What will Alonso do? --by Nigel Roebuck

IMO Alonso is more concerned about himself than the team.
So when they are not winning he wants to world to know it's
the car's fault and that he's still the best driver in the world - IMVHO

 

Did any of those teams do anything to keep Prost? Renault did fire him, Ron wanted him gone from McLaren, Ferrari did not want to hear the truth about their cars and did fire him and Frank knew what he was doing and that Alain would leave on his own accord if he offered Senna a ride. None of those teams parted ways with Prost on good terms. Prost was a great driver but he overstayed his welcome with each of these teams.

I am curious if this will be Alonso's legacy as well, you have brought up some very interesting points and Fernando is not getting any younger. I would also like to see Vettel land at the Scuderia and hopefully bring them back to their former glory like Michael did when he was there, but the structure of the team and the quality of the power unit will have to improve dramatically to make this possible.

 

You didn't get the point of his statement. He never said Alonso never drove the wheels of the car, but that the development isn't there with Alonso (and never has been).

Briatore has said that Fisichella was the development driver in Renault and helped the car go faster...I'm unsure when exactly he said this; before or after Alonso left Renault (the first time); but Briatore was his manager still at the time it was said.


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IMO Ferrari really need a Vettel, and soon. Kimi is a great developer but he won't be in F1 long. If next year is strong he might take the option of extending to 2016 or leave on a high.

Vettel is an excellent developer and has many years left and IMO is the person to carry Ferrari for the next decade.

 

with all of the Vettel love here, I notice that no one has responded to this evaluation of his ability as an F1 driver. The record is all there in black and white: four WDC and team WCC due entirely to the unquestionable dominance of the Red Bull cars. Why else would a life-long middle of the pack driver like Mark Webber have won race after race and been incessantly on the podium and been one result away from beating Vettel for an F1 championship?

Disaster for Ferrari if they hire him.

 

Telling imo

 

Your 2c are spot on.

 

Ron Never wanted Prost to leave. He even had Prost test the Peugot engined car in late 93 once his contract with Ferrari was up... remember he had to sit out a year due to his Ferrari contract...

Williams was the same thing - they wanted a super team and Senna lobbied hard to go there, but Prost had said & documented he would not be a teammate with Senna again... so i dont think there was ever any bad blood there ... he won the WDC and retired.

 

In this age of severely limited testing, CFD and wind tunnel dependence, and the most complex engine formula ever, fans tend to massively overrate the ability of a driver to exert his influence over the rest of the team to raise the competitive level of the car & close the gap.

Other than being a 'rah-rah' cheerleader and helping to keep morale high by toting the company line, there just isn't that much the driver can do now to help the team, other than driving his socks off. You're not going to see anyone else do what Schumi did unless the sport changes dramatically.

 

Not every driver is lucky enough to jump into the fastest car straight away. In fact...very few do. Webber beat all his teammates with the exception of DC, where they both beat each other over 2 seasons. DC wasn't exactly slow.

Senna also only won titles with Mclaren; should we question his abilities too?

Webber got close 1 year....and that was that. Yes he beat Vettel on a rare occasion. Even Schumacher had his off days and Barrichello got the best of him.

 

I think Alonso should leave Ferrari for 2015 already. This is not because he is not a great driver but I think both he and Ferrari need a new start.
They are now together for several years and every year started early at the tests with the disillusion that this will be another year without WDC or WCC. Although they all deny I doubt that this makes a great motivation for next season.
So if Alonso leaves now Ferrari could start with fresh motivation in a new era...That does not mean that this will be necessarily more successful but at least this is some sort of "reset".

On the other side Alonso could go with some new motivation in the next season as well. Some said over here that he should wait for one year whether McLaren-Honda will be a good combination and go to them if it is so but if this car is really as fast as some hope they might not necessarily need Alonso in 2016 anymore. If we have learnt something this year (or maybe even in the last 4 years) then you do not necessarily need the best driver to win if you have a superior car. As said by someone before: if the Honda engine is great and McLaren do their homework then there a few drivers who could do the job.
So if Alonso leaves Ferrari to McLaren he should do now. It will also be better for his reputation if he goes to a team that is midfielder now and making them Champion within a few years rather than waiting and walking into a ready-made position.

 

Ridiculous. You think he cannot drive. He had the mental strenght to dual with other drivers besides Webber and keep up a high level of performance. As Masell so eloquently put it: There is no 1 best driver, there are a number of good drivers who in the right car can win'

FA as great as he is cannot win a title in the dog that is Ferrari. Vettel seized MULTIPLE opportunities and did. So thats an issue for you lol! Id love to see you spout off with Red Bull, Vettel etc in the audience. Im not that audacious to simply deny his ability from a computer as you. A B S U R D! His ability was on full display for years for titles. He has one bad year. So be it. 2 or 3 years might be a noteworthy trend. Im not great Vettel fan but Im by no means enamored with myself or an opinion of him like you. Write a book then.

 

Agree with Tom: Ron Dennis even offered to Prost to have a sabbatical year at the end of 1989, on full pay, just to avoid having Alain driving for Ferrari in 1990.

On Prost being fired by Renault at the end of 1983, this has nothing to do with any woman story: it was simply that Renault, being a big company at the time, has slightly "sold the hide of the bear before having killing it": at mid-season they believed the title was already theirs, but during the second part of the 1983 season, Prost has been more and more pestering them with their inability to react to the continuous flow of new developments at Brabham, warning them that the title was at risk; he was more and more preoccupied by this, and when the title was indeed lost, Renault had to find a scapegoat and fired him. And they did not won another Grand Prix under their own name neither in 1984 nor in 1985.

Rgds

 

Wow. You mad.

 

No not at all. Its appaling that an F1 driver with multiple titles has an issue with credibility actually. The opinion of the poster is incessant as if it is the only 1 that matters. Its ridiculous. Vettel is human, fallable and like all others at some point will be slower. As if the world ended.

 

I didn't get that at all from the post.

 

Spot on.

 

I see things the other way 'round, actually. Since there is such limited testing, it is even MORE critical for teams to rely on the feedback of their drivers. Just because an engineer deems a component/concept "faster" in the drawing room, does not mean it will be faster or drivable in the real world. 2+2 sometimes equals 3 in practice. It is the driver that helps the technical team develop a car that is faster, because the car can't go faster unless the driver makes it so.

 

I think you would be right without all the sensors in the car. Today the engineers do not even have to wait for the car to come back to the pits to know what is going on. Today even the engineer on the laptop could tell the drivers where they could be faster, that´s why they banned these helping radio calls. I think in the past it was more to the drivers feeling, today it gets more theoretical...

 

I agree.

We're constantly hearing about 'upgrade packages' that they all bring with high hopes of improving. Presumably, the simulations, CFD data or whatever are telling the geeks it's faster.

Then, I'd guess around 50% of these simply don't work in the real world and either get dropped or further modified before the car gets quicker.

It's a very different world to when Michael was pounding out endless miles at Fiorano. A jockey that can quickly 'feel' the car and provide accurate, detailed, feedback is at least as important as ever, if not more so I feel.

Sure, the telemetry doesn't lie, but the nut behind the wheel remains key IMO.

Cheers,
Ian

 

Exactly. And, as an aside, you never hear Ferrari giving Alo instructions on how to be quicker, unlike many other drivers.

The team can be getting good driver feedback and good data, but if they can't translate that into a better, quicker car, then that's not on the driver. Ferrari has been starting seasons behind other teams and then trying to catch up. It's not as if they've been starting well and then falling off in development.

 

Maybe because they're all gob smacked he can pedal it around as well as he does! "Leave him alone, he knows what he's doing!"

True. But I remain convinced a jockey providing good, 'accurate' feedback is still a big key to making progress. The simulators & computers can only do so much. Unlike the world of aviation, the good old mark one backside remains one the true arbiters of performance.

And long may it continue!

Cheers,
Ian

 

Well, either way, I don't see how any of that indicates a lack of good input from Alonso at Ferrari, as the team develops the car well during the season. It's during the initial development of the car (when the drivers cannot drive) that Ferrari is getting it wrong more than at any other time.

 

Oh, don't me wrong, I agree completely with you there!

I ignored the 'Fred's no good as a developer' comment.... Note the source.....

Cheers,
Ian

 

Couldn't agree more. Back in the 70s Niki wrote a book ("The Art and Science of Grand Prix Racing" if I recall correctly) and in it he talks about testing, feedback, setting up a car, wing widths, etc. Book was written about 35-40 years ago, might as well have been written a 1000 years ago as virtually none of it is applicable to today's F1.

Andretti said it best-a bad car is like a horse with one leg slightly shorter than the others. No matter how hard it trains, it won't be as fast as a horse with 4 good legs. This year's prancing horse has a bad leg, and as good as they are Fred and Kimi can't shine ****. Let's hope they get it right next year.

 

Did you read the Piola piece in Motorsport?
Apparently the flaw in the car is inherent in its layout. Expecting any substantive improvements is folly.
There are a lot of assumptions being made in this thread. There's no way in Hades that any of us can know what input and effect Alonso has or hasn't had.

The car is second best. Alonso has had some great results. Anything beyond that is guesswork by either side based on preconceived opinions.