Goodbye Fernando...

[Horsey McHorseface]

One of the overtakes I'll remember, when he was at Ferrari, I can't remember the race, but safety-car was out, IIRC, everyone diving into pits, up the inside of Massa, at the pit entrance, very slow compared to the above clip, but no less showed his commitment. Massa wasn't expecting the move, kind of a gentlemans agreement you wouldn't attempt an overtake there, especially on your teammate, but FA didn't give SFA!

edit: found it, China 2010: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ty0A4v2H11U

Edited by Horsey McHorseface on Wednesday 15th August 19:05

[Vaud]

ghuk said:

Probably one of my favourite overtakes in F1 over the last 25 years

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGdmWq4ooQo

Absolute and total commitment............

Yup, that was a class move.

[TobyTR]

Derek Smith said:

TobyTR said:

Broken record... So you don't rate Alonso, but everyone else in the F1 industry does... I'm sure he's crying into his many many millions

1. Hamilton beat Alonso by scoring one more 2nd place finish than Alonso throughout 2007. Button beat Hamilton in 2011 by a considerable number of points margin at the height of both their careers... What is your point?

I'm wondering what your point is. The earlier point was that Hamilton beat Alonso in the former's rookie year. I'm confused as to what Button had to do with that.

The thing that has always stuck with me is that everyone, we are told, rated Alonso, some calling him the best driver of his generation yet he was never troubled with having to fight off the queue of top teams wanting to sign him.

If he's the best, then why all the rejection.

Whilst I know that has nothing to do with his ability in the car, being the best driver means the whole package. Someone mentioned he drove round one corner very fast. There's more to motor racing than that.

He missed out because he messed up. I have little doubt that he could have won at least one more WDC and probably two. He's that good in a car. What he is like out of it is what caused him to miss out.

I went off him after Stepneygagte. I know there were two main protagonists, with the catalyst third member having the most blame, but he was cheating. Fair enough, without Mozzy it would have all blown over. Then crash, er, gate. However, he is one of the most exciting drivers on the grid and he's always worth watching. It will be a shame when he goes. Whilst I've warmed to him, we've seen the occasional spark from his nasty side every now and again.

I'm sorry to see him go. We will never know what he could have done.

The point I was making is Hamilton beat Alonso in 2007 which he did by the smallest of margins, while Hamilton got beat by Button and Rosberg by greater margins. Most F1 drivers get beat at some point in their career by their teammates, unless you're Michael Schumacher.

Prior to leaving Ferrari Alonso was very much a man still in demand - even after 2007, Red Bull and Ferrari were eyeing him up etc. And the fact McLaren took him back after all of that...

I don't understand why he rocked the boat at Ferrari though. Surely in the hybrid era he could see the amount of growth, effort and development from Ferrrari and they were always going to be a top-three team with huge resources

Hindsight is a wonderful thing

[LDN]

TobyTR said:

The point I was making is Hamilton beat Alonso in 2007 which he did by the smallest of margins, while Hamilton got beat by Button and Rosberg by greater margins. Most F1 drivers get beat at some point in their career by their teammates, unless you're Michael Schumacher.

Prior to leaving Ferrari Alonso was very much a man still in demand - even after 2007, Red Bull and Ferrari were eyeing him up etc. And the fact McLaren took him back after all of that...

I don't understand why he rocked the boat at Ferrari though. Surely in the hybrid era he could see the amount of growth, effort and development from Ferrrari and they were always going to be a top-three team with huge resources

Hindsight is a wonderful thing

The only difference being; Hamilton was a rookie. Alonso has admitted since that he was stunned. We can all safely assume that he lost his head over this and then, feeling backed into a corner; threatened his own team. He wasn’t willing to race Hamilton on equal terms. The resulting fallout from all of this was a turning point in his career, certainly. If you add his fallout with Ferrari after that relationship turned sour; he was a marked man. He has been a toxic force; not the best at developmental work by all accounts; and teams will look elsewhere.

I hated seeing him mess around at the back of the grid in the recent McLaren. His talent certainly wasted.

[Hamsterdam]

TobyTR said:

I don't understand why he rocked the boat at Ferrari though. Surely in the hybrid era he could see the amount of growth, effort and development from Ferrrari and they were always going to be a top-three team with huge resources

Hindsight is a wonderful thing

Maybe he rocked the boat because he spent 4 years at Ferrari and never had the best car. Also, team strategy cost him his 3rd driver’s championship in 2010.

Ferrari with their huge resources haven’t yet won a Championship (driver or constructor) in the Hybrid era, they weren’t even truly competitive until last season. 3 years after Alonso had left.

[HustleRussell]

Hamsterdam said:

TobyTR said:

I don't understand why he rocked the boat at Ferrari though. Surely in the hybrid era he could see the amount of growth, effort and development from Ferrrari and they were always going to be a top-three team with huge resources

Hindsight is a wonderful thing

Maybe he rocked the boat because he spent 4 years at Ferrari and never had the best car. Also, team strategy cost him his 3rd driver’s championship in 2010.

Ferrari with their huge resources haven’t yet won a Championship (driver or constructor) in the Hybrid era, they weren’t even truly competitive until last season. 3 years after Alonso had left.

Alonso's growing dismay at Ferrari was palpable towards the end, culminating in Fernando believing that the team would basically never get there. There were so many ructions in the team followed by culls and repeated 'restructuring'. It must've been a horrible place to work- and you can bet Fernando contributed to that unhealthy pressure.

[paua]

Really surprised this hasn't been posted yet ....www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqCQZFLVFKA

[anonymous-user]

carinaman said:

Villeneuve mentions being team mates with Alonso around 18 minutes in:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7kVAnQoy3k

That was a very interesting podcast.

More respect for Villeneuve after that interview.

He is spot on with the state of Karting. Money means even more now than it did in the past.

Any pure talented drivers have no chance.

[Andy S15]

Horsey McHorseface said:

One of the overtakes I'll remember, when he was at Ferrari, I can't remember the race, but safety-car was out, IIRC, everyone diving into pits, up the inside of Massa, at the pit entrance, very slow compared to the above clip, but no less showed his commitment. Massa wasn't expecting the move, kind of a gentlemans agreement you wouldn't attempt an overtake there, especially on your teammate, but FA didn't give SFA!

edit: found it, China 2010: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ty0A4v2H11U

Edited by Horsey McHorseface on Wednesday 15th August 19:05

See, all that does is reinforce my thoughts that he was just a bit of a cock. Always out for himself, no matter the situation, not a team player. Fast, skilled driver, but a bit unlikable.

I do wonder how his demeanour would have been if he had still been in a top team for the last few years. I feel like trundling around at the back for a while has chilled him out to a degree, and allowed some of his humour to come out. Remember in the early days of Honda, basically retiring the car before the end of the race if he wasn't in the points? Constantly bad mouthing a large component of the whole team, who were actually the ones paying his wages?

In my mind, he's a nice comparison to Danny Ric. Both utterly ruthless in the car, but completely different attitudes out of it.

[JamesRF]

ghuk said:

Probably one of my favourite overtakes in F1 over the last 25 years

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGdmWq4ooQo

Absolute and total commitment............

Not the same level of bravery but I always liked these little battles....

Hungary 2006 vs Schumacher

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-ZMQpdX9HQ


Canada 2013 vs Hamilton - To have that awareness in the heat of battle right at the end of the race for podium positions and not get tricked by Hamilton at the DRS line is unreal.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3kbxjBAYmM

Edited by JamesRF on Thursday 16th August 12:54

[Likes Fast Cars]

Sa Calobra said:

Only a few points away..using that thinking being mentioned a few times then we would have:

Damon Hill four times WDC
Lewis Hamilton six times WDC

Sorry I didn't rate Alonso. A devisive character and not a complete driver who could develop a car.

He was beaten by a rookie at the height of his talent.

Lewis went to a team that everyone said he was mad to join. Look at how that turned out?

Alonso took a good car/team at Ferrari and slagged it off and left bad blood.

Blames everyone but himself.

Well said, fully agree.

[Sa Calobra]

A great piece on Fred in today's 'i' paper. Flattering but also looks at where he went wrong.

[Sa Calobra]

Vettels a good driver but a great?

[hairyben]

robbom3 said:

I’ve always despised Alonso the man, but still believe he is one of the greatest drivers of his generation. Unfortunately, he had a “win at any cost” mentality, which sometimes meant he crossed the cheat line. No one will ever convince me that he wasn’t complicit in the “crash gate” affair, and yet he walked away unpunished. He also blew the whistle on his own team in 2007, just because they wouldn’t give him preferential treatment over a very young Lewis Hamilton. Ok, you could argue he was doing the right thing, but it was for purely selfish reasons. You could also argue that that was the start of McLarens dramatic slide, from which they’ve never recovered.
Fantastic talent behind the wheel, but a deeply unpleasant individual everywhere else.

actually, it was Ron that dobbed his own team in, after Alonso tried to blackmail McLaren by saying he'd go to the fia if they didn't give him no 1 driver status. So hardly the "right" thing, and that's what Alonso always kind of got wrong really is the really sucessful dirty operators like schu and prost tended (mostly) to have more finesse about how they went about it.

Kind of ambivalent myself, good but flawed driver, architect of his own downfall. But his narcisism is so evident in this colossal pantomime everywhere that is his retirement, seems anyone and everyone is compelled to keep going on about it, you wouldn't think he hadn't won a title in over ten years. Its fizzled out, Kimi and Jenson have won more recent. I'm over it.

[Jasandjules]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxwZ3FFInao

Overtake...

[Hamsterdam]

Gaz. said:

He rocked the boat until he was thrown overboard with nowhere to swim to. Rosberg and Hamilton had contracts for the next year so he willingly vacated the next best seat on the grid. Vettel flushed his 5th WDC down the toilet in 2017. I usually assume Alonso wouldn't have gone to pieces in the Ferrari at Baku, Singapore and Mexico but on reflection he has done some stupid things under pressure before so who knows how 2017 would have turned out.

So Alonso should have stayed at Ferrari because after 7 years there he would have had a chance to win another world championship?

What stupid things Alonso has done under pressure then?

[robbom3]

hairyben said:

actually, it was Ron that dobbed his own team in, after Alonso tried to blackmail McLaren by saying he'd go to the fia if they didn't give him no 1 driver status. So hardly the "right" thing, and that's what Alonso always kind of got wrong really is the really sucessful dirty operators like schu and prost tended (mostly) to have more finesse about how they went about it.

Kind of ambivalent myself, good but flawed driver, architect of his own downfall. But his narcisism is so evident in this colossal pantomime everywhere that is his retirement, seems anyone and everyone is compelled to keep going on about it, you wouldn't think he hadn't won a title in over ten years. Its fizzled out, Kimi and Jenson have won more recent. I'm over it.

Great summary. COuldn't agree more.

[turbomoped]

A rational and well thought out appraisal of Alonso's time in F1 rather than all the nonsense so far.

https://www.motorsportweek.com/news/id/19495

[Derek Smith]

turbomoped said:

A rational and well thought out appraisal of Alonso's time in F1 rather than all the nonsense so far.

https://www.motorsportweek.com/news/id/19495

I'm not sure what the article is supposed to bring to the argument here.

There is a strong argument that Alonso could have got more WDCs. There is a stronger argument that he made some poor choice. I feel certain that 2WDCs is not an accurate reflection of his potential.

It is fair to say, as the article writer does, that statistics alone are not the measure of the man. But that's not what the argument on here is all about. In fact there seems to be a consensus that he is one of the all time greats with regards ability. What the conversation revolves around is whether he could have got more WDCs and victories if he'd made better decisions and had behaved himself.

I'm not sure how the wordage on Bradman supported his arguments, I mean, apart from hitting his wordage of course.

Alonso left the best team at the time under a cloud. He then left an improving team, again not on the best of terms. He then joined a team that was performing poorly and had little promise. It is a series of unforced errors. The article refers to these incidents in passing and goes on to suggest, it seems, that Peter Cook was someone similar.

Nice try but could do better.

[whatxd]

Sa Calobra said:

Only a few points away..using that thinking being mentioned a few times then we would have:

Damon Hill four times WDC
Lewis Hamilton six times WDC

Sorry I didn't rate Alonso. A devisive character and not a complete driver who could develop a car.

He was beaten by a rookie at the height of his talent.

Lewis went to a team that everyone said he was mad to join. Look at how that turned out?

Alonso took a good car/team at Ferrari and slagged it off and left bad blood.

Blames everyone but himself.

In which alternate reality is Damon Hill "a few points away" from being a 4 time WDC?

Sounds like a wonderful place, full of fantasy and fiction.