. Both drivers got almost identical points at the end of the season and in both cases the favoured driver couldn't turn the table completely on the non-favoured driver. The main difference was that in 84, Ferrari was really far behind and couldn't catch up to them whereas in 07, the cars were fairly even and thus the lost of the WDC. Ah, the other difference is that in 84' he had a wealth of respect for Lauda as opposite to 07 when Hamilton wanted to beat Alonso badly. Nothing wrong with that (even laudable) but given the strategy at some point something's got a give ...

 

[Mephistopheles]

Say what you like defend him all you like but there is never an excuse for trying to use blackmail to get what you want I'm not totally convinced he was completely in the dark about Singapore either but he seems to have matured since then so now I think he's an okay bloke

 

[Kewee]

Williams sacked both Damon Hill and Nigel Mansell after their title wins. Not very favourable.

Anyway, we'll have to agree to differ on the way Alonso behaved at McLaren and the fact that he was allowed to leave after only one season says much about the way he acted within the team as much as the way the team treated him. It's a two way street.

I've always said there was fault on both sides and have also said Alonso behaved badly so we're probably not as far apart in our thinking as we would assume.

 

[Kewee]

RasputinLives …. Hamilton and Alonso fighting each other was precisely what I meant when I referred to McLaren not handling their drivers. Yes there were many occasions the team favored Hamilton but despite that he failed to outscore Alonso during the second half of the season. Of course the result would have been different had Ron Dennis kept his word to Alonso. The team would have treated 2007 as Hamiltons apprenticeship year providing support to Alonso in defending his title. Kimi wouldn't have even got close. McLaren would have held both their drivers and turned them lose against each other in 2008. There's no telling how many titles they could have racked up between them, though undoubtably there would have been a major blow-up eventually, it just should never been allowed to happen in Hamiltons rookie year and the year Alonso was the defending champion. Just to be clear RasputinLives if they had stayed together and the situation was reversed in 2008 I would have expected the team to favor Hamilton and Alonso to play back-up.

 

[sushifiesta]

I don't recall McLaren favouring Lewis, I thought amidst everything they did a pretty good job of leaving them alone to battle it out on the track. Of course compared to Alonso's expectations they favoured Hamilton, but his expectations were to be the clear number 1.

 

[Kewee]

Mephistopheles …. The story regarding blackmail has been denied by many of those involved so at best it's a very gray area. Even if it was completely true there were two sides to the spygate scandal, one was honest the other was dishonest. I've never understood why people chose to side with the team, that was being dishonest, and damn Alonso who has always valued honesty and wanted to expose the whole sordid mess. In my life both business and private I've always valued honesty so knowing which side I was on was easy. I've always said for the team to pay a million dollar fine without protest indicated they had an awful lot to hide, information they didn't want released during a court case. Alonso was also silenced as part of the agreement to break his contract. Regardless of what side you take, be aware there is a lot we don't know and maybe never will.

 

[Kewee]

sushifiesta …. The expectations from within the team and from Alonso, was that Hamilton wouldn't get close to Alonso. It was for this reason it was assumed Alonso would be a clear number 1 and Ron Dennis gave him his word that he would be, to give him the best chance of defending his title. Of course this changed completely when the team realized how competitive Hamilton was. The team did favor Hamilton, usually during qualifying. This happened at the USGP at Indy and on other occasions. It was widely reported at the time by all the reputable sources, Autosport, BBC, etc.