Why isn't Alonso slammed the was MS was for the qualifing mishap?

Schumi won his first championship because he was lucky, what's your point? Luck is always a part in winning an F1 championship.

 

Oh is that so. I guess you also get lucky when you win your next championship, then jump teams and win another championship, with a team that hadn't produced a drivers champ in over two decades, to then win again, and again, and again, then break this record and that record, and set a new record, and win another championship, and then pretty much break all the records after that. Yeah bud that's sure is an awful lot of luck. NOT! That's called talent!

My point, Fernado is a spoil sport.

If Michael does decide to make a come back, I sure hope he does it with Toyota. Then it will set in in stone even more that he is the greatest driver of all time to race in F1 to date. This Lewis kid looks promising, but time will tell, until then Michael is still the king and the records prove it.

 

Yeah, and Robert Horry is better than Michael Jordan because Horry has won more rings and with multiple teams. Bill Russell has the most rings among any NBA player ever so he must be the "king," right? No.

 

Its often something you never thought of ...... I still remember the Croc Hunter getting killed by a stingray ( no one was every worried about a stingray of all things)

it might be slow but there's not a lot of run-off room....I wonder how slow one car's front tire can hit a parked car's rear tire and hop right up and land on the car below? I'd guess 20mph in a freak accident.... I'd hate to see that cars rear tire land on the head of the driver sitting below.

Have you ever seen how people get hurt or killed in this world?

Its the little things in life that can get you. The World came down hard on MS becaues he did something stupid. And there is a risk in doing stupid things around cars that have very powerful potential....
Did Senna die because a part broke in his steering colum? Did anyone ever think Senna would drive straight into a wall?

Have you ever seen a tire come off a car and kill someone just sitting in the stands? Because racing has seen so many crazy things happen....the drivers try to error on the side of - Anything that can go wrong, will!

I remember one year when Nigel Mansel slowed down for a yellow and a rookie at the Indy 500 drove over the top of his car.


I remember PGA golfer Paine Stewart getting killed in his jet, when they found the plane flying across the country on auto pilot with everyone passed out on board, and had to watch till it ran out of gas and fell to the earth. (small oxygen sensor didn't work right....killed everyone) How could a $3 dollar part kill a world famous golfer?


Do I need to keep going on?

Parking a race car side-ways (on a open race track) is not and will not ever be a good idea. The fact that MS was the greatest driver made it look even more sillly....he of all people should know...how a simple thing can go wrong.


So it was judged by the world as something worthy of slamming the guy for... sorry can't change history.


..

 

MS was hidden behind walls that drivers cannot see around. Thankfully we have yellow flags. Alonso and LH were completely and safely visible.

British GP, same year. Appolgoise for the "every second race"

Late 90's, and then ofcourse once Ferrari won and Bernie had made the most of the growth in TV audience, ie. wanting to see MS and Ferrari win, it went too far and Ferrari won too often, thus the FIA changed tack.

As I said:

, thus it was McLaren's turn to reap the benifits of the other teams not being up to speed. But in 2000 Mika pushed MS harder than anybody. To be honest I cannot remember if he pushed as well in 2001 also, etc.

Mika and DC used to have agreements and I was extremely upset at that Melbourne GP when they swapped positions. But McLaren clearly do not have a team mate has control over the other team mate situation, otherwise they would not be in the mess they currently are.

By adding constants to the stats. Even Fangio's record needs balancing. Team number 1 was always going to win in 55 (or 54, the dominant year for Mercedes) ... thus if Moss had been the number 1 he would have won.

I had moments when I thought he was good ...

Yes ofcourse you are perfect

Yes know all about that and it was Ron Dennis's way of getting Mika first win so the monkey would be off his back. Has nothing to do with the JV/MS incident but was wrong of the British teams.

Now that surely is stretching it. Judging somebodies character because a piece of his car unfortunately killed somebody, during a race!

Meaning of this is lost on me.

best
Pete

 

For the most part I agree. Alonshole was sort of gifted at least one championship. How people can like a whinner, I just dont know.

 

Mark, i apologize if i did indeed sound rude. i didn't intend to sound rude.

anyways, at the end of the day, the goal of MS and Fred was same, more less : prevent anybody else from setting a faster lap than their time. so, IMO, if you asked me, Fred should have been punished more severely. i don't understand why Mac was the one that got penalised.

it was their driver's war, and i think FIA should have punished the drivers, and not the team.

 

While Alonso might have been the only person on a hot lap and the only person MS directly wanted to affect, the end result is MS blocked the track for all other drivers ... Alonso just blocked LH, his team mate, and off track.

Big difference. When Alonso has been as unsporting for as long as MS was, then everybody will be as hard on Alonso as we now are on MS.
Pete

 

true, but while Fred was blocking Hammi, Hammi indirectly could have distracted and blocked the other drivers whose rushing down the pitlane. i don't see the problem here. this isn't about danger, IMO. it's just something unprofessional that both MS and Fred shouldn't have done.

 

Damn, you are almost talking about Alonso now.

 

Thanks, but no problem.

I'm not the greatest writer...so its part my fault, and I figured that out

 

cheers

 

Key word "almost". The new sheriff in town is taking that spot. Go LEWIS!

 

If we're dissecting the characters of these two drivers, I couldn't disagree more! In fact, I'd say that Schumacher (like Senna and other former champs) was competitive to the point that he felt he had the right to win races. People who pull that kind of cr@p feel that they are justified because they are better drivers. They have a win-at-all-costs mentality.

Alonso is not like that. He is consistent, he competes to win a series and does not feel that he has the right to be on the top podium every race. But he is as big a prima donna as anyone I've seen...hell, he's Lindsay Lowhore in a race car. His cr@p he pulled on Kubica last year during practice (the adolescent game of "chicken" where he willfully engaged in dangerous stop-and-go manuevers as a response to Kubica passing him and practice) as well as against Massa this year is simply childish. You NEVER saw MS or Senna, Prost, Villeneuve (the good one, Gilles) pulling stupid stuff like that.

You can't have flexible yardsticks on this stuff. If it's wrong when Schumacher resorts to dirty tactics, it's also wrong when Alonso, Senna, Fangio, Villeneuve or anyone does something similar. To argue the number of transgressions before someone is a sinner is simply splitting hairs.

 

The point being that Alonso, as whiny as he is, is extremely fast and a legit champion. He beat Kimi fair and square, and he beat Schumi as well.

 

+1, but do you remember when MS pulled that braking manouvre on Jensen Button while behind the pace car at the Monza GP and Jensen spun off ... , I'll stop now.

Pete

 

Ernie, you are flat out wrong. It was Ferrari's and Bridgestone's mistake to rely solely on eachother as opposed to Michelin which had 8 of the teams with which to develop the tire. Michael himself said that it wasn't the tire but the car as well that was not performing as they had expected, so don't get all hung up on the 1 tire rule for that year. As long as Michelin was in the game, Ferrari was Bridgestone's sole focus, regardless of all the other teams that they supplied, and the relationship yielded unmatched performace but that was also their undoing in 2005. Also, Fernando had a hell of a fight with Kimi (whom so many here admire) during that season, both teams being on Michelin's, and although the McLaren wasn't as reliable as the Renault, that was largely due to Kimi's abuse of the car, a la the "driveshaft failure" which actually turned out was a blown clutch because he did more than the prescribed burnouts leaving the pits and toasted the transmission. The biggest reason for the jump in the McLaren's reliability this year is the fact that Kimi isn't driving it! Alonso earned all of his wins and the championship last year despite the mechanical failures he suffered and that BS blocking penalty that the Monza stewies handed down to him just so they could help gift Michael another win. When either Fernando or Lewis win the WDC this year, it won't be because they had some pansy #2 driver playing blocker the way Spoonface did for so many years. Ernie, you may think that Fernando was gifted a WDC, and that is your opinion, but I believe that Schumacher was gifted 3 of his championships at Ferrari and earned 1 illegally at Benneton when he took out Damon Hill. He may have engineered the team around him but it was so blatantly obvious that he was the sole focus of Ferrari and Bridgestone for several years that it was no longer a sport. Spoonface never had the balls to take on another teammate on an equal status which is something that cannot be said about the McLaren boys this year. Fernando may not have expected the fight from Lewis but he most certainly isn't shying away from it. For all the internal and external strife that it is creating, Ron Dennis' decision to let them race is probably the best thing for the sport in years. It's too bad that Ferrari hasn't done that in over a decade or so. As for the whole qualifying mess, Fernando overreacted to a violation of orders from Ron as to how Q3 was going to be run to give Fernando the opportunity to burn off a bit more fuel and run lighter, just as Lewis had been allowed to do at the British GP at Fernando's expense, as opposed to Spoonface who just had a meltdown at Rasscasse and "lost control" at 20 miles per hour because he could not cope with the pressure and pulled an old trick out of his bag, which David Hobbs had noted was a trick MS used frequently in the lower formulas to keep his pole position. MS has a history that he cannot ever avoid despite his "wins", and although Fernando may have made an ethical error, he'll learn from it and recover from it. I prefer someone who speaks their minds and tells it like they see it than this PC "I guess you'll just have to go talk to the team..." I don't think its whinging for Fernando to say "Lewis violated team orders and screwed up our programme" it that is the reason he is pissed and did what he did.

I haven't commented much on the whole spy thing because I honestly believe that both Stepney and Coughlan were acting far outside the scope of their respective jobs, but I will say this: I hope I'm wrong but I really think that when Stepney gets hauled in before the FIA, he is going to unearth a lot of bodies in the Ferrari closet that will involve some significant level of cheating and espionage during the time he was there, and then we'll see how eager the Spoonface disciples are to brand their god a cheater or make excuses for him. I love this sport more than any single team or driver but it's that kind of garbage that bugs me the most. The fact that the Ferrari hasn't pushed to have the Stepney hearing yet indicates to me that they are very nervous about what he has to say and are looking to keep McLaren under the spotlight until the end of the season and then deal with the Stepney issue. We were supposed to hear about the "white powder" determination last week but that seems to have died down.

A few people here have given me crap for belonging to "McLarenChat" or "AlonsoChat", but it sure seems to be the haters out there that are starting all these Alonso and McLaren posts. They are apparently so underwhelmed with the performance of "their team" that they have to focus on McLaren, its drivers or whomever. This board was apparently fine for them as long as Spoonface was king and all was right in the world, but as soon as a better driver won two back to back WDCs they started making all sorts of excuses, just as they accuse the current champion of doing, rather than discussing what needs to be done to actually make Ferrari more competitive. Massa has the desire to be WDC but not the skill, while Kimi has more than enough skill but is lacking the desire to be WDC. Scandal or not, Ferrari's drivers are being outdriven by both Fernando and Lewis who both have the balls and the fire to take it to eachother and the rest of the field without either of them being named #1; it's as if Kimi and Felipe are looking for the other to fail in order to determine the order at Ferrari whereas the McLaren boys are leaving it up to themselves.

Go Fernando.

BTW, Jean Todt, Eddie Irvine is still waiting for his 4th tire.

 

Well said.

And Massa (and his fans) is most definitely waiting for Kimi to fail, which I don't think will happen. Will he (Kimi) ever bag a WDC or be a Chris Amon? (who was also lazy), who knows time will tell.
Pete

 

Win-at-all-costs. Actually, all of the front-runners behind the safety car do strange things with their unpredictable braking habits (in order to create a drafting gap with the #2 car). I also remember Juan-Pablo doing it to Schumacher at Monaco.

If you're behind, you have to pay attention.

 

Sorry GoFerrari28, but that was hardly a BS penalty. What Alonso was doing to Kubica was not simply uncalled for, it was wreckless and immature. And for what, passing him during practice? Puh-lease.

And as far as the Monza stewies 'gifting' Schumacher a win, didn't they penalize Schumacher when Alonso baited him into passing under a yellow?

As far as the rest is concerned, you like Alonso, others like Schumacher, Hamilton, Kimi, Massa, etc. None of these guys are angels, they're all very willful competitors. There are no excuses for Alonso's trangressions...he's a diva who gets pissed when anyone he considers a 'lesser' driver gets near him. Basically, that's anyone except Raikkonen and Schumacher. I think those are the only two that he feels have talent equal to his own (i.e. 'It was important to win while Schumacher's around as he is the best') Of course, I'm certain he would reluctantly admit the same of Hamilton.

Hamilton was wrong at the Hungarian GP. His act of insubordination showed lack of professional maturity, and I sincerely hope he doesn't repeat that in his career. However, two wrongs don't make a right, and the only thing Fernando lost in that whole exchange was an open track in front of him. He could have handled things like a mature, seasoned vet (like, smacking LH in private, versus making that egregious error in judgment). However, like Terrell Owens, Lohan, Chad Johnson and other narcissists, his diva-itis got the better of him when someone tried to show him up.

 

I suppose we're never going to see the end of comparos between Schumi and (fill in the blank).

Alonso is a talented driver. He's also a jerk. Shumi was a phenominal driver -- absolutely mechanical in his precision. But he was also coldly ruthless on track. Alonso's "transgressions" are often childish. Shumi's rarely were. Alonso was also hard on his tires. Shumi managed to nurse his car around for an unprecedented string between DNFs.

And Shumi never whined about the team or his tires or his teammate not supporting him.

Between the two, I'd have to say that Shumi was the better technical driver. In terms of team support, there's no comparison between the two.

People were all over Shumi and Monaco in '06. But I'm certain I saw (on digital satellite feed) the tail of the Ferrari go squirrelly entering that turn complex ..... the same way it did when Massa stuffed his Ferrari into the barriers in Q1. (I've seen analog quality replays on youtube, and you can't see it in that resolution -- that's how fast Schumi could react.) And people keep forgetting where Kimi fetched up after a mistake on the Rascasse complex in an '07 Ferrari. I still think Schumi's only "fault" in Monaco '06 was in just not hustling to get out of the way, once he blew his fast lap with that mistake.

But because of Schmi's reputation for precision and ruthlessness, everyone else simply assumes it was a calculated "cheat". (Do they also think Kimi was instructed to park there to try to "excuse" something after the season was already lost?)

Alonso's complaints about Hamilton aren't his first -- Remember Alonso complaining about Fisi "not supporting" his WDC efforts .... right after Fisi crashed himself into another driver to keep from tagging Alonso in Turkey after the Ferraris boxed him in? I don't know where you'd find a teammate that would give you more support than tanking his own race to support you.

Shumi was spectacularly talented and ruthless. Alonso is talented and a whiner.

Neither of them are guys I'd want to go for a beer with. But between the two, I'd pick Schumi as a team driver.

Alonso *had* open track in front of him -- Lewis was walking away from him while Kimi was chewing on his rear wing. I've never bought that excuse about "fuel strategy". Those "count down" pit stops were about obstructing Kimi's hot laps. Lewis wasn't playing, and Ron couldn't explain to Lewis over the radio with the FIA listening.

Lewis is "guilty" of not blindly following stupid sounding team instructions without understanding the reason.

 

great post DGS.

 

Excellent reasoning

+1