Flavio: Don't rule out Alonso at Ferrari again

Walk away? Great at one time? He's putting that crap McLaren usually in the top 10 when it deserves to be last. He goes to Indy for the first time and leads it for what 20 something laps?
And he's a has been? Far from it. Vettle only shines in a perfect car, even Ricciardo bested him his last year at Ref Bull when the car was under par. Schumacherand Alonso can take ****ty cars and place them higher than they should be, drive around a cars problem.

 

Maybe so, but that's not what I call result.

He is wasting his time battling with an inferior car (engine-wise) and he has apparently nowhere else to go.

 

I think you nailed it. His only real chance for wins are with Merc, Ferrari or Red Bull, and none of those is going to happen. Renault might make him competitive, maybe even an outside shot at a win. They are anxious enough for a real star that they might well agree to Indy and Le Mans clause.

 

LOLO, you caught me!!!
Ps: I'm actualy Felipe...but don't tell anyone

 

No. He got in the top 10 once this year. Which is why he has a whopping 2 points. I call his pitiful luck cosmic justice since he was always somehow around every major F1 scandal of the last 10 years. Mentioning MS in the same sentence as Alonso is a disgrace to Schumi. Besides, their respective career stats tell that story on their own

 

+1

 

I agree with that; the guy is toxic IMO.

 

Agreed. Michael Schumacher shouldn't really be mentioned with Alonso and I still don't get why Alonso has Flavio as his manager still. Let alone Flavio ban from the sport being turned over. I still don't get why he was allowed back in even though he was convicted of offenses, fixed a race, etc.

 

BS.

Schumacher was lucky to choose the right team at the right time. Alonso is very close to as talented and some drivers are just unlucky. And when it comes to toxicity or cheating ... sorry Schumacher is the leader when it comes to cheating; but I wish him a speedy recovery.

Remember if Alonso's McLaren had actually made it to the end of many races, Alonso would have many more points ... again be careful relying of just stats as they don't tell the full story. The fact is BOTH drivers are able to lift a cars performance, and BOTH are able to win when given a quality race car.
Pete

 

Really? Schmacher won in his first 3 wins which is the same as Ferrari's 5 year span of total wins before he came along and did it in the first year and only in 1 year he won the total they had gotten in 5 years of racing. Does that indicate that Ferrari was the "best" before he came? Nope. Even when there was in there the fact the 1996-1999 was not the best in those years que most of the drivers who were considered inferior to Michael like Jacques, Hill who both beat Michael in much better car the Willams in 1996, 1997 though he toke both down to the last round and while Mika was very good he had much better car than Michael hence he gotten 2 titles for it altough the second may not count since he seemed to have an off year. It toke until 2000 for Michael to win his 3Rd title with the team. Michael Schumacher didn't choose the best team I mean cmon now he didn't choose Willams and McLaren who were dominate in that era. Any regular would of losted patience with Ferrari after 4 years like Alonso did. No instead he developed the cars he had into a dominant Era which is not seen since the mp4/4 and unlike that car he did it for multiple years of it 5 years from 2000-2004 so the Ferrari wasn't dominate until the new century came.

As for Alonso he shouldn't of choose to go McLaren Honda. He himself is fully to blame for being put in that situation he is in unlucky or not he did it cause he wanted to be in a team that dominates. Honda's recent foray in f1 wasn't that great so it set a bar which many people pointed out was what the true performance of Honda which these 2 years and now 3rd year shows with the car having to develop which Alonso shouldn't of choose since the car was being developed. The problem with Alonso he doesn't seem to develop the car greatly I mean the 150 was good enough to challenge but that wasn't developed by him and the f2012 was good enough that's only one. The rest was very bad. He could of won at McLaren in 2007 instead he decided he wanted to be 1st driver which went into the 2007 case which threw Alonso out of driving for Mercedes and McLaren those years until 2015 for McLaren. So Alonso is fully blame for were he is. And Michael Schumacher developed the team's cars into winning titles and he didn't go into a team that was the best he developed the Ferrari into the best.

 

Also, Schumacher raced in an era when there was no ban on testing.

During the inter season, Schumacher spent days and days lapping the Fiorano track testing different set ups, different components, and honing the handling and reliability of his cars.
Between races, he tested new parts, compared them and kept developing his car during private tests all through the season.

Alonso doesn't have this luxury. The testing ban has robbed him of track hours where he could have improved his car, check the engine reliability and allow the engineers to analyse the faults. Honda itself lacks testing. Bench testing is never the same. Alonso has only a few days of official testing every year, and if something goes wrong, the session is wasted.
Really, the only development testing the McLaren-Honda gets are the 3 practice sessions before each GP. If there is any gremlin, there are not enough laps to analyse anything at all, until the next GP !!!

So, comparing 2 talented drivers in different eras is pointless, IMO.

God only knows how Schumacher would deal with the present testing ban, or how Alonso could have benefited from putting laps in private sessions at Fiorano.

 

https://www.formula1.com/en/championship/inside-f1/understanding-f1-racing/Testing.html Schmacher returning in 2010 was bad timing. Michael Schumacher showed he could in that Era; Monaco 2012 pole and Canada in the wet driving in 2011 showing he can. Problem is I think his age and the lack of testing to fix the car meant that it wasn't great enough for the challenge for the title. Also I think Mercedes were developing when he was there so yeah.

 

Yes every thing you said in your post is correct, but you are forgetting that there is NO testing now, so nobody not even MS could develop a car into a winning car anymore.

This ban on testing is utterly stupid IMO.
Pete
ps: BTW I was a huge, and I mean huge fan of MS from 1995 to 2000. He performed amazingly in inferior Ferraris ... his '95 season was awesome too, but Benetton were probably cheating.

 

Exactly.

Pete

 

They banned cause it was to drive down costs. Problem is as you said which I absolutely agree is that in season being limited to such of a degree is that many car issues cannot be for seen or driven to study the problem. I rather have it bring it back so that we wouldn't see problems like Haas's brake problems or allowing them to test it more thoughly. Computer can't replace practical testing or real world testing. It can only supplement it, but actual practical and real world driving are the one that you can truly lean on.

 

Completely agree.

Pete

 

The ban on testing was Bernie's idea to convince the teams to accept more GP.
Testing cost as much to the teams than racing, but Bernie couldn't sell that to TV channels.
Adding more GPs to the calendar made more sense, according to him, because he could make more money that way and also redistribute more to the teams.
Now, with a 21 GPs season, the teams cannot have testing; they chose it that way.

 

Only poor teams chose it that way, remember, the teams have to get 100% agreement to change anything. Ferrari, red bull, Mercedes, mclaren, they would all welcome testing tomorrow if it were allowed, poor teams making up the numbers can't afford it, so always veto it

 

IF. But he didn't. Hard to argue one way or another since it didn't happen. And how many titles did he bring to Ferrari again? At the end of the day, long after we're all gone, stats will be the only thing in the record book. Or maybe we should give him another title for effort, like an elementary school kid?

 

They could you knew give x amounts hours to the team's so that it can be better for them like fia give a payment for testing in exchange fans can see the testing. It's not like fia doesn't probe enough of the teams over what's being done to the cars. And anyway isn't the fia rich enough to allow them to do that? And it will help make the positions on track far more varied since the testing can help iron out issues.

 

Sweater just did..he said Alonso no.

 

Another example of Bernie thinking of money only and the quality of the sport suffers ... again! Total moron IMO. Thank God he is gone, and yes it is time to change this decision as testing, of some sort, is desperately required.

Agent Smith,
There are so many moving parts in motorsport that you have to look past mere stats to get the real picture. Sure stats will remain forever but there is more to who wins most than just driver skill unfortunately. I like to think it is the biggest contributor though, ie. cream rises to the top, etc.
Pete

 

I still reckon my idea for testing should be looked at:

Apart from pre-season testing (which remains a free for all), in season testing should be allowed the following way:

Team that finished last (10th) in the previous season gets say 45 days of testing allowed
9th gets 40
8th 35
and so on. Team that finished first gets zero testing days.

However, teams are allowed to purchase testing days from other teams. The poor teams can't afford to test 45 days, but selling some days off gives them extra cash to develop their car, get a better driver...whatever.

I call it days now, can just as easily be called kilometers or whatever.

 

Alonso is toast.....

 

BWAHAHAHAHAHA. Lucky. Hardest working driver in F1 history and you call him lucky.

Unbelievable.