to all those that said after the Austrian GP fiasco with MS and RB: " so early int he season.." "there should be no team orders" "that is typical Ferrari" "that is typical Michael" and so on! To all of you, Alonso was slower than Davidson. All race long! Team Orders, move over Davidson, despite you being the better driver today! May I remind you, this is Race 1 of the season! There is not even a single point advantage for Alonso yet. Davidson could turn out to be THE next driver. Too bad Ferrari does not have a 3rd car. I'd hire the guy in a flash! What a talent!
Remember Coulthard moving over for Hakkinen in the late nineties? They were driving for McLaren. It was also the first race of the season.
I didn't see anything that looked like team orders.....I saw Alonso take a couple laps more fuel than Hamilton then lay down a couple really quick laps after Hamilton pitted, and I saw Hamilton make a relatively slow out lap after his stop giving Alonso a 3+ second lead at pit out. It looked like a clean pass to me....but as good as Hamilton is, I doubt he'll make it that easy for alonso the next time. I expect to see great things from Hamilton, he was fantastic.
But still Sato did finish in 12, impressive what he can do in a car built by someone else. Hamilton did great yesterday and I hope to see him challenging Alonso for wins and being the competition to Kimi for the title.
I am not sure I understand your point. It seemed like Hamilton was really pushing hard. Do you think he let up? or the team slowed him down in the pit strategy?
Australia 1998 1st. race of the championship and McLaren did the same move than Ferrari in Austria 2003
yeh it looked to me like they let Alonso pass as part of the 2nd pit stop strategy, so as not to make it look so obvious on the track. On the track it never looked like Alonso was going to get past Hamilton IMO.
That's how it looked to me also. IMO and pure speculation but it seems McClunk is trying to keep the peace with Alonso. I don't think Alonso mentally would be too keen on having a rookie score more points than him on the first race of the year.
I was wondering if he was saying that LH slowed down so FA could get ahead, or it was just the pit timing and LH still drove the best he could and tried to get 2nd
I think Hamilton got schooled by a better driver, who knows when to use his speed to pick up a spot, that's all. There is zero advantage to the 'team' to have these guys swap places as far as I can tell. #1- Same point total. #2-If Hamilton beat Alonso, that would just push Alonso to do better next time. Hamilton got ahead in equal equipment after Alonso got blocked in turn 1. Alonso isn't going to take out both cars trying to pass his teammate who is running well. Anyway, that is how I saw it, but what do I know?
After the first pitstop Hamilton comes out in front of Alonso, defends his position and then immediately pulls away. So why would he cool his jets when it really is necessary to pick up the pace. Funny that is the same Ron Denis that always complains about the "team orders" and all the other stuff that made Ferrari and Michael win and him lose. I guess you want to let the guy win the championship that they pay most of the money to. Go Hamilton. What an awesome run!
This was so obviously team orders as to be shameful. In my book LH took second. On the other hand if the boss who weaned you from a pup wants another to place better, one had better not bite the hand that feeds you.
imo, Hamilton was resigned to finish behind FA. It's not cool to lose 2nd like that. they tried to be slick/covert about it, but it doesn't take much to see FA was 'given' 2nd...
It all boiled down to 12.8 seconds in the pit for Hamilton. Seemed like they had trouble getting the fueling valve off. Check out the re run.
Let me make this clear. There have been team orders in F1 all along. Since the early days. There are team orders today. I understand that Ron Denis wants Alonso to finish with more points than his #2 driver, because at the end of the day they pay him a s@#$load of money more than Hamilton. What gets me rallied up is the hyporcacy by which Ron Denis goes out and proclaims that team orders are bad for racing. Even in the broadcast they were refering to Ron Denis and him "letting his drivers race, as long as they don't take each other out". When those words were spoken I am sure that that very moment RD decided to pull a fast one on the Grenada boy. Plausable deniability!
Had a guy that worked for me named Ron and another guy that worked for me named Dennis. Couldn't trust either of them either.
Team orders have existed for a long time. Of all the front running teams (I am talking over the last few decades), I believe Williams is the one that used it the least. It lost on a couple championships in the 80s thanks to this. I think it is very difficult in today's sponsorship driven scenario to have both guys fighting all the way to the end even if one them no longer has a shot at the championship. It is not prudent race strategy. They can fight for the first few races to suss out who is the chosen one and then the other guy will defer to the chosen one in races. PhilNotHill - You are funny!
