The Felipe supporters thread!......

There are people who think MS was screwed with the Rascasse penalty. You'll always find people on the other side of even the most open-and-shut case.

After reading the opinions of the folks here, I did a lot of looking at other F1 sites, blogs and forums and it seems that at maybe 1 in 10 or so say it wasn't Massa's fault, and another 1 or 2 say both.

And in the race thread on this site, it seemed like only a few people didn't blame Massa... certainly wasn't even on who was at fault, more like 8/2 against Fillipo

 

This is what surprises me - when people say this. But maybe it's the "...who would be interested in replacing him". If you don't think many guys would want the seat, then you are right. But many people think anyone wants to drive @ Ferrari, and if that's true, I think more than half the field would do a better job.

If haven't run the numbers but is there another driver pairing that has resulted in such a wide performance gap as there is between Massa and Alonso? Now granted, Alonso is a very good driver, but so are Vettel, Schumi, Hamilton - and they all have teammates performing alot better than Massa in relation to Alonso.

It would be one thing if Massa at least was a reliable workhorse always bringing the car home mid-pack, but he is also prone to crashing. So if he's not fast and also not reliable, the how is he better than someone like Kobayashi who would be fast, but possibly unreliable, or someone not so fast but reliable, like d'Ambrosio.


Actually there are three names that stand out, IMO, as Massa replacements

1) Sutil. Word is that he is out at Force India next year, and I am sure would LOVE to drive for Ferrari. I think he's outperformed his teammates each year, and he's been in F1 for a number of years now, and has gotten good references by other drivers (LH for one).

2) Nick Heidfeld. He's out of the sport as of right now. He didn't get the name "Quick Nick" for nothing. He wasn't too far of Kubicas performance, but we now know Kubie is one of the fast guys. NH is certainly a team player, agreeing to the #2 role at BMW and he would love to drive for Ferrari. He's not a crasher, either.

3) Paul di Resta. The best of the noobs. He is ultra reliable and only DNF'ed once, and word up and down the pitlane is that he is the real deal. I have no doubt he would love to jump into a Ferrari. He is the only one of the three I can see Alonso having a problem with, because he might just get spanked

 

Sorry Mike, but that's not even close to correct.

My recollection was similar to Fast_ian's after participating in the India race thread ... so i went back and tabulated the opinions from that thread :

http://ferrarichat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=343017

members who blamed Massa (total:12) :

ricksb
FAN512bbi
mir88i
GuyIncognito
kraftwerk
NeuroBeaker
Ferraripilot
tifosi2
SRT Mike
ELP_JC
texasmr2
GordonC

members who blamed Hamilton (total:10):

SPEEDCORE
werewolf
daytona355
Axecent
luky_13_2002
Aircon (i think, he may be on the fence)
wizzells
Bas Jaski
GTE
Remy Zero

members who thought it was a 50/50 racing incident (total:8):

bdelp
Rob Lay
joker57676
VIZSLA
Ney
Fast_ian
DF1
durango77

(sorry for any misspellings or omissions)

Now you may be right about opinion tallies outside of Fchat ... but we already know that Martin Brundle, Mark Webber and David Coulthard disagree with the Massa penalty in India.

Believe it or not, I'm no huge Massa fan (although, admittedly biased in favor of Ferrari) ... but this idea that the incident in India is a "slam dunk" against Massa just isn't supported in the opinion polls (at least, on Fchat).

 

I am indeed. Good effort at collating stats though!!

 

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/95986

I think his job is under review, ie, he can be replaced during 2012 if he shows no significant improvement. Im a fan but he has to get his racing life in order. I have no problem with Ferrari replacing him if he show no real improvement. I hope for the best but my inner feelings are he is out at the end of next year no matter.

 

Wonder if Massa would even have been with Ferrari in 2012 if Webber had decided to leave RB? Still...being No 2 in a competitive...winning car is preferable to being with Ferrari at the mo.

 

I agree. Massa has one final chance next year. If he screws up, then it's sayonara for him. However, i hope he gets his head together and prove his doubters wrong.

 

IMO Perez will get the seat.
He also brings Slim's money.

Until then Go Phil!
(But please stay away from Hami, its better for both of your careers)

 

Well yes, and Smedley needs to keep his trap shut as well, and steer Massa on to winning races rather than destroying < (Smedleys words) others.

 

Sekrit ajent Massa.

 

On reflection IMO it was a racing incident, I dislike penalties for this very reason, Massa IMO in his F1 career has had the benefit of calls going his way.

He didn't on this occasion, thats the way the cookie crumbles.

Given all the replays on board camera ect, and time to review the crash, you can see why there is confusion, but to make a quick call, yes to me I still would have blamed Massa at the time, however maybe not given him a drive thru, if given time to study replays ect (at the time I hasten to add). The fact is it could have been avoidable, because I have no question in my mind that Massa knew Hamilton was along side him.

The other side of the coin is, yes Hamilton knew who he was dealing with, and probably knew Massa would act as he did.

There is no right or wrong with this one, Massa was fast in a straight line AFAIK Hamilton could not get passed him with KERS deployed and DRS, so he had to take him on a corner with a surprise element. So should he have stayed behind him, boring! but safer, or should he done what he did and have a go. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, given the high kerbs...

 

Thank you kraftwerk!

After studying and learning a bit more myself, i'd probably call it a racing incident too. You are absolutely right about hindsight, of course.

 

Complete and utter nonsense IMO! He's vastly experienced and the general consensus is the team still love him. He doesn't often crash. He (supposedly) provides good feedback and understands and accepts his role.

He's had a rough season - Again, as do they all if they're around long enough. Darn, he was WDC for about 15 seconds a few years back!..... As I think Krafty said about LH a while back, "you don't suddenly lose that talent and ability". FWIW, I don't think he's any better or worse since the accident either.

This;

Thankyou very much for "running the numbers" as confirmation! The only other site I pay any real attention to is F1 technical and the feelings there just about echo those here BTW. As many have said, even the "experts" can't agree and are also divided on the issue.

Again, nonsense IMO! Certainly, most of the grid would love a shot at driving for Ferrari, even as a #2. A lot of 'em won't say it publicly of course (why jeopardize their current seat?) but there is no other team with the cachet of the guys in red.

As for who could do a better job, I laid out my thinking in the OP and stand behind it - Right now, only Seb, JB and Fred have shown themselves to be quicker. Even Lewis is only a #2 these days and he's out for "historical" reasons - At least until Fred retires.

You probably should have Mike!..... Looking at the percentages between teammates tells us;

- Phil has ~40% of Freds total - Not great but as we know Freds about the best and Phils had a poor season.
- MW has ~60% of Sebs total - By your reckoning he therefore sucks, is a hack and should be fired.....
- JB & Lewis are pretty close with LH ~20% behind JB.

D'Ambrosio! Why not give it to Karun? He seems like a nice guy. You can't honestly believe any of these guys could do better than Phil!? He's generally within 10ths or even 100ths of Fred. I just don't believe any of 'em would be an improvement....

Further, historically, he is not "prone to crashing" - You don't last long at any team if you're a crasher, particularly so if the team is Ferrari.

Ah well, if Lewis says so it must be true! Incidentally, I have looked at the #'s and Sutil has scored 50% more points than Scotalian. So obviously by your reckoning the latter sucks and should be fired..... Having said that, if Sooty goes well next year (dusts his teammate again) I wouldn't mind him getting the drive in 2013 - I don't think he's ever really had a fair chance and *may* do OK - Better than Phil is *very* doubtful, but I'd be prepared to give him a shot.

He got fired from *Renault* for Gods sake! He was getting blown away by a very lightly regarded almost rookie! He was a laughing stock here earlier this season! I like the guy, but there's no way he'd be an improvement IMO.

See above - He should be fired for only scoring ~60% of his team leaders points! Still way too young and inexperienced. Although, I do like the kid and given a good campaign next year he could have potential.

As for "spanking" Fred, I very much doubt it. Fred is, by general consensus, the fastest driver out there right now. He's able to wrestle an average car almost to the front. Love him or hate him, he is damn good.

Cheers,
Ian

 

Yes! Vastly experienced, almost as quick as Fred (who's *the* fastest according to many) not prone to crashing, reasonably level headed (except when LH gets close! ) and by all accounts provides good feedback. Loved by the team.

If it weren't for Fred he'd be their #1..... Sooty, Koby, Scotalian and all the others would be slower than him IMO.

Cheers,
Ian

 

Sacking Massa is loooooooong overdue.

He should be tarred and feathered.


Along with his fans

 

According to many here he should be hung-drawn-quartered and dragged thru the streets of Maranello!.......

He's almost as quick as Fred (even sometimes quicker! ).

Incidentally, just posted at Autosport;

to the haters!

Cheers,
Ian
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/95986

 

Sounds like Schumacher.

 

Well, I wouldn't go quite that far!

The Schu was always the undisputed #1.

But even he was occasionally outdone by his teammate - So I guess the same in that sense.

Cheers,
Ian

 

Funny you should mention Domenicali

He should be tarred and deathered as well!!

 

LOL

May as well throw LdM & Smedley in there too!

It's only a matter of time before the ex-Mclaren dude gets added to the list.....

Cheers,
Ian
EDIT; Pat Fry

 

Nice typo I made there

 

Fixed it for you in my quote..... [TBH, I hadn't noticed! - I guess I read what I expect to read ]

Cheers,
Ian

 

Hey,

So, I've been thinking eek & looking at the #'s a little more.... Lets remove names from the title hunt;

- It's generally accepted that RBR is #1, Mclaren #2 and Ferrari #3.

RBR #1 - WDC
Mcl #1 - 2nd
F #1 - 3rd

RBR #2 - 4th
Mcl #2 - 5th
F #2 - 6th

For the sake of debate I'll say you could shuffle any of the #1's and the WDC will result. Furthermore, the #2's remain the #2's - Shuffle 'em, and they're still #2's......


Cheers,
Ian

 

If you read through the thread when it happened, most people blamed Massa.

Perhaps the tide changed after he started whining about it post-race, but there were a very few people who thought Massa was in the right at the time.


Elsewhere, the results are much, much less in Massas favor. Considering the general hatred of Lewis here, it's quite telling that even the after-the-fact numbers are what they are.

 

When talking about who is better, you really need to compare teammates or draw conclusions based on the relative speed of the cars through observation. I don't think anyone would say the Mercedes is close to the Ferrari in performance, yet both MB drivers aren't far behind FM in points. Other than Vettel who was so dominant this year, all the top guys have 200-240 points. Then you go back to 98 points, which is where Massa stands. Massa is very much out of the top group of guys. He's over a hundred points off!

Err, so I was right then. Other than guys in back with single-digit points differentials, there is no greater gap between teammates than between FA and FM. Putting it another way, no drive has performed as badly compared to his teammate as FM has compared to FA, correct? Time to axe the dead weight.

In a sport where thousandths make all the difference, being with 10ths isn't doing well at all. That's why he is ~130 points shy of Alonso's total and the worst performing teammate on the grid (other than the guys with single-digit points).

He has more DNF's this year than any of the top guys, most (if not all, depending on how you view the Spain incident) were his fault. F1 is very much "what have you done for me lately". He did well in 2008 compared to Kimi. Lately, he sucks.

You're playing numbers games... earlier we were talking % of points of the leading guy, now you're talking % more than the trailing guy. Markup vs. markdown.... Ok, so Sutil has 50% more points than PDR, and Alonso has 132% more points than Massa. Therefore by my reckoning, PDR is a lot closer to Sutil than Massa is to Alonso. Massa has worn out his welcome and needs to go, clearly.

There are lot of guys who will do better than Massa. If you look at who Alonso has been teamed up with before... Piquet Jr had 19 to Alonso's 61 points in 2008. And don't forget Alonso had more points than he should have that year, due to the cheating scandal that netted him an unjustified win. That tells the story right there - Massa is currently performing on a Nelson Piquet Jr. level. Time to axe him.

Nope, you're wrong there. Heidfeld is 2 points behind Petrov even now, despite Heidfeld not having driven in the past 6 races. Of the 7 races where Heidfeld and Petrov both finished, Nick beat Vitaly 5 times. Nick wasn't fired for sucking - he was beating Petrov. It was other reasons.

PDR has 50% more points (compared to his teammate) than Massa has compared to Alonso. The 60% number as a threshold for sucking is on your made up, I never said it. And Massa is WAY below that threshold anyway.

Yes, he is good... and shows what the Ferrari is capable of. It also shows just how incapable Massa is. He was good in 2008, but since the he's lost it. He is costing Ferrari millions of dollars in WCC money. He needs to go. He's lost his mojo and can't do anything with the car. Ferrari needs someone who can perform, and it ain't Massa.