BTW Alonso is plenty cool enough under pressure when he has a competitive car ... again put SRTMike in Alonso's current situation and he would be sweating too. Unless he is not interested in winning. Basically Ferrari have made another F2005 type blunder with the car, and now believe they are "cursed". Next the Pope will make a visit and bless the cars or something ... Pete
I only returned to watching F1 after he retired. Sorry I was a huge fan (up to 2001) but all I see now is the biggest lying cheating jerk that has ever raced in any form of motorsport that was also so insecure that he would not allow any team mate to have the same equipment and race against him fairly. Maybe this is his true level versus a team mate that is allowed to have a go? Definitely 2002, 2003 and 2004 Ferrari had a car so much faster than anybody else that we all could have won races. We witnessed again his unsporting driving at Montreal. If I was the clerk of the course at that meeting he would have been black flagged and sent home. I respect his ability but I wouldn't shake his hand. Pete
Actually - please don't answer my question. I really don't want to get into a Schu debate; your position is well known. You like Schu about as much as I like Alonso.....
Because when the team needed him last year he had his doctors lie about his neck so he wouldn't have to drive the Ferrari at Valencia. Only to join the competition a few months later after he said he would only retire with Ferrari which btw paid him handsomely for years as a "consultant".
Wow, your hate for Webber is pretty unreal. You know what all those drivers have in common over Rosberg? They have won a race. And I have to laugh at the MS haters, making a thread that had nothing to do about him into one about him. Anyway, yes, while I admire Alonso's outlook, IMO he has no shot at the title.
Honestly I think the car is OK...way better than a turd like the F2005 or F60. Things have just not gone their way the past few races. It happens. I expect Alonso to be in contention for a win at Hungary since he likes that track.
Ferrari winning the title? Not a chance. I'm being realistic here. The team needs proper management. Speed aside, which they actually have, at some races, the team have been doing silly schoolboy mistakes. For example, why would Alonso wait for the team to instruct him to give back the position to Kubica, when he knows he clearly broke the rule? He pulled away so fast, showed no signs of giving back the position and he's blaming the SC? What a whole bunch of nonsense. For some reason, i think Alonso needs to tone down a bit. He's too aggressive on the track, too much of silly mistakes. If he had kept it under check, he wouldn't have collided with Felipe and ruined two point scoring chances. If I was LDM, i'd have a sit down with the team and have some serious talk to get things right. Every race, it's the same thing, same excuse. With the RedBull in-fighting now, i won't rule out Hamilton being a dark horse here and claiming the title. Look how he's matured. He's smart, playing the quiet and conservative game, and yet he's leading the WDC. Maybe it's time for Alonso to give a ring to Hammi and seek some advice.
Do you really think that Rubens could have hung with MS even if not for team orders? Fat chance. Rubens gifted a win to MS VERY VERY rarely. Hell, people seem to forget that MS gifted Rubens one at the USGP. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_United_States_Grand_Prix Also, in 2003, Ferrari did not have a dominant car by any means, with MS bringing home the title only two points ahead of Raikkonen.
That is very true. In Montreal, the loudest cheers were for 1) Hamilton - for his qualifying performance and his dominant drive for the win 2) Schumacher - loud, loud applause during the driver parade and during his cooldown lap Behind those two, the levels were about the same for Alonso/Button/Massa/Webber/Vettel. The vast, vast, vast majority of the F1 world enjoys seeing Schu back in the game. It is a vocal minority who hate the guy and point it out at every opportunity. But they are most definitely in the minority.
Nonsense. I don't rate Webber at the same level of Hamilton, Alonso, Schumacher or Vettel. Here's a tip for you - I HATE Alonso. Can't stand the guy. Love seeing him fail. But I fully acknowledge he's one of the best out there. Don't hate Webber. Don't like him much... but certainly don't hate him. He's no Hamilton and he's no Alonso and he's no Vettel and he's no Schumacher. He's like Button last year - above average but not great driver who is in the very best car. If Hamilton was in the Red Bull, he'd have way more points than Webber currently has. It's like Ferrari when it was Kimi and Massa. It was the best car, yet they lost to McLaren. What I think is amusing is that Webber has been consistently just-above-average for years and years. For the first quarter of this year he was showing nothing. Then he has a few good races and suddenly he's Alonso and Hamilton's equal. Poppycock. He's what he's always been - above average, but not one of the greats.
Lol, you lumped him in with the likes of Kovalainen and also apparently rate Rosberg higher than him. Interesting.
No, but we will really never know how often Rubens was told to block the opposition. That is another thing that annoys me ... think of how many good races/battles we were denied because Ferrari used the number 2 as a "holder upper" ... Anyway enough talk about MS . Pete
I absolutely rate Rosberg higher than Webber, unquestionably. Webber isn't an F1 chump the way Senna or Chandhok or those guys are. He isn't average like Fisichella or Glock either. But he reminds me of Massa. Massa looked set to win the WDC 2 years ago. Is he an awesome driver? People seemed to think so. Yet now people say it's time for him to hang it up. So was Massa always a mid-pack to above-average guy who lucked into a situation with a crappy performing team mate and the best car on the grid? Or was he a mid-packer who turned into Alonso's equal - but only for one year - only to turn back into a midpacker? I say the former. Talent doesn't come and go like the weather. Same with Webber. He's above average, but also in the best car by FAR. The Red Bull is a massive amount faster than anything else. Yet they are not leading the WDC or the WCC. The much slower McLaren is. Why? Because Webber is no Hamilton, and Vettel has had amazingly bad luck and has pretty much come out worse off in every incident, whereas Webber has gotten extremely lucky with every incident.
You'll have a very hard time finding any team who had as much a designated #1/#2 as Ferrari. Only one I can think of in recent times is Alonso/Piquet @ Renault.
Hakkinen/Coulthard was very close to Ferrari levels if not the same. It still doesn't change the obvious fact that MS would have smoked RB even without his unquestionable #1 status. Honestly, the Ferrari drives were probably allowed to race each other more than people think and MS was just that much better.
Yeah, according to Coulthard. Coulthard was a mediocre driver at best. He was just like Rubens... he just wasn't a top shelf driver. Hakkinen most certainly was. So DC always thought he was getting the short end of the stick, when reality was he just wasn't performing. There is very little a team can/will do to designate a #1. They aren't going to give one driver a crappy car or a worse engine - because at the end of the day, they want to win the WDC and WCC. Both translate into massive amounts of money and both require scoring lots of points. Teams may favor one driver, but anything the team can do is miniscule in comparison to the differences that already exist between drivers. I agree with you, Rubens had nothing for MS. He was a mid-pack driver who couldn't accept that and made excuses for every time he lost. When he was racing for Ferrari, Rubens ALWAYS had an excuse. If you listen to his post race comments, he always talks about a tire problem, lack of grip, a vibration in the front end, traffic, a gear that was grinding, and a tire that was bubbling. If all his excuses were true, he would have won every race if only he had a capable car. But it was all just excuses for the fact that he just isn't as talented as MS. Same with DC re: Hakkinen.
It does, ask any sports person. You can only on top of your game for a short period ... ... take MS for example. Driving reasonably well, but at this level that simply is not good enough and he was once the real deal. Thus referring to Massa, Massa had one good year when things came together, then he got injured and will never reach that level again. That injury has knocked his confidence (what little he had) and taken away that 0.1 of a second ... Webber this year, and a bit last year, has gained in confidence and finally found that last little 0.1 of a second he needed to be right up there. Will that last ... nope, but hopefully he can maintain it all season long. This dropping off of performance is why I rate Stirling Moss so highly. Like I have said before he has won 1/4 of ALL races he has ever entered for his entire driving/racing career. Not just F1, but ALL races. I saw Stirling race when he was in his 60's in NZ in a touring car race ... he was still fast. Pete
It may be annoying but it's also the truth. And thats coming from a massive MS supporter. But to be fair, Andreas, he did say he was 'pretty much'' out of contention 3-4 races ago. Its just incredibly annoying to see Rosberg getting podiums and Schumacher scrapping for the last few points... as for Alonso, don't get your fans hopes up, unless of course you have secret Mclaren & red bull intel you hope to put in your car before germany and destroying the opposition...maybe, just maybe, you'll have a chance then.
Schumacher has said numerous times now that he can't drive the car how he wants to because of the narrow tires. With the current chassis and the limited testing it is impossible to just sort that in a jiffy. That's why he's moved on to 2011. He may not be at the absolute top of his game anymore (the guy IS 41 after all) but that doesn't mean he should just call it a day if he still enjoys racing. Schumacher has won (prior to F1) 1 in 2.4 races, and in f1, 1 in 2.8. He may not be 60 just yet but for any racer, that is incredibly impressive.
Uhhhhhhhhh.....No, I do not think Red Bull is qualifying on extra fuel to be faster. I wasn't talking about qualifying runs. I am talking about the race. Alonso's lap time recorded faster toward the end laps than Webbers. That has nothing to do with qualifying. It has everything to do with starting with a full tank and using strategy to use it toward the end.
That sounds like great strategy, don't tell Red Bull. One more reason the whole Ferrari team needs to go...
I'm sorry but even I can see that what is happening is Red Bull have a massive lead and so turn down their engines a notch and enter "fuel save mode" and come home in a more relaxed manner so as not to damage engine etc. Whilst Ferrari are stuck still on full blow trying to get as many points as they can and so have to push the car to the max the whole race. Therefore at the end the ferrari lap times will be as fast or faster than the red bull times. But the Ferrari is a slower car. Thats a fact and you'd have to be blind to see it any other way.
