Alonso to Renault again?

+1. Sometimes when listening to Brundle and his colleague it appears that only Lewis is racing ...

Pete

 

I was rewatching the 2007 season a while ago. They might as well have renamed it ''The Hamilton show'' back then! It was like a massive circle jerk between Steve Ryder, James Allen and to a certain degree, Mark Blundell (though he got dragged into the conversation more because he was paired with Stevey). It was ridiculous.

Martin Brundle at the very least is a very, very good pundit, and he's not really uber pro British as his co-pundits where then, he offered a balanced view and still does IMO. There may be a hint of bias in there occasionally but I'll forgive him for that...

By some utter miracle, the Dutch is even worse than 2007 ITV! The main reporter has completely lost track of any driver, hasn't a clue what they're doing, what tire they're on...whether they've ****ing pitted! It's all Max Max Max...Glad I don't have to view my races in the Netherlands!

I quite like Crofty but he is a bit biased, he doesn't know nearly as much as anyone else on the Sky team but he can keep the conversation going which is important. Ted Kravitz' knowledge is very good and I actually get the sense he's not Elton's biggest fan....Brundle is great IMO, his comment in Bahrain ''and the viewers are pleased -or should be pleased- that Verstappen is RIGHT there in the top 4, sticking with the Ferrari and Mercedes. I know I am!'' says it all, I think he mindset is still very much in ''racing mode'' and just loves seeing talented drivers doing their thing, whether they're Dutch, English, German or Australian...

 

Forgot to add a point to this RE Hungary...It was very biased and they (British and other media) only went on about how Elton got held up, but they barely mentioned that it was Hamilton that started it by not letting Alonso by in the first place, as agreed. Papa Ron also told Elton multiple times on the radio to let Alonso by buy he refused. Afterwards Elton told Ron to ''go swivel'', which Ron also wasn't best pleased with. Both drivers felt ****ed, but factually speaking Elton sparked the fire in Hungary...

Alonso should have been smarter about it and let the car stall .

 

Not sometimes. Always.

 

Agreed Lewis did not follow a team order,but that is an internal issue ..Alonso went a whole lot further and violated the Sporting Regs ,and was punished for it,as were McLaren.In case anyone didn't see it yet:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWJCGInsVUs

 

Giancarlo Fisichella:
Minardi
Jordan
Benetton
Jordan
Sauber
Renault
Force India
Ferrari

 

Renault will be a serious contender soon. Their updates work well and they are dumping Himalayan amount of capital into the project. Look how far they have come in just 1 season, I am impressed already.

 

Certainly looked impressive in Bahrain!

I'm not sure if they'll be able to beat Red Bull...unless they ''neuter'' their engines (what Mercedes does), in which case Red Bull needs to get their own 2020 spec engines build swiftly...

 

Word on the street (I think it was AMuS) is that Renault doesn't bother much about engine life-time, while RBR is economic about their engine settings.
It might be that Renault is accepting this season to be learning curve and thus rather keen to test abilities of their PU and not too worried about racking up penalties later on. They will have a hell of a challenge later on, but then Enstone has also shown tremendous innovation over the years.

Bottom line, the current gap between Renault and RBR might not be the full story.

 

14:12

McLaren will not "put all our eggs in one basket" in an attempt to retain Fernando Alonso for 2018 - but believe they can convince him to stay amid likely interest from rivals if they start to deliver on track.

F1 News, Drivers, Results - Formula 1 Live Online | Sky Sports
Zak Brown, McLaren's executive director, told Sky Sports F1: "Everyone in pit lane who has a seat available would want to talk to him. We're not putting all our eggs in one basket, that would be irresponsible. But he is who we want in the car and we have agreed we will pick up conversations in the summer when we have a better sense of where we are.

"He's going to stick to his word, we're going to stick to our word, and if he has some coffees with some friends along the way that wouldn't be any great surprise.

"If we give Fernando a good race car we will keep him, I'm confident of that."

 

Interesting! Id be very happy to see Renault team make big progress over time. Mclaren dont appear to be able to

 

That's the problem: they stick to their word rather than looking for improvement.

This is a farcical situation, it really is ...

 

I have a feeling he will leave and I am not counting a top team out of picking FA up. He gets results and is no worse than LH in terms drama with teams. Drama, F1 driver and team are almost always in a sentence together. His faults aside, he is a fantastic driver.

 

+1

 

+1

 

+1

Well put.

 

+1 : Damn straight!!

 

OK, I register one (lonely, it seems) vote against. I believe FA's materially worse for a team than LH. No question about his driving, but any team that takes him is rolling the dice big time.

 

Did Piquet Jnr or Snr (one of the two anyway ) let it slip about Singapore crashgate ?, Don't think it was Alonso (could be wrong though ).

 

Alonso was questioned, and against immunity, seems to have given damning information about Renault to the FIA, confirming the accusation from the Piquet camp and acknowledging he knew about the plot.

 

I've seen this said around this board a few times now. Is, or was, there any proof that ever concluded this? The FIA cleared Alonso stating they had no reason to believe he knew anything about the crash, and media outlets claimed Witness X was Alan Permane.

Immunity was offered to Piquet and Symonds IIRC.

 

Piquet got immunity, but Symonds certainly didn't - he received a 5 year ban from F1 from the FIA!

Alonso was not implicated, but unless he's an idiot (and he's not) he knew about the crash plan. Otherwise, he would never have agreed to a planned pitstop on lap 11, because that stop only worked with a safety car period immediately after.

 

+1

Alonso wasn't the innocent party some would like us to believe ...

 

Again:

Those are pretty bold claims. Where'd they come from?

 

FIA 'offers Symonds immunity' | F1 News

Reports at the time indicated they offered him immunity. That's all I was going off of. I never read that Alonso was offered immunity.