Fisichella 2007 v. Alonso 2008

At this stage of the season last year, Fisichella had 16 points although he was DQ'd in Canada.

Alonso has 11 and was beaten by Piquet for the first time today.

Maybe he should have taken with him to Renault that "six tenths" he said he brought to McLaren last year.

Will Alonso eclipse Kovalainen's Renault rookie season total of 30?

 

This is a stupid comparison, Formula one cars are constantly changing, Renaults performance in relation to the other teams is not the same as it was last year. Also Alonso's motivation is totally different to Fisichella's was last year. Alonso wants podiums and wins, Fisichella wanted points to beat his teammate and secure a drive for 2008.

 

Yeah really, get a clue. How many championships did Fisi win when he was racing Alonso on the same team?

 

I think you are all correct. There is some comparison, I understand the point being made in the original thread. The 2007 Renault was not a good car, probably worse than the 2008 is at this very same time in the season. For that reason, there could be an attempt at a comparison.

My response would be, in 2007 there was only Ferrari and McLaren in front of Renault. This year, you have to add BMW, now Toyota, and even some good showings by Red Bull. All of this gives Alonso even less of an opportunity to add points.

Nevertheless, as much as I like Fisi, Alonso is a better natural driver (but not at Ferrari). The points he has earned to date were probably much harder to earn than the points that Fisi had in 2007.

 

I guess I missed the press release where Alonso and Fisichella stated that. Stupid of me. I would imagine that Flavio would have frowned upon such a statement by either driver. Flavio would probably want as many points as possible for Renault, perhaps weighed by a desire for wins and podiums.

In my experience scoring wins and podiums usually net more points than finishing fourth or lower, so one could imagine that Alonso would have scored a lot more points than Fisi then. Especially since Fisi didn't have to do much in the first half of the season to beat Kovalainen. It was Kovy's second half that put him on top of Fisi.

There are precious few ways to fairly compare drivers, the best is where the drivers are in the same team at the same time. Alonso had the edge over Fisi under the rules that were in effect at the time they ran together. Would he today? It is speculative, of course.

The point I was trying to make is that the numbers seem to indicate that Alonso hasn't been able to improve the performance of the Renault much, if any, over what it was last year. I am not trying to say that Fisi is better than Alonso. I am, however, not a big fan of Alonso's, and hope that he won't race for Ferrari. Ever.

 

If you take in account the Renault's and Alonso's qualifying performances, he's been getting closer to the front of the grid as the year progresses whereas Fisi in 07 started off well, then got progressively worse. You're reading into these number's what you want to see. Fisi and Renault didn't qualify better than fourth all year long. Alonso has started 2nd and 4th already. It is silly to make this comparison at this point of the year. It's better saved for year's end.

 

Your point is that Renault is a slower than previous years. Perhaps you should sell this unique insight to someone.

 

One of these days they may award points for qualifying. I guess today what matters is less how you qualify, and more how you finish. Trulli even put the Toyota on pole at the US GP in 2005, allegedly on fumes.

If Alonso was that great, you'd think he would have done much better than a mediocre Fisi did in a very poor 2007 car. Especially after Renault fixed their 2007 wind tunnel problems.

 

Qualifying is the barometer to the speed of the car. It's not like Alonso was been on fumes during qualifying in either Spain or France. You think the car has gotten better all on it's own? Maybe Piquet has made it faster then. These things take time, it took MS around 3 years to make the Ferrari competitive when he went to the team in 96. Alonso has had 8 races.
Anything can happen during the race and you can end up behind. Just ask Kimi and Hamilton who are behind Massa in points now. So you think that Massa is better than either of them?

Who knows what the problems were at Renault last year. They said they fixed it, that doesn't mean it was even the problem in the first place. They blamed the wind tunnel, the reality was that they did a crappy job and it showed.

 

Q2 may be the barometer of the speed of the car over a single lap, but I don't think that is what you were referring to. Single lap speed alone does not win races.

Good point about the wind tunnel, it is not unknown that F1 teams are not entirely frank about their problems.

The comparison between MS and Ferrari and Alonso is not perfect. Alonso has been with Renault before, and the problems Ferrari had were different than the ones Renault suffered from last year. If you remember, Alonso claimed that he brought the "six tenths" to McLaren long before the eighth race last year (maybe the "six tenths" had something to do with Ferrari's intellectual property?). Has he brought that to Renault?

Today, Piquet (who has not been very impressive so far this year) made the car faster than Alonso managed to do over the total race distance, although his fastest single lap was one tenth off of Alonso's best lap. And poor Piquet qualified ninth, while Alonso qualified third. Piquet gained two positions, Alonso dropped five. Again, single lap speed alone does not win races.

My original point was that Alonso hasn't done better than Fisi did last year in terms of points so far. I think I saw a thread here earlier about how Alonso was going to obliterate Fisi's points harvest. So far he hasn't. Points is a quantifiable measure with which we can compare things. True, it is not perfect and there are infinite variables that factor into the outcomes.

There are many things that are not perfect. MS likely would have been WDC in 2006 had his engine not let go in Japan. Last year, Alonso would have been WDC if he had not crashed in Japan, or gone off the track four times in Canada and gotten himself passed by a Super Aguri. Or gotten himself passed by (Slow) Nick Heidfeld on the outside in Bahrain (?), or gone off at the start of the Barcelona GP, and so on and so on.

 

The McLaren was not a great car in 06. Kimi and JPM couldn't do anything with it that year and left the team. Alonso joined the team and the car gets better. He very well could have brought six tenths. McLaren seems to have slipped behind Ferrari again now that Alonso is gone. Coincidence? I doubt it.

You're right, the comparison is not perfect but it just goes to show how much work needs to be done when a team loses it's way. If you look at last year closely, and Fisi's year in particular, the car actually got worse. Fisi started off in the top 5 and was down into the top 10 by year's end. They did even bother to develop the car during the end of the year. This is the car that Alonso inherited as a baseline. It's improved steadily, it won't be long before he gets a podium.

I'd wager Alonso had a problem we don't know about yet. If he didn't it's still only one race. Anyone can be off from time to time. It's still Alonso 7 Piquet 1. I was actually happy to see that Piquet took his thumb out of his butt and was getting on with the program finally.

I'm sure by year's end Alonso will be well ahead of where Fisi ended up points wise.

 

http://www.crash.net/motorsport/f1/news/165267-0/piquet_beats_alonso_to_take_first_f1_points.html

Not only did Nelsinho Piquet finally break his Formula 1 points duck in his eighth race in the top flight in the French Grand Prix this weekend, but he did so in some style – by finishing ahead of double world champion team-mate Fernando Alonso in the process.

The young Brazilian – who has allegedly been given a three-race ultimatum, concluding with the British Grand Prix in a fortnight's time, to fast raise his game or else risk being replaced at Renault – was on form throughout the Magny-Cours meeting, going a confidence-boosting quickest of all in Saturday morning practice before taking only his second top ten qualifying position with ninth on the grid, following the penalties meted out to McLaren-Mercedes drivers Lewis Hamilton and Heikki Kovalainen.

The 22-year-old then made a positive start and spent his entire opening stint impressively fending off the two Silver Arrows, with either one or the other of them seemingly permanently attached to his rear wing. He subsequently went on to reel in the battling Alonso and Red Bull Racing's Mark Webber in the closing stages, and when the Spaniard ran wide, Piquet pounced to steal seventh place.

“It's the first time that everything has gone without any problems for me,” the 2006 GP2 Series vice-champion recounted afterwards. “The car and the team's strategy worked well and I was able to score my first couple of points today. I am happy and I hope that we can continue like this for the rest of the season.”

Alonso, for his part, was rather less happy, despite helping to contribute to the Régie's first double points finish of a slowly-improving campaign. After lining up a superb third on the grid, the 26-year-old lost ground at the start and thereafter never truly recovered, switching across from a three-stop strategy to just two during his first pit visit and ‘enjoying' a number of close scraps with delayed former team-mate Hamilton en route to eighth spot at the flag, including being aggressively sideswiped by the Briton at one point as the McLaren swept past.

“I have to be disappointed today,” the man from Oviedo reflected. “I am sure we could have fought for the podium, but I lost too many positions at the start and after that I was not able to find the pace I had shown yesterday.

“The car was fast in a straight line, but I still couldn't make any progress. I scored a point, but I'm determined to do better for the British Grand Prix.”

The Enstone-based outfit's managing director Flavio Briatore expressed similarly mixed emotions at the end of the team's home grand prix, as Renault lost ground to Toyota in the constructors' title chase and now lies a full twelve points adrift in the fierce battle over fourth spot.

“We had other hopes for today,” the Italian acknowledged, “but we are happy nonetheless to see our two cars finish in the points. Fernando lost some positions at the start and we were not able to come back from that. Nelson had a remarkable race, very consistent and aggressive, and I am very pleased to see him score his first points today.”

“Both cars in the points, but we still feel a little bit disappointed,” added executive director of engineering Pat Symonds. “We took a risky strategy with Fernando, but had to alter it after the start and so it was far from ideal. It's clear that we still need to find more speed in the car, but we are pleased with Nelson's first points' finish.”

 

thank you. alonso has been ultra aggressive at times and foregone easy points to try and push for the podium, and it's proven costly in more than just a couple of races. he's clearly the class of the field (besides raikonnen of course) and questioning his skills is just plain silly.

 

What is the point of this thread?

That Alonso isn't as fast as Fisi? He cremated Fisi two years in a row.

That Alonso hasn't made the car faster? A full season will be required to see that.

That Alonso isn't faster than his teammate? Right...

That Alonso isn't fast? Two WDCs say otherwise.

 

I don't think Alonso had a problem in France. I have a feeling he was gambling on a wet race and set the car up for the rain, also his fuel load looked to be geared towards a wet race. I've never seen him struggle so much, I think he was passed by Hamilton three times in total.

 

let me tell u, one thing about Alonso is, even if u give him a crap car, somehow rather he'll push it to a place where it doesn't belong. i mean, i'm really impressed with he's performance this whole season. he seemed to shut his mouth so far, bring an uncompetitive car to 3-4 spot in quali, and never gives up during races. hats off to him for that.

 

Alonso is now behind both Fisi's and Kovy's points harvest at this stage last season. Alonso has 13. Fisi had 17 (and then only scored 4 more the rest of the year). Kovy had 14 and scored another 16 until his rookie season was over.

I guess the Renault must be a horrible, horrible car this year, and last year's car must have been much better - relative to the competition.

 

Dude! This again???

 

In other news: 1+1 = 2.

 

What a comedian you are, that is why Fisi is at Force India and why every team beside McLaren want Alonso.

 

Yeah really. How many WDCs did Kovy or Fisi ever win? Last i checked it was none.

 

Turns out that Alonso isn't focusing on "podiums and wins" at all (maybe he's lying?):

"Alonso has insisted he is no longer worried about finishing up on the podium in 2008, after the opening nine grands prix of the current campaign have yielded not so much as a single rostrum finish for Renault."

http://www.crash.net/motorsport/f1/news/165992-0/f1_sponsor_switch_to_take_alonso_to_ferrari.html

Due to a his fourth at Spa, Alonso now has 23 points. If he continues at this pace for the next five races, he will just eclipse Kovy's rookie season 30 in the Renault.

It looks like Alonso is not going to Ferrari any time soon. Alonso fans can speculate whether Ferrari will have any interest in 2011, in a driver who won two WDC's some 5 years back, and perhaps no races since?

 

Alonso has 23 points

Australian 5 5
Malaysian 1 6
Bahrain 0 6
Spanish 0 6
Turkish 3 9
Monaco 0 9
Canadian 0 9
French 1 10
British 3 13
German 0 13
Hungarian 5 18
European 0 18
Belgian 5 23

And while Fisi was amassing double digit points in '07, Alonso tied for second in the Championship, only 2 behind Kimi. So, what's your point? That Fisi and Piquet Jr. are better drivers than Alonso? Fine, let's put money on it. I'll take Alonso, you can have the other two combined.

 

I don't have a problem with trolling. I just have a problem with idiots trolling.

 

Obviously you don't like Alonso and don't rate him highly, but the way you argue your case is pretty poor.

My point about Alonso going for podiums/wins was that his motivation is totally different to Fisichella's. Alonso has nothing to prove, while Fisichella of 2007 had a poor reputation and HK threatening his drive. Fisichella needed every point he could get so he played it safe, held his position instead of pushing the whole race. Just look at Canada this year, Alonso was in third, had to pit one more time but was set for some good points in any case maybe 5th. Instead of holding onto his position he pushed Nick Heidfeld and tried to overtake him and stuffed it into the wall.

Also I don't care what Alonso says, I'm sure that he'll go for a podium if he has half a chance. Last race in Spa he was running in fourth and risked it all for more by pitting for wet tyres on the last lap.