Alonso vetoes Vettel at Ferrari?

Alonso already had his taste of a younger, faster and better teammate stealing his thunder, and he threw his toys our of the pram with a force and vigor that will not soon be forgotten.

No way is he going to voluntarily put himself through that again. The best thing to do when confronted with a fight you cannot win, is not to fight at all. Alonso knows this - he is not dumb.

 

The way f1 own its money from being interesting, it wouldn't be surprising if all this talks are just part of a long soap opera ending in a new senna/prost

 

Really Mike?

I just can't agree with any of the above.

 

..... as to Ferrari going on the record to say they are ruling out an Alonso/Vettel pairing in the future, well, I read that the same as I do when a football club comes out saying they have "full confidence" in their current manager. That usually happens a short while before he is replaced.

 

All I can say is that things have changed drastically at the Scuderia since Enzo Ferrari departed. He would never have allowed one of his drivers to dictate conditions.

He used to get the best of his drivers by mounting one against the other with an elaborate strategy of rumours and wispers.
Ferrari pretended in private conversations with each driver that he was his favourite and kept criticising his team mate.
That sharpened the rivalry between drivers within the Scuderia .
That was Ferrari's machiavelic way of running his team.
Harmony between drivers wasn't on the cards then!

 

The commercial and monetary stakes are higher now than Enzo could have imagined.
Also, when you have a truly great driver like Alonso, why would you want to mess with his head with politics? I would want him to concentrate on his driving and nothing else.

 

I think the mistake here is to place any credence whatsoever in the article. If you look closely they say it is reported by an **unnamed** source **close** to Ferrari. That could cover anyone up to and including the waiter at a nearby coffee shop or a tourist driving past the front gate.

There is not one shred of evidence offered to support the claim.

Personally I don't think things have changed that much in terms of how Ferrari contract their drivers - although I only have their behavior and actions to go by.

I also don't agree with your slight demonisation of Enzo.

 

Luca is absolutely infatuated with Alonso. Just watch Luca's interviews with Charlie Rose going back to before Alonso was at Ferrari. Man-crush would be an understatement

 

Ferrari needs to concentrate on the car, not Alonso.

 

I don't need to make it up.

Enough has been said and written about Ferrari's attitude to his drivers by his close collaborators and some former employees.

Ferrari's machinations made successful drivers like Fangio, Phil Hill, Surtees, or Lauda leave the Scuderia because of the politics, when they could have collected more victories.

 

Agreed that there have been things written about Enzo that support your view, however, there are as many positive things written about him that refute those things and many things written that portray Enzo in a far more positive light and showing his care and affection.

It stands to reason that such a demanding task master with such a large number of employees over his time would have some "part ways" in a disgruntled state.

Its up to each of us to decide how to balance all those views, you seem to only accept the negative views and ignore the positive ones.

 

In fact I admired Ferrari for his incredible life achievement but he was a hard task master for his drivers.

I think he considered them as necessary elements of his Scuderia, very easily replaced if needed. He conducted them by flattering their ego, praising their talent, and simultaneously spurring their rivalry by gossips, inuendoes, etc...
Some drivers didn't react very well to that kind of mind game: Fangio, Behra, Surtees come to mind.

Ferrari was known to be heartless sometimes, like when Castellotti's death was reported to him over the phone; "What about the car" he enquired.
Apparently when he found out about Lauda's accident at the Nurburgring he exclaimed; "That's it, we lost the championship!".

Yes, he had moments of generosity and warmth, like when he paid for Surtees medical costs after a crash (in a Lola !) in Canada, or the way he conducted himself with Villeneuve.

Stewart once said he felt that, in retrospect, he had escaped from something by not signing with Ferrari; he was far happier at Tyrrell. I really only heard Jacky Ickx saying he didn't have any problem with the old man. Was he truthfull or diplomatic, I don't know.

 

Good post :thumbs up:

There were quite a few more moments from Enzo life I could quote covering his care and concern for his drivers and employees.

When you consider some of the reports about how he reacted to news of a drivers death, it is worth considering that death had treated his family harshly and from a very early age. He had been in a hospice for an extended period himself expecting to die. On top of that, he was exposed to WW1 as a front-line soldier and must have seen some genuinely horrific things. We know a lot more about this sort of stress these days.

I completely agree with you that all the evidence points to a very hard task master and demanding and opinionated boss.

 

Drivers and cars were replaceable ... as long as his racing team continued to build the image. Lets not look back with rose tinted glasses and distort history. Ferrari would not be were it is today with out Enzo being so ruthless.

Calling a driver back to a test track because a lap record was broken, when the driver had been at a party (I think) and was not up to driving ... he died that day. All over a stupid unofficial lap record.

Pete

 

Really... it was on display for the world to see, as were the repercussions (Alonso going to a slow team he knew had no chance of a WDC, just to get away from the heat).

 

Did you miss the entire RD vs FA melodrama that played out at McLaren?

 

Yeh I saw it, what you wanna know Korr.

 

You mean the part where he blackmailed the team if they didn't hold Hamilton back? Yep, I remember it well - good catch! More proof that he's unwilling to mix it up on even terms with a faster teammate.

 

In a nutshell:

Alonso: "I wanna be #1!"
Dennis: "No, you're equal."
Alonso: "Waaaaaaa!!!!! Hey Max, I have a secret!"
Mosley: "Well well well, look what we have here..."
Dennis: *grabs ankles*
Flavio: "Come on back Fred. You'll be our #1. We'll even fix the races for ya!"

 

Dennis: "at least mr. Ham will drive for us forever"

 

lolololol

 

Faster doesn't always equal better. I think Hamilton is faster than Alonso over one lap.

That said...

...people that think Hamilton is better than Alonso (aka certainly not those closely affiliated with the sport - i.e. team principals, actual drivers themselves) are stuck in 2007. They fail to realize the uniqueness of that situation and the fact that it is unquestionably Hamilton's best season in F1 to date whereas Alonso's driving has gotten better, culminating in his improbable WDC challange last year.

FA, LH and Vettel are all extremely good. Each with their own strengths. However, it's pretty widely accepted that Alonso is the best driver on the grid at the moment, and talking about 6 years ago isn't going to change that.

 

Blind Freddy could tell that Hamilton was heavily favoured at McLaren in '07. When you have the owner and boss of the team admit in public that "We were not racing Raikkonen, we were racing Alonso" it pretty much say it all. For those with short memories, it was so bad that the FiA had to deploy a "fairness czar" into the McLaren pits to ensure Nando got at least close to even treatment by the time they go to Brazil.