Alonso involved in crash-gate Massa insists

Massa sure has been doing a great job of being uncontroversial lately. Alonso, on the other hand, has been the picture of diplomacy. You can drive your way to #1 driver status, but you cannot drive your way to a position of leadership (I don't think Kimi has a clue what the term means, nor does he care). Alonso has been making great strides in that area and I think it is one of the reasons Ferrari has hired him. For the last two years they have had no leader on the track, just racers. If Alonso keeps on his present course he will leave his past behind, attributed to youth. Despite his too frequent missteps, Michael was a leader. Hamilton is starting to make a few strides in the same direction at McLaren, but still has a way to go. I think it's called growing up.

 

Sure Alonso knew, and sure Massa is pissed off with having him as a new team mate.

It's started already...

 

+2

 

No. Neither was this. Alonso did a lot of things to get the drive in the Red car... starting way back
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As long as it makes you happy Steve

 

All things considered, Alonso seems to be getting lots of love...from all directions.

 

Dave I'm having a wonderfull evening, but this wasn't it..

I can hear it now Massa: Just when you realize lifes a bitich ... it has puppys.

Alonso : "I wasn't born yesterday, I know you don't like me".
Massa: "More's the pity, we could have started your personality from scratch...

Hope your shouldering up..

 

Shrugs.

At least it looks like Ross wins his championship this weekend.

 

Yup A conversation with you, and somehow, death loses its sting...

 

"Drowned in a vat of whiskey.
Death where is thy sting?"
W.C. Fields

 

Only slightly OT, where are the criminal charges folks were talking about earlier? For fixing a professional sporting event.

 

+ 1,000

Actually he ticked off Ferrari with his idiotic statements and they intervened. He had to take back some of his statement saying that it was just a gutt feeling.

He might think he is numero Uno, but the reality of the paychecks makes it very clear who is going to be the star and who is the water carrier.

 

It's been that way Massa's entire career...not sure why that's been so hard for him to figure out?

 

Maybe is was more like the hug in Gladiator...
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"Alonso knew, I'm sure. It was impossible for him not know about it. I know, without a doubt, that he knew about it".

I knew that he knew, ya know ?

 

putting it on the record. for one.

 

You appear to not remember what was going on in Singapore 08. It was Ferrari that looked ridiculous not Massa. He was on fire and drive the rubber off those tires.

 

Hm...you look at the points before the accident and well...you realize who should have had the bigger paycheck, no? Unless of course your payment woulhave nothing to do with results but with how much BS you can package in a box, then ofcourse FA should get the bigger bonus

 

To log a future "I told you so"?
Still doesn't make much sense to me.

 

It wud have been fun to be a fly on the wall when Massa's pay masters called him into a room for the "what the f#%k? Please explain!" conversation.

 

Massa is my new hero for telling it like it is, and anyone else notice that Alonso largely stopped running his mouth about the time the rumors and suspicion started about him driving for the red team? I don't think that's coincidental.

 

+1 The rumors continue.

Crashgate allegations continue to pursue Alonso
Friday 16th October 2009 - PlanetF1.com

Fernando Alonso just cannot shake off the allegation that he knew of the Renault conspiracy to fix last year's Singapore GP.


Any hope that the FIA World Council's verdict that Alonso was not privy to the plan would have put an end to the matter has proved forlorn. Not only has Felipe Massa, Alonso's team-mate at Ferrari next season, declared that "of course he knew" and refused to categorically withdraw the accusation despite Ferrari seeking to play down the inevitable furore but Nelson Piquet Sr has once again repeated his suspicions against the Spaniard.


"They all knew about it," Piquet told Gazzetta dello Sport this week. "Do you think Alonso would conceive a race where he starts 15th and makes a pit stop almost straight away? It was a perfect plan."


Of perhaps more concern to the Alonso camp will be the claim of James Allen, made in his personal blog, that 'Many of the drivers say the same thing privately, but have not wanted to say it publicly.'


In an interesting aside, Allen suggests that Massa's incendiary remarks have been motivated by a refusal to be cowed by the imminent arrival of the two-times World Champion.


'What's intriguing about Massa's comments here is that he wants to show Alonso from the outset that he is no pushover and he has no qualms about probing Alonso's weak points, such as the doubt over his involvement in the crash scandal and thus, by extension, his reputation,' says Allen.


The impression that Massa is seeking to unsettle Alonso has been endorsed by the Brazilian also warning his future team-mate that he will have to adapt to Ferrari rather than vice versa.


"It will have to be Fernando who adapts himself to the Ferrari style and not the other way around," said Massa. "I know how Ferrari works, he has to learn. If I was going to Renault it would be up to me to adapt to them."

 

Ah. Now that makes sense.

I always said that going to Ferrari would be a bad career move for Alonso. At Renault, he was king of the hill, and could shape the team as he wanted (the way Schumi shaped Ferrari around himself). At Ferrari, he's just another hired gun, like Kimi.

It sounds like Massa wants Alonso to understand his role at Ferrari: just another driver.

It's been pretty obvious that the Ferrari drivers are not doing the race strategy, in the post Schumi era. That strategy is called in from the pit wall.

At Renault, Alonso seemed to be more involved in choosing his own race strategy --- as when they shifted Piquet to slicks on a drying track, and Alonso picked his own tires based on that. (And then Piquet spun off, about the time Alonso was in the pits getting slicks. )

I think perhaps Massa is pointing to the way Alonso got to run his own game at Renault, and is telling him that he's not always going to get first choice at Ferrari, at the expense of the "other" car.

(From the spin in Malaysia '08, I got the impression that maybe the points leader gets first choice of pit strategy at Ferrari -- which would be why Felipe and Kimi were pushing each other that hard when running 1-2.)

Given that Massa was the "other" car under Schumi (e.g. when he was the tire tester at Hungary '06), I can see that Felipe would want to make clear that he's not going back to that role.

 

We'll agree to dissagree, yes?

Unlike Kimi, it appears Alonso is setting up to have full support. If that does happen Massa won't have a chance. I wonder if Massa is begnnning to realize that and realizes it's going to be different around the team now than it was with Kimi. Can't beat him on track so Massa's only option is trying to get into FA's head.