Right now, I even have my doubts about that. I think that the whole affair of Hockenheim´10 was caused because Massa didn´t let his team mate pass as he was asked to do.
[/QUOTE] By any chance a Ronaldo fan then? [/QUOTE] Not really, first i don´t like football and second, i really don´t like Ronaldo...but i like he´s girlfriend!!!
Pete, when i judge a driver, i always look at all things. Alesi drve some of the worst F.1 Ferraris ever made!!! The f92 and 93 where rubish!!! But look what he did at some races with them, specially in the rain. In 91 Ferari had a trouble car, and the team was at war, wich ended with prost being sacked and Fiorio to...Alesi was going to win at Spa when the car broke!!! Also you can remenber for example Monza 95 when Alesi was first and beger second and in the closing laps, Alesi´s camerar hit berger suspension and forced him to retire, and the rest oof the camera got stuck in one of Alesi´s rear wheels forcing him also to retire so near to the end!!! He also had to chances of winning at Monaco but once with Ferrari he was hit but Brundle and the other with benetton the car failed. Look for example his amazing race in argentina 95 with the spare car, or spain 92, he was amazing in the rain, Senna ended up crashing when trying to escape him...take Monza 96 for example, Shummy only won because benetton took to much time in the pits, and in 94, when alesi was leading by some 10 seconds, only to come in for fuel and the car never started again!!! Or the same year at germany, when he had a front row with berger, berger won but Alesi´s car broke at the start!!! he was very, very good, look at what he was able to do with the Tyrrel, at Phoenix and Mónaco, and most amazingly at Monza, where he was able to overtake Prost twice, when the Ferrari had at least more 60HP than his ford engine!!! I could go on and on to give more examples but the truth is he was a very unlucky driver, one of the most talented i ever saw but simply unlucky, and as i said, he drove some ****ty Ferraris.
I didn't think it was possible to be a Portuguese male and not like football!.... Almost anti-nationalist! [With sincere apologies if you're a girl btw!.....] Seriously, thanks for your comments re-Rubens - I thought Brazilians universally adored the guy - Again, almost anti-national not to....... Cheers, Ian
that toro rosso was anything but a minardi. the car was identical to the red bull of webber and coulthard, but it had a ferrari engine instead of the renault. how do you think sebastian bordais managed a 4th place at the same event? couple that with some woes that happened at mclaren and ferrari, both in qualifying and in the race, plus the kid's skill and tada: pole and race win. admittedly, the kid did a very clean race, but what happened that weekend was not anything out of this world. i must be the first, then. hate the thing.
Fourth on the grid and giving Ayrton all he could handle in the Tyrrell, as the announcer alludes to... . . Even Uncle Ken seems impressed.... [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmkY-fxBqPw&feature=related[/ame]
^^^ Yep that was awesome and I remember watching that race, heck I have it on VHS down in the dungeon.
By any chance a Ronaldo fan then? [/QUOTE] Not really, first i don´t like football and second, i really don´t like Ronaldo...but i like he´s girlfriend!!![/QUOTE] Ahh..Irina..
Very funny, yeah Alesi and Berger outclassed Senna and Prost ... you guys are smoking some serious stuff. :Insert emoticon of me shaking my head in disbelief please: I will admit that Alesi had natural talent but as DeSoto said he was a cr@p test driver and therefore only 50% of what a racing driver needs to be. And Berger was a Webber, nothing more. Pete
+1 Berger could be superfast when all the stars aligned, otherwise he was an also-run. I read somewhere (IIRC in "The Piranha Club") how Berger drove the mechanics crazy at McLaren: He copied Senna's perfectionist style with the car setup, but the difference was that Senna then went out and put in a fastest lap whereas Berger just annoyed everybody and put in yet another mediocre lap. Alesi had one great race in the rain and was for the rest of his career pretty much out to lunch. Part of it because he only drove crappy cars, but as we have seen with MS: You make the bed you lie in. Neither Berger nor Alesi can even think about holding a candle to the F1 Gods of Senna and Prost.
Right. And as we have seen since then, that Non-Minardi kept on winning race after race. It bagged so many podiums, pole positions, WDCs and WCCs since that Mateschitz is having a very hard time deciding to whom he should be selling the team.
Neither Berger nor Alesi can even think about holding a candle to the F1 Gods of Senna and Prost.[/QUOTE] Alesi was to me as talented as both prost and Senna, the only diference was the fact that he never had the proper car to show it. In the rain he was as good as Ayrton if not better, wich makes him 10 times better than prost. As for him being a bad test driver, i also desagree, Harvey Postlewait said he was one of the most gifted and sensitive drivers he ever worked with. People somethimes have a very wrong notion about a certain type of drivers...like Alesi, many think Gilles was only a acr braker but in gact, he was one of the most professional drivers of his time, the one who spent more time working with the car and the time and a very good test driver. The problem is that when Shumacher came to ferrari, he also brought half of the benetton team (the good half at least), that´s why everything started to work. While Shumacher was winning in the benetton, Alesi had cars that broke every race, and that were only good to pick up a couple of points every now and then....without him, years like 92 and 93 would have been a real nightmare for Ferrari, even if they were bad, he still managed to salvage a couple of races.
First I'm not even sure that Alesi had the talent levels of a Senna or a Prost, but that's a bit of an academic question anyway because: Second he failed as a driver to pick the right team. He got all misty eyed when Ferrari offered him a seat. The smart move would have been to sit that one out and put the Ferrari myth on the tail end of your F1 career as e.g. Senna planned to do. Ferrari is the dream of every F1 driver but you have to be realistic. Only few have the charisma/brilliance/talent/whole package of a Schumacher revamping a lost team into a WDC dominating force. If you're not that kind of exceptional F1 driver, then go with the best team available, score your wins and WDC(s) and do the romantic bit with Ferrari once it no longer matters. That's the part Alesi got all wrong and guys like Senna/Prost and now Vettel got right. PS: I'm not dissing Alesi. I loved him tremendously and I'm a proud owner of a pair of racing gloves signed by him. But thinking he is in the same group as the Gods of F1 racing is myopic.
+1 I agree, and part of being a good driver is knowing when to jump ship, hopefully in to a team on the rise.
First of all, when Alesi signed, there was litle to choose between ferrari and Mclaren. In 1990, Alesi signed a contract with Williams...and Frank promissed to reveal the contract ans anouce him as his driver at the french grand prix...in the meanwhile, Ferrari aproacjhed him, Alesi said he was flattered but that he was already comited to another team....Piero ferrari told him nobody said no to ferrari, and that he would drive for them...Problem was Frank williams did not anouce Alesi as he had promised, and Alesi soon discovered he was trying to sign mansell back, and at the same time, preventing Alesi to sign for the oposition....Alesi asked repetedly to frank to Honour the agreement and to anouce the contract but he refused to do so, that´s when he turned to ferrari, and after a bundle of money and an f1 90 was sent to Williamds, the deal was done!!! Alesi picked the best possible seat, unfortunatly for him, everything went wrong for Ferrari...nobody would have guessesd so after the amazing year they had in 1990.
Again, it´s very easy talk about what should be done in 1990 when we are in 2012. As I said before, in 1990 Jean Alesi had to choose: Ferrari, a team which was competing for the world championship, or Williams, which finished 4th in the WCC, with only one win and half the points of Ferrari. What would you do in Alesi´s situation? What would you choose now: McLaren or Mercedes? I don´t know if Alesi was better than Senna. Probably not, but I don´t care because I think that discussing about drivers is like discussing about the gender of angels: in the end these are car races. But I think that Alesi deserved to be World Champion no less than Hill or Villeneuve, and maybe Mansell and Hakkinen. But hey, that´s life, **** happens. Other thing that I think is funny is that many ferraristi, when something goes wrong with anything related our beloved team, tend to blame the "excess of passion", the red myst, etc. I think that probably the guys who are working at Ferrari have a colder view of their job than us, mere mortals. They have to cope with the real problems of motor racing and have more at stake (a career, the job of one life and lots of money) than us, who are interested in F1 just for the fun and can afford wasting time thinking about which team is more legendary.
I don´t know if Alesi was better than Senna. Probably not, but I don´t care because I think that discussing about drivers is like discussing about the gender of angels: in the end these are car races. But I think that Alesi deserved to be World Champion no less than Hill or Villeneuve, and maybe Mansell and Hakkinen. But hey, that´s life, **** happens. +1, e think exacly the same, for me Alesi was far better than Hill and Jacques and at the same level as Mika and mansell...in fact, i firmly believe both he and Mika were better than Nigel....between Mika and Alesi is difficult, except that Jean was a lot better in the rain.
Tifosi12, Alesi also had that spectacular race at the Phoenix street race(?) where led Senna in a Tyrrell for half the race. But otherwise, he was a wasted talent in that he had few opportunities to prove himself. Mark
Not quite. Prost was fired from Ferrari for publicly telling the world what a POS the Ferrari was. Ferrari hadn't been winning the WDC at that point for over a decade. Splitting the Ferrari F1 team between England and Italy was idiotic and everybody knew it. OTOH the Williams was the car everybody wanted to drive. Based on the recent WDCs it won, its results in 91 and because of its active suspension. Going to Ferrari was an obvious mistake at the time, not just in hindsight. It was clear by the end of 91 that Ferrari was today's Mercedes and Williams today's McLaren. I remember the Euro press from that time where everybody ridiculed Ferrari (and everybody was supporting Prost). Reporters like Prueller or Benoit called Ferrari "The house of the 1,000 lies" and "Grande Casino" because endless fingerpointing was going on. It took LdM/Brawn/Todt/Schumacher to revamp it all. Years later. A driver who is superfast in the rain by himself wouldn't turn that disaster of Titanic proportions around. The mere fact of whom Ferrari put in the 2nd seat should have given Alesi a clue, that this was no longer a front runner team. If you have difficulties remembering who that was, I had the same problem. It was Capelli. Ever heard of him? Me neither.
