Apparently he wasnt just 'running in cool air' according to McLaren's MD http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/59941
FA was faster all weekend, except for one lap in qualifying. That one lap, as we know, will win the race for you just about every time because there are no passing areas in F1 track design. He was just 'showing him the nose' which is how drivers show another they are faster and want past.
Sounds to me like Alonso was expressing his frustration in exactly the same way that Hamilton expressed his after Monaco. If you weren't prepared to criticize Hamilton after Monaco then you really shouldn't be criticizing Alonso now. "Frankly, in the middle of the race, Fernando was a bit quicker but Lewis had track position - they were pushing hard," said Whitmarsh. "At various points in the race, it was clear that Fernando was a little bit quicker but Lewis did a fantastic job in qualifying. He did a great start and robustly defended his position on a couple of times at turn one." Even McLaren acknowledges that Alonso was faster than Hamilton at that point in the race and felt he should be allowed by. The team let them race (rightly so) instead. Hamilton said the same thing at Monaco and everyone here started whining about "team orders" and how Alonso sucks and was gifted the win. I doubt we will hear that about Hamilton at this race but surely the same situation exists, does it not? I am finding this constant criticism of Alonso, no matter what he does, to be a bit tiresome and boring. It seems he can't win here, either he is the beneficiary of team orders or he is a whiner if he is not the beneficiary of team orders. Seems to me that McLaren is doing exactly what they said they would, allow both drivers the opportunity to compete for the world title. Hamilton did a phenomenal job, Alonso drove very well but it was not his day. The two of them were the class of the field and no one else is close. I see this season developing as it did during the years of the Prost/Senna partnership. Excellent racing from the outstanding drivers of their era. I am enjoying the dawning of a new era on F1, with the two best drivers of their generation duking it out. Why people can't simply sit back and enjoy the racing action (the best in years, as far as I am concerned) and stop nitpicking, trying to find something to complain about Alonso.
Good Post. ALonso has become F-chats new JPM, seems some Ferrari fans need a "bad guy" to enjoy the sport.
Well, we always have Bernie Ecclestone to dislike. (wait until he takes away the US GP). Alonso is a great driver. McL could save alot of weight by trimming his eyebrows though.
We (or at least I) enjoy seeing Alonso under pressure and right now he is under heaps of pressure. The fun lies in the fact that Alonso cannot hide his frustration. Hamilton has the ability to beat Alonso when everything between them is equal. Hamilton knows it and Alonso knows it. Must be hard when you are the two time defending worldchampion and the other one being a rookie.
On a track like Indy, with the longest full-throttle stretch anywhere and a drafter's paradise, a faster car running behind another lap after lap should find the ability to pass. Especially teammates' cars, where trim and HP are virtually identical. Not that passing isn't difficult/virtually nil in F1, but Indy isn't Monaco. As a fan, it's hard to know what the true reasons are behind lack of passing from track to track, but the net result is, if Alonso can't draft past Hamilton in an identical car while "running quicker", the sport REALLY needs to take a hard look at the current formula. Dear Bernie, Wanna know why Americans are generally disinterested in Formula 1?
Alonso did have one chance, but Hamilton defended like a champion. Furthermore, Hamilton seem to have more mechanical grip in the infield, so he was pretty much safe there. Anything Alonso won on the straight, Hamilton took back in the infield. Just look at Wurz and Liuzzi. Wurz was easily faster then Liuzzi on the infield, but Liuzzi pulled away on the straight. F1 has proved time and time again that overtaking is possible, but since the order of racepace is already decided in the qualifying (at least in the top 10) overtaking among the toprunners will be difficult. So IMHO the problem lies in the qualifyingrules.
I disagree, regardless how the teams qualify, over a race period the faster cars will pass the slower cars. The problem is when cars and drivers are similar (slightly better/worse) in performance, as the get close, the areodynamic bits stop working and the follower backs off. Passing seems to come only under braking into slow corners these days. The side by side racing through corners is about as exciting as it gets.
Oh big deal, nothing to make a fuss about. Let him swerve or clean his tires or whatever all he wants.
It is amazing (or amusing) to think that the guy who went wheel to wheel with Michael Schumacher for the World Championship two years in a row would now suddenly find himself paralyzed from the pressure of having a fast teammate?!? I don't think so. I think a lot of people here are seeing what they want to see. Alonso didn't crack from the pressure of needing to outdrive Michael Schumacher for the world title, I doubt he is going to with Lewis Hamilton. Alonso is still my pick for 2007 WDC.
funny that does having a ferrari mean you cant have a sense of humour! Alonso is a great driver maybe he underestimated how good his team mate is before he signed up whatever its great racing now
Ted, Alonso is reaching a breaking point. Hamilton really is getting to him. When he went wheel to wheel with MS, Alonso knew he had 100% of his team's support. He had no internal competition. He also knew he had a better car than Schumacher. If you were at the track and had one of the Kangaroo hand sets with direct feed of the F1 broadcast, you would have heard Alonso yelling at the team for Hamilton not letting him pass. The swerve the next lap was Alonso's attempt at letting his crew know he was upset, he wasn't trying to miss anything. After both the race an qualifying, Alonso did not stick around after leaving his car to great Hamilton. Hamilton, though did greet and put his arm around Massa before climbing the stairs to the podium.
+1 Alonso has ALWAYS shown that his big weakness is pressure from competition. MS LOVED competition and never showed many signs of weakness. Alonso's big weakness is freaking out and going nuts whenever things don't go his way. He lashes out at his team, his mechanics, his car, anything and everything - whatever, it's all fair game. Who can forget the infamous "What more.. I have.. to do" when he was behind a Fisichella that he couldn't pass. He reminds me of some of the whiners in superbike. Some people think that when you are behind a slower car, the car should cede the position and let you by. but that's NOT racing. If it were, we could just do qualifying and then assign the points. You gotta make passes and make things happen. I am not surprised Alonso was whining at his team. That will never get out in the press but I am absolutely sure he feels that Hamilton should have moved aside. As this week progresses, no doubt Alonso will come out with some drivel saying that the team favored Hamilton and didn't let the faster car through.
Pretty much. But as I see it McLaren owes LH one more then the slate will be clean and a fair fight can resume. Also we dont know if LH was in coast mode at the end of the race per the GV and Pironi debacle years ago.
Put down the pipe Mike. Yeah, he loved competition so much he needed to have the other Ferrari driver move over so he could take the win rather than earn it. He loved competition so much that he retired because he did not want to be paired with a teammate that might embarass him on the track. His signs of weakness may not have been many but were illustrated by a complete loss of ethics by crashing into the other driver in order to win the WDC, or losing control of the car at a tight corner to try and keep pole while his primary competitor was on a hot lap at the end of Q3. Alonso may have some weaknesses; everyone does, but he has not let it manifest itself in on-track behaviour harmful to his team or the sport. I'm happy to see Alonso being pushed because I think it will truly bring out the best of his skills. Yes, Hamilton is incredibly good but once Fernando sorts out how he will deal with Lewis, those two are going to give us a show that the sport has not seen in a long time.
That's a bit of revisionistic history, Mike. This is the same Schumacher who felt comelled to drive his competition into the wall when he couldn't keep pace. Schumacher may have been many things but weakness-free is absolutely not one of them. He absolutely felt pressure and reacted to it on-track in ways that we could never envision Alonso doing. Schumacher's biggest weakness as a driver was his inability to handle pressure from behind. Granted, it didn't happen that often but if he was pressured from behind, he became error-prone. This is very well documented by the motor-racing press. No one exposed this weakness of Michael's more than JPM. Schumacher couldn't handle the pressure of being overtaken. Alonso, on the other hand, appears to me to handle pressure on-track quite well, witness his drive at Imola 2005, he held off a charging Schumacher for over 20 laps, I guarantee you had the positions been reversed, Alonso would have gotten by. It may be that Alonso has a fiery southern European temperment and that he feels as defendng WDC that McLaren ought to be favoring him, as perhaps Renault did for him. However McLaren lets both drivers race and won't favor one over the other until one is mathematically eliminated from contention. However this frustration with not having favored status hardly translates into him becoming a poorer driver for it. I think people are vastly overestimating Alonso's temperment and are quick to forget that this guy withstood the pressure of challenging Schumacher for the title two years in a row. This is not a guy who is going to sabotage his championship prospects simply because he feels slighted. Alonso is still the best driver in F1.
How bout the dog and pony show put on by Fred and Hami going on the podium arm in arm ? Tell me that wasn't team orders from RD !
It was Ferrari who had Rubens move over - and believe me, Rubens was never much of a competitor to Michael, so it was all about WDC points, not that Michael was incapable of passing Rubens. So that situation is much different than the LH/FA one. We've discussed here many times why MS retired, and I doubt anyone on here knows the man enough to know precisely why. But the fact that he was the oldest on the grid, the most experienced, the winningest driver EVER, held virtually every record, earned a billion dollars, was being pressured by his family to quit, and constantly slammed in the press for not giving other younger drivers "a chance" may have had something to do with it, don't you think? If he were in the Ferrari now, I'll bet he'd be leading in WDC points, so I think the notion he retired out of fear is laughable. As for putting others off track - yep, he did that. So did Alonso twice as I recall, when he brake checked someone and was given a penalty. Senna did the same thing. Hardly a Schumi-only occurrence. I never said the man showed no weakness, but on balance he was the coolest and most collected of the top-tier drivers that I can recall in the past bunch of years. As for Fernando and Lewis - Alonso is IMO outclassed by Lewis and will remain so the rest of the season.
Why is everyone so surprised he's p*ssed that he lost? So the guy doesn't like to hide his emotions, big deal. I agree with Witmarsh I'd rather know that my driver still has a lot of fighting spirit in him than be stuck with not really knowing. How pissed was Alonso? Well not only did he swerve but he showed up in his carbon-brake dust covered overalls to the post race just to let everyone know how close he was to Hamilton and what he was having to deal with. I for one am very happy F1 has livened up again. Sadly we have Ron Dennis to thank for it. Even if McLaren dominate at least we can look forward to some good racing. Too bad if this were at Ferrari chances are we'd just be watching the defending WC drive off as the second driver holds station.
