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.

 

[Mephistopheles]

I prefer to believe Ron's version of events and he told Alonso that if he had any evidence of wrong doing then he should go straight to the FIA with it and it aggrieved me that Mosely made him out to be a liar like that twat has any moral ground to stand on

 

[RasputinLives]

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.

Sorry. Nonsense. Even if the team had made Lewis play second fiddle for 2007 and sucked up to Fernando this great run of titles would never have happened because they still would have produced a turkey of a car in 2009.

If Lewis was made to play second fiddle he would have left.

As for Fernando supporting Lewis in 2008. Do you seriously think he would? Really? Honestly?

 

[Il_leone]

RasputinLives no-FIAt-please

2010- Vettel probably deserved the title and only just ! Given he had two mechanical failures not his fault but Seb did actually have a poor mid season which included

- smacking into Webber at Turkey fighting for the lead -25pts
- smacking into Button at Spa fighting for 2nd -18pts
- poor starts at both Silverstone and Hockenheim where he attempted to squeeze the car inside and lost out both times
probably should have got 2nd place in both races - 12pts and 3pts
- fell asleep behind the SC in Hungary and cost him a win 10pts
- brushed the wall in SIngapore in quali costing him pole and probably another win 3 more points

that amasses to over 60pts he lost through driver errors

Alonso - too made a lot of mistakes

- jumping the start in CHina cost him at least 5 pts finishing 4th that could easily have been 2nd
- crashing at Monaco meant he started at the back instead near the front costing him another 10pts
- his deliberate pass against Kubica on the grass - all 4 wheels costing 10pts as he ended up with no points
- a poor strategy in ABu Dhabi cost him another 10pts
- MAssa's gift game him 7pts he did not deserve which will always stick in people's minds

 

[Mephistopheles]

Deserves, deserves, deserves fuck fucking deserves the bloke who won fucking won fucking end of as long as he didn't fucking cheat doing it the rest is just fucking bollocks....

 

[Mephistopheles]

Oh I do feel better for that I really do.....

 

[Kewee]

RasputinLives …. Championships bring money and draw the top brains of the industry into a team so they would have been far less likely to produce a dog of a car as you put it.
Hamilton wouldn't and couldn't have walked after just one rookie season. To abuse his contract like that would have made any team reluctant to deal with that sort of arrogance regardless of his talent and his career would have taken a huge dent before it even got off the ground. He's not that arrogant and has more intelligence than that and I would suggest cares more about his chosen team to treat them like that also.
Would Alonso play back-up? If it was necessary and he was made to feel part of the family that makes up a team, yes he would. That doesn't mean he'd like it though. If you want honesty RasputinLives there's not one ex-champion in the sport that would like playing back-up to their teammate. Vettel has been in the sport far less time than Alonso and already his behavior towards his teammate and his arrogance has made Alonso look like a gentleman. Although Vettel is undoubtably a truly great driver I've never warmed to him, or any driver that's prepared to take his teammate out if he considers it necessary, something Alonso has never done.

 

[Kewee]

I prefer to believe Ron's version of events and he told Alonso that if he had any evidence of wrong doing then he should go straight to the FIA with it and it aggrieved me that Mosely made him out to be a liar like that **** has any moral ground to stand on

Alonso was already cooperating with the FIA, he had no choice, they were going to withdraw his super license if he didn't cooperate. A formula one driver without a super license is no longer an F1 driver. I'm not sure what people expected Alonso to do, he didn't ask to be a part of Spygate and quite simply wanted out of the scandal and eventually the team, having been dragged into something not of his making. As I've said so many times it was the team that was being dishonest, not Alonso. It surprises me that people still side with dishonesty.

 

[sushifiesta]

I bet there's a lot of people working at Ferrari and McLaren that don't know the full details of what happened during spygate. Maybe more details will emerge as time goes on but with the publicly available information I don't think we are in a position to say whether it was Alonso or McLaren that was being dishonest. Both had motivations to exaggerate the truth in one direction or the other.

Also, the origins of both McLaren and Ferrari's problems from 2009 onwards was the closely fought championship battle in 2008 that steered both team's resources away from the challenge of the new regulations. I guess you could make an argument that having Alonso instead of Kovalainen in the other seat would have given one of the McLaren drivers the WDC earlier, but even in that case they've had four seasons since 2009 to catch up with Red Bull and only very rarely got close.

 

[RasputinLives]

RasputinLives …. Championships bring money and draw the top brains of the industry into a team so they would have been far less likely to produce a dog of a car as you put it.
Hamilton wouldn't and couldn't have walked after just one rookie season. To abuse his contract like that would have made any team reluctant to deal with that sort of arrogance regardless of his talent and his career would have taken a huge dent before it even got off the ground. He's not that arrogant and has more intelligence than that and I would suggest cares more about his chosen team to treat them like that also.
Would Alonso play back-up? If it was necessary and he was made to feel part of the family that makes up a team, yes he would. That doesn't mean he'd like it though. If you want honesty RasputinLives there's not one ex-champion in the sport that would like playing back-up to their teammate. Vettel has been in the sport far less time than Alonso and already his behavior towards his teammate and his arrogance has made Alonso look like a gentleman. Although Vettel is undoubtably a truly great driver I've never warmed to him, or any driver that's prepared to take his teammate out if he considers it necessary, something Alonso has never done.

Your argument falls down in that Mclaren still won the 2008 championship with Lewis and still produced a bad car in 09. As, might I point out, did most of the top teams. If you arevreally trying to argue that if Alonso had won the 2007 title for Mclaren the they would not have produced a bad car in 09 then I don't think there is much point discussing further as that is crazy.

Also if Mclaren had held back Hamilton might he, as you put it, not felt like part of the familt and might thst have been equally as bad?.

The idea that Mclareb would have more titles and be a 'super team' if they'd just been a bit nicer to Fernando is nonsense.

Oh and if you really honestly believe Alonso would have played a support role to Hamilton in 08 if he'd won the title in 07 then can I please introduce you via email to a gentlemen in Nigeria who needs help getting access to his diamond mine investments.

 

[teabagyokel]

Although Vettel is undoubtably a truly great driver I've never warmed to him, or any driver that's prepared to take his teammate out if he considers it necessary, something Alonso has never done.

Seriously?

Alonso in 2007 risked having the entire team, including himself, thrown out of the Championship rather than play second fiddle to a driver who was only beating him because he kept throwing the car into gravel traps in a paddy fit.

Vettel, meanwhile, ran into Webber in Turkey in 2010 as an accident, an event which cost him all 25 points and Webber the 3 points difference between 2nd and 3rd.

Not comparable.

 

[Kewee]

teabagyokel … I'm sure you know I was referring to on track behavior, where Alonso wins the respect of all drivers on the grid and the area which is most important to me when I judge a driver. Vettel has only become the flawless driver some of us love to watch during the last season and a half. His rise to the top was littered with collisions, more in a single season than Alonso has had in his entire career.

 

[RasputinLives]

Ermmm no. Alonso was the original crash kid in 2003 and 2004. Anyone remember him ignoring red flags in Brazil?

 

[teabagyokel]

RasputinLives - No he caused a red flag by full pelting it through the penultimate corner under Safety Car.

Didn't he ignore a red flag in the practice session of the 2006 Hungarian Grand Prix by needlessly overtook Robert Doornbos.

You know exactly which incident from 2007 I could refer to regards on track behavior, so I'm not going to bother.

Don't try to rewrite history, Kewee.

 

[Mephistopheles]

Seriously Kewee I'm trying to bite my tongue here not only have you skewed the facts about spygate you said McLaren were already under investigation before Alonso gave Ron an ultimatum but the the meeting between Alonso and Ron happened after the race in Hungary and the shit hit the fan several weeks after that, before that there seemed to be nothing untoward going on but I suppose I could give you the benefit of the doubt and you knew something nobody else did, but what really takes the biscuit is you claiming that Alonso is a person who doesn't need a teammate to help him win do you not recall him purposely holding up Hamilton in the pits just to make sure Lewis could not complete a qualifying lap and beat him to pole?

I believe you are wearing rose tinted spectacles as far as Alonso is concerned..

There is no need for you defend him with such vehemence just let his driving do the talking...

 

[Kewee]

Mephistopheles …. We can go over the 2007 season many times and already have and we will never agree though I will add one point. You said prior to Hungary there seemed to be nothing untoward going on, clearly I saw things you never did. As far back as May directly after the Monaco GP I said to a group of friends back here in NZ that the season was going to totally implode on Alonso, the signs were there for all to see and all my friends agreed. We were seeing signs in the Alonso/McLaren relationship that were obviously going to lead to a break-down that you clearly didn't notice. Alonso's season was doomed far earlier than you appear to believe.

 

[Mephistopheles]

I meant in regard to the spygate issue not intra team policies regarding drivers...

 

[Lewywo4]

Kewee.....the storm clouds were starting to gather before May, regarding the relationship betwen Fernando and Mclaren, because of the Bahrain GP. As a result of Lewis finishing in second place, and Alonso fifth, Fernando had enough influence with Mclaren to have Hamilton completely excluded from a scheduled test session, before the upcoming Spainish GP at Barcelona. Fernando wanted to have any edge that he could find over Lewis, and surely didn't want to be beaten by Hamilton at his home race in Spain......it didn't help, because he still lost to him.

 

[Olivier]

He actually lost to Raikkonen. They both did.

 

[Lewywo4]

Felipe won the 2007 Spanish GP, and Lewis came in second, with Fernado finishing third.

 

[Kewee]

Kewee.....the storm clouds were starting to gather before May, regarding the relationship betwen Fernando and Mclaren, because of the Bahrain GP. As a result of Lewis finishing in second place, and Alonso fifth, Fernando had enough influence with Mclaren to have Hamilton completely excluded from a scheduled test session, before the upcoming Spainish GP at Barcelona. Fernando wanted to have any edge that he could find over Lewis, and surely didn't want to be beaten by Hamilton at his home race in Spain......it didn't help, because he still lost to him.

The implications your making are completely wrong and have nothing to do with what I was referring to in my posting.
McLaren and Ron Dennis were very apologetic to Alonso after Bahrain and stated they got his set-up completely wrong and in their words gave him a dog of a car. Sorry to burst your bubble Lewywo4 but Hamiltons 2nd placing to Aonso's 5th had nothing at all to do with driver superiority. It proved to McLaren they had significant work to do on Alonso's car, especially relating to brakes which led to the Barcelona test. As Hamilton was not having difficulties due to their different driving styles, there was no point in including him in any testing. The testing had nothing to do with trying to give Alonso an advantage in Spain. They did make some gains that helped make the car more suited to Alonso's driving style which he used to full advantage in Monaco. After Bahrain Alonso and Hamilton ran different brakes and set-ups which had nothing to do with favoring one driver over the other, it was simply a case of giving them both a car that suited their styles.