+1 I don't read German unfortunately, so can't get any of the inferences, but maybe he had to keep quiet per his Ferrari contract?
Doubt that Ferrari would care about it enough and I highly doubt that anyone involved would want to put that in writing. In any case it serves no purpose to dredge it up now.
Best spin might be that he was egged on by an unscrupulous journo looking for an offseason story. In any case I have little problem with grey area shenanaggins in F1 but staging a crash and putting people at risk is a step too far. Those culpable have paid. Let's move on.
Hopefully.... Indeed. Would even go as far as to say, as I did at the time, more than a step, closer to a ****ing leap! One of the very worst moments in the history of F1 IMO. But as you say, we should have moved on long ago. Godspeed Michael. Ian
When keeping in mind how often Monaco 2006 and Jerez 1997 is mentioned when talking abut the character of Schumacher by everyone who is envious of his success I guess Alonso got off very cheaply by now. So if he passes this interview of Massa without comment I guess that is off the table next week again... Why did Massa talk about that now? I guess (although others might have known earlier) that he finally realized when leaving Ferrari that under normal circumstances he will never get F1 Champion, so like others before (Barrichello, Coulthard...) he needs an excuse why not. Maybe not for others but most likely for himself.
It always amazes Me how many people know the truth about what happened in a certain cases without any solid evidence to support it! I bet he knows the truth about the moon landings, JFK's assassination, Marilyn Monroe's death, the loch ness monster, Lord Lucan's disappearance and Princess Diana's death too! - And yet he still can't explain why he couldn't race for s:censored:t in his last years at Ferrari!
It could be that he was asked about it by a journalist, and wouldn't have otherwise brought it up. Isn't that possible? It's the slow season for these publications. They have to have something to talk about.
Personally I don't think anything was said because Alonso was his teammate (remember that the truth only came out in 2009 when Alonso was already signed for Ferrari). Never good to cause a rift with your teammate.
Maybe. But the facts for this one speak for themselves. His strategy would've made ZERO sense unless they could foresee the future to create that tight SC scenario.
Ah right! - So you're saying that Alonso set his own race strategy in that race then, based around the pre-planned car crash? There's no possibility that he simply did what the team asked him to do in changing his strategy, even though it may have made little sense to him at the time? Now I'm no lawyer but all the facts say to Me is that it appears, based on the race strategy used, that someone in the team was aware of the crash plan - It doesn't conclusively prove that Alonso knew about the plan, which is what Massa is suggesting! It's a bit like saying Lee Harvey Oswald must have been part of a conspiracy because JFK was in an open top car! Whilst it can make a good argument for conspiracy theorists, it could just as easily be argued that he simply got lucky with the circumstances! - There is no definitive evidence to prove it either way!
Sorry Phil, your memory is failing on this one!.... Back when this occurred the pits were closed when the SC comes out. ie, he pitted BEFORE Piquet crashed..... Of course he knew. Cheers, Ian
It never ceases to amaze me how naive some folk appear to be. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to work it out, the whole damn pit lane realized what had happened when it happened. If you think Fred was not in on it, I have a bridge in London to sell you it's going cheap..
+1 IIRC, your BFF granted him immunity from any punishment in return for his testimony too. There is absolutely no doubt that he knew ahead of time. As I've said before, one of the darkest days in the history of the sport. Cheers, Ian
Schumi was no saint. I dont get all the current focused concern over his self inflicted and knowing accident. Thousands of poor and diseased die each day with no headlines. What separates Alonso from all the other (rightfully) self serving drivers ( including Schumi) was his willingness to sacrifice the entire factory effort of hundreds for his singular effort to break a contract. And doing it in such a way as to come out clean. Like Singapore. The man is scum. If you wish to honor him that is more a reflection of you than him . He could care less.
" If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck and walks like a duck, it's a duck" Of course there will always be those that insist on DNA evidence, sworn confessions, and a panel of experts and verified by a jury of peers.
Yip, as I said so as well (RE SC) The drivers ALWAYS sit down with their engineer/strategist before the race to discuss their strategy on what the computer tells them what the best strategy is and what the driver feels. A compromise is found which decides the strategy. From a hopeless 15th in Singapore, the strategy suggested (pit extremely early) is BY FAR the stupidest strategy. This could only work on a track where it's easy to overtake (Monza, for example). On a street track in that scenario, you fuel long and heavy and do a one stop. No one will EVER gamble on a SC arriving just after your own pitstop but before anyone else. Remember that the pitlane was locked during SC periods at this time (like I said before). You can't honestly believe that Alonso still went along with the plan of ''low fuel, unable to overtake bar a few lucky ones, join back of field'' without questioning it for a second... Alonso would instantly ask WHY they're stopping so early. You can't predict a SC, unless you create it.
Old news, what's the point of Massa dragging this up? He was probably goaded into doing so by some journalist looking for some offseason clicks. Sheesh, this is about as much of a dead horse as the McLaren spy scandal.
I'm not bothered enough about the whole sordid affair to go reviewing the footage and making notes as to who pitted at which point prior to the crash and safety car coming out etc., etc., and I'm not trying to defend Alonso or say that he definitely did not know about the whole crash scenario - As far as I'm concerned, he may have known, he might not have. The point I was making is that Massa's statement implies that he knows for a fact that Alonso knew all about the whole crash scenario (as do others on here), but he doesn't! - He merely suspects Alonso knew. Put it this way, if this was a court of Law, would Alonso be found guilty, beyond reasonable doubt? - I suspect not! The most that can be said is that whilst the evidence suggests it's a strong possibility that he was in on it, there is no conclusive proof that confirms it (and the fact that he was never punished for being a part of the crash plan indicates to Me that the FIA felt they stood little chance of proving it also!). Ah the duck test! - A cornerstone of many a judicial court over the many centuries! I believe the Witchfinder General used to use a similar principal: "If it looks like a witch, talks like a witch and walks like a witch, it is a witch! - Burn her!" And yet today we tend to believe that chances are, none of them were witches and that many an innocent woman was killed for doing nothing wrong at all! At the time though they were guaranteed guilty! You can overlook all of those things if you're happy to live in a society with a lynch mob mentality - But most of the civilised World has moved on from that and require proper, conclusive evidence before they convict someone. It's how civilised Justice works! In the case of Alonso and crashgate, there is plenty of circumstantial evidence to raise suspicions, but that is not conclusive proof, and that was the whole point of My previous post - People believe they know the truth but they can't prove it, and the basic principle of civilised Justice is: Innocent until proven guilty!
When you're trying to pull something like this off you involve the minimum number of coconspirators. There was no need for Alonso to know beforehand so I assume his first clue that something was up was the early pit call.
But that would mean that he didn't know 'all along' as some suggest (including Massa!) - Or to put it another way: There is reasonable doubt as to whether he knew or not. If a driver is suddenly told to pit out of the blue, he doesn't automatically know why he's being asked to pit and it may make little sense to him but chances are he'll do it just in case - after all, there must be some reason for it! (And lets not forget that a driver who fails to pit when called in can end up looking very silly indeed! - Just ask Alesi from when he was at Benetton!) As I say, I'm not here to defend Alonso, I'm merely pointing out that it's not as clear-cut as some seem to think it is!
