Alonso to leave F1 at the end of 2018

And you know this how?

 

Really? , Crashgate was a non event?

The revelations forced the FIA to open an enquiry that put the whole Renault team in the dock.
The conclusion was a damning report with proof of conspiration to cheat implicating several persons.
Immediatly the team sponsors withdrew their support.
It forced Renault to get out of F1 and sell its team.
It forced 2 Renault staffs to leave F1 (Pat Symmons and Flavio Briatore°)

With insight, crashgate had a major influence in the outcome of the 2008 championship.

Crash gate wasn't a mere "racing incident".

 

Write up that script and try selling it to Oliver Stone.

 

Thanks. It’s not that I didn’t believe it went to court...I just wasn’t really paying attention to the issue much. F1 and I were on a bit of a break at that time.

 

It has to be said that it was a complicated matter indeed.
Which started by leaked documents from a disgruntled Nigel Stepney to his pal Coughlan in the U.K, and then a british Tifosi, seing Coughlan's wife copying the bundle, alerted Domenicali...

Rgds

 

Wasn’t the whole issue discovered when an employee at the local ‘Copy Mart’ in downtown Maranello noticed a shady guy making lots of copies of technical stuff?

 

See this link ; a bit « romanced », shall we say, but it all started in good’ol’ England...

https://www.wired.com/2008/05/ff-formulaone/

It was June 2007 in sleepy Surrey County, and Coughlan, a statuesque blonde, sauntered through the door of the shop holding a sheaf of 780 pages. Scan them onto two CDs, she told the clerk, a forgettable middle-aged guy in a forgettable office park in the middle of nowhere. Nothing strange about the order, unless you happened to be a Formula One fan and happened to take a close look at the material: schematic drawings, technical reports, pictures, and financial information — enough insider dope to design a Formula One race car. Each page was emblazoned with one of the most famous logos in the world: the prancing black horse of Ferrari.

Surrey is McLaren country, just down the road from what locals call the Spaceship, the futuristic, top-secret, half underground headquarters of the McLaren Formula One racing team.
But as it happened, the copy clerk was a rabid Ferrari fan — among the legion who worshipped Ferrari's star F1 driver Michael Schumacher and agonized over the fact that the Ferrari team was lagging behind top-ranked McLaren that summer.

"Trudy Coughlan," the woman said when he asked her name. When she left, the clerk Googled. First he Googled Trudy Coughlan and discovered she was the wife of Michael Coughlan, chief designer of ... McLaren's Formula One racing team.
Then he Googled Ferrari until he found the name and email address of the company's Formula One sporting director, Stefano Domenicali, in Maranello, Italy.

"Dear Mr. Domenicali," the clerk typed. He proceeded to spill the strange tale of the woman with the stack of what appeared to be top-secret Ferrari documents. The next morning, as Domenicali sifted through his inbox, he came to the missive from Surrey. He immediately forwarded it to Ferrari security.

A few days later, Trudy Coughlan picked up the two CDs, along with the 780 pages of documents. Following her husband's instructions, she destroyed the papers in a home shredder and burned the remains in their back garden.

Thus began the biggest scandal ever to rock the world of Formula One racing.

Rgds

 

I don't see Alonso name anywhere in this article. I don't understand how everyone is saying Alonso had something to do with Spygate. He knew about it and I am sure Hamilton did also. Alonso only said something about it when his contract was on the line out of retaliation. The real issue was between Alonso and Hamilton, there relationship was similar to Prost and Senna. Yet everyone is saying Alonso is the bad one. Hamilton is no Angel.

 

So it was Alonso's fault? Then why was he not banned from F1 just like Flavio?

 

know what? sometimes the truth is a lot more spectacular than people are led to believe...there are more twists and funny things about this story, unfortunatly i cannot reveal it here....

 

Alonso will be testing next month with team Andretti. Andretti wants to use Chevy power next year as opposed to Honda. That would be an elegant solution for Alonso since he will also be driving for Toyota in WEC

 

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/138066/alonso-f1-predictability-prompted-2019-exit

Fernando Alonso says a lack of track action in Formula 1, rather than his and McLaren's recent poor results, prompted his 2019 exit decision.

The two-time champion announced earlier this week that he would not be competing in F1 in 2019, but has not ruled out a return in the longer term.

Alonso said grand prix racing's predictability and lack of excitement had become too much for him.

"The action on track is not the one I dreamed of when I joined F1, or when I was in different series, or the action on track that I experienced in other years," said Alonso.

"I stopped because the action on track, in my opinion, is very poor. In fact, what we talk about more in F1 is off track.

"We talk about polemics. We talk about radio messages. We talk about all these things, and when we talk so many times about those things, it is a bad sign.

"There are other series that maybe offer better action, more joy and more happiness, so that is what I try to find."

Although Alonso conceded that a realistic prospect of winning a third F1 title in 2019 may have been enough to convince him to stay, he was adamant F1 simply no longer enthuses him.

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"In 2004 [pictured] and 2009, I was not winning any single race in those years. But it was difficult to predict [then] what could happen in Spa and Monza [for example]," Alonso said.

"Now, we can write down what is going to happen at Spa and Monza. We can put the first 15 positions with maybe one or two mistakes. So how predictable everything became is tough.

"We go to Barcelona and we test the first day of winter testing and you know what you will do until November in Abu Dhabi and it is tough.

"For me, it is not too much of a problem because after 18 years I achieved more than what I dreamed of.

"But for young drivers or different drivers, it is tough because they just hope that next year the team does an unbelievable step or they receive a call from one or two teams. It became difficult for ambitious drivers."

 

Alonso saved his neck by "cooperating" with the enquiry and giving all the détails of the plot to the FIA.
In short, he pleaded innocence and threw Renault, Briatore and Symmonds Under the bus, so the FIA exonerated him

 

Correct me if I´m wrong, but as far as I can remember, Alonso didn´t know (or at least it couldn´t be proved that he did) the plot and wasn´t involved in the enquiry. If I was Flavio, I´d make sure that Alonso was not aware of all this stuff, because after the race lots of journalists would stick their microphones under the winner´s nose, and as far as I know, Alonso is not a great actor at all.

 

There is another version saying that Alonso was the initial whistleblower in this saga, who alerted the FIA about what McLaren was up to.
The FIA investigated and found that the Ferrari leak came from Stepney sending CDs to Coughlan at McLaren.
The photocopy shop story was the place where Coughlan was actually caught in the act.
When McLaren was investigated, Ron Dennis said he didn't know anything about it, and wasn't part of this.
With Inside knowledge, Alonso tried to blackmail Ron Dennis, who told im to go ahead.
Alonso went to the FIA to say his boss lied, and that it was common knowledge at McLaren that their team was in possession of Ferrari technical data.
That's how McLaren lost all its constructor's point that year and was fined.

 

I am not saying he was aware ofthe plot before the race, or even immediatly after it.
But when the plot came to light a year later after the denonciation by Piquet Jr, Alonso became in the middle of it and was investigated like the others.
He was aware by then that "something had happened" and had learn about the ploy to put him in the lead.
Fearing being implicared, he made statements against his team and "satisfied the FIA of his innocence".
Years later, Pat Symmonds said that Alonso testimony had been crucial in the FIA condemning Renault and its management.

 

https://www.planetf1.com/news/alonso-set-for-indycar-road-course-test-report/

 

He's looking for a sponsor. That's why there's no announcement. I think McLaren is not going to foot the bill. They may be a minor sponsor or the Indy 500 only but McLaren is not going to throw millions of dollars in the US for Alonso to race in Iowa.

 

His name should being a lot of attention to the sport so you'd think they'd be able to find someone. No one in their right mind would pay an Alonso salary though. Hopefully he's thinking realistically given he's pretty insano-rich at this point in his career.

 

I think you´ll have to back up that story with some links. It´s a serious accusation and it´s the first time I´ve heard it.

Slighlty off topic: the crash gate issue was dealt with not much transparency. Everything was based on Piquet Jr.´s declaration, that could be a blatant lie. Then Pat Symonds admitted the guilt, apparently because a secret witness (some say Alan Permane) backed Piquet. Piquet said he was extorted by the team, Symonds that the idea came from Piquet... crazy. I think this case wouldn´t stand in a "real" court, it was Piquet´s word against Flavio´s, but only God knows what kind of extortion used Max Mosley to get those confessions from Symonds and Permane. Having said that, I do think that the plot was real: a senseless strategy in Alonso´s car, Piquet practicing the crash before the race, the safety car just at the right time... but there is no solid proof to back it up, apart from those confessions that, as I´ve said, could be obtained under coercion from Max. Everybody knows he has a soft spot for punishment.

 

More than one person commented that the events at the 2008 Singapore GP were a bit suspect. I think even some drivers talked about the "timing" of Piquet's crash. So already there was an atmosphere of suspicion regarding the Renault team, even if Alonso claimed during the post-race interview that people were reading too much into it, and that there was no foul play.
After that, he had a year to get to the bottom of it and clarify the story, if only for himself. He can't have failed to learn about the plot to put him in the lead and gave him the victory. He kept quiet about it.
When the plot was denounced by the Piquets, Alonso quickly distanced himself from his management during the enquiry.
We don't know what Alonso divulged, but he was totally exonerated, and kept his win too.
Pat Symmonds ls on record for saying years later that Alonso's testimony had been crucial in the FIA judgement to punish Renault and its management.
I read into that that Alonso must have plea-bargained with the FIA enquiry and saved his neck by spilling the beans on what he knew.

 

Can you post a link of this version?

 

I dont know where you get your info from, but Piquet is the one who came out about the crash and said it was Briatore/Renault. I never knew Alonso had known and cooperated with the FIA during the investigation. I would think if he knew about, there would be some ramifications same with Spygate.

 

He is a very good driver , my guess is that he is tough to get along with , for sure a huge ego but unless one knows the person , it is not right to make decisions based on he said she said . I have only met him briefly , was charming . I don’t blame him for saving his neck , pretty much anyone in his position would have done the same .

 

Donno about you guys, but I lost interest in F1 for a few seasons for exactly some of the reasons outlined here...and prior I considered myself a religious F1 spectator, never missing a race and being the only crazy guy stateside who stayed up in the wee hours to watch free practice, qualy and race...my past fchat posts are proof of that and I went to at least 3-4 live GPs a year. Only recently did I come back into the fold because there's some racing actually happening amidst many parade laps and Ferrari have a legitimate shot at winning again.