Alonso to where? - The definitive post.
Discussion
In considering whether Alonso will remain at Mclaren or not, I think one has to take into account how RD views how the team at large has been affected by Alonos's role in Stepneygate and his subsequent behaviour.
It might also be worth considering whether all the aces are indeed in RD's hand too; perhaps Alonso has some leverage he can apply?
It might also be worth considering whether all the aces are indeed in RD's hand too; perhaps Alonso has some leverage he can apply?
coetzeeh said:
He was the only one (or two) to admit that he knew about the Ferrari data.
I am not going to go into the spying thing + who did what as it has been done to death - to prove my point though - Coughlan stated that he had parts of the Ferrari dossier on the table at the restaurant when he met with his manager, who in turn said he saw the papers but took no notice of the contents.......................... - I will leave it at that.
I still think Mclaren can work this thing out - it was not exclusively FA who cost them the $$$ - the others involved are still there today.
Then again - I do not care much if they do either.
You won't go into the spying thing...except to attempt to prove your own assertion.I am not going to go into the spying thing + who did what as it has been done to death - to prove my point though - Coughlan stated that he had parts of the Ferrari dossier on the table at the restaurant when he met with his manager, who in turn said he saw the papers but took no notice of the contents.......................... - I will leave it at that.
I still think Mclaren can work this thing out - it was not exclusively FA who cost them the $$$ - the others involved are still there today.
Then again - I do not care much if they do either.
J. Neale said that Coughlan had a large envelope. When Neale thought that they had finished the conversation and were about to leave, Coughlan began to take some pages out of the envelope, telling Neale that whatever he wanted to show him had to be in confidence. Neale replied that whatever Coughlan might have he didn't want to see, and if Coughlan ought not to have whatever was in the envelope, he should destroy it.
Which proves exactly nothing.
Alonso had potentially incriminating material about Coughlan. He kept that fact to himself, until the very morning, in the middle of a Grand Prix, when he and Hamilton got into a ruck about qualifying, which incident inflamed Alonso's resentment that he was not being given undisputed number one status.
Does anyone suppose that Alonso made this revelation to Ron Dennis when he did simply because he could no longer cope with his feelings of guilt about having not spoken up sooner?
rubystone said:
In considering whether Alonso will remain at Mclaren or not, I think one has to take into account how RD views how the team at large has been affected by Alonos's role in Stepneygate and his subsequent behaviour.
It might also be worth considering whether all the aces are indeed in RD's hand too; perhaps Alonso has some leverage he can apply?
In principle that of course is possible, but one struggles to imagine what that might be.It might also be worth considering whether all the aces are indeed in RD's hand too; perhaps Alonso has some leverage he can apply?
"If you don't release my, the Spanish sponsors will refuse to continue with McLaren"? Doesn't really follow.
"If you don't release me, I'll drive like shit"? As I have said, I can't see Alonso doing that to himself.
I'd agree that McLaren think that they would be a better team without him (assuming that his replacement is at or above a certain level), but I don't think that Ron believes that he has to shift Alonso. There are some advantages to keeping him as a driver (there will be two GPs in Spain next year), so I expect that Ron will only move him if the deal is good.
flemke said:
coetzeeh said:
He was the only one (or two) to admit that he knew about the Ferrari data.
I am not going to go into the spying thing + who did what as it has been done to death - to prove my point though - Coughlan stated that he had parts of the Ferrari dossier on the table at the restaurant when he met with his manager, who in turn said he saw the papers but took no notice of the contents.......................... - I will leave it at that.
I still think Mclaren can work this thing out - it was not exclusively FA who cost them the $$$ - the others involved are still there today.
Then again - I do not care much if they do either.
You won't go into the spying thing...except to attempt to prove your own assertion.I am not going to go into the spying thing + who did what as it has been done to death - to prove my point though - Coughlan stated that he had parts of the Ferrari dossier on the table at the restaurant when he met with his manager, who in turn said he saw the papers but took no notice of the contents.......................... - I will leave it at that.
I still think Mclaren can work this thing out - it was not exclusively FA who cost them the $$$ - the others involved are still there today.
Then again - I do not care much if they do either.
J. Neale said that Coughlan had a large envelope. When Neale thought that they had finished the conversation and were about to leave, Coughlan began to take some pages out of the envelope, telling Neale that whatever he wanted to show him had to be in confidence. Neale replied that whatever Coughlan might have he didn't want to see, and if Coughlan ought not to have whatever was in the envelope, he should destroy it.
Which proves exactly nothing.
Alonso had potentially incriminating material about Coughlan. He kept that fact to himself, until the very morning, in the middle of a Grand Prix, when he and Hamilton got into a ruck about qualifying, which incident inflamed Alonso's resentment that he was not being given undisputed number one status.
Does anyone suppose that Alonso made this revelation to Ron Dennis when he did simply because he could no longer cope with his feelings of guilt about having not spoken up sooner?
I am not entirely convinced though, but that is just my humble and subjective view, period.
FA was absolutely out of order when he did what he did in Hungary, no argument about that.
I still think Mclaren with FA in '08 will be faster than without - it has it's risks though.
Interview with FIA President Max.FIA President Max Mosley is adamant that only transparency can keep Formula One racing free of the kind of maelstrom of events that has plagued so many popular sporting disciplines in the past decade...
Q: But has the whole affair not damaged McLaren and Ferrari and thus indirectly Formula One? There were a lot of voices claiming that it was unnecessary to hang out the dirty laundry…
MM: Contrary to those critics I want transparency and clarification of facts. The whole matter did damage both teams but some years down the line it will be forgotten.
Q: Why was it that only Pedro de la Rosa and Fernando Alonso were called and not Lewis Hamilton? Was he deliberately spared?
MM: He was present in Paris but we were basically interested in those 300 emails and intense sms contacts between McLaren’s Mike Coughlan and Ferrari’s Nigel Stepney - and in the communication between Alonso and de la Rosa. McLaren had brought Lewis to Paris but as his name was not in the files he didn’t have to answer any questions. We thanked him for his presence - and he was free to go.
Q: Why was McLaren only stripped of the constructor’s points and not those of their drivers. If something isn’t right with the cars then the results of the drivers who drove those cars cannot be right either. Ferrari’s Luca di Montezemolo said that if Alonso or Hamilton becomes champion today they should thank Ferrari’s engineers…
MM: This is Luca’s view. McLaren would definitely not agree…
Q: And you?
MM: When McLaren was stripped of their constructor’s points it would have had a certain logic to also slash the drivers’ championship points. But the majority of the World Council was of different opinion.
Q: Why?
MM: It was a decision of logic versus emotion. Logic would have demanded to slash all points, but emotion was not willing to wreck such an incredible championship with an armchair judgment. If McLaren had objected to the verdict it could have happened. But they didn’t. Though, I would have excluded McLaren from the championship before. There is a legal rule of thumb in the UK: emotional judgments produce weak findings. There’s no doubt that I have sympathy for Hamilton and Alonso, but that fundamental decision rendered by the World Council could haunt us one day.
Q: In light of your opinion, and indirectly that of di Montezemolo, then the title of one of the McLaren drivers is of little value…
MM: There is a question mark behind the title win of a McLaren driver. On the other hand one must acknowledge that both drivers did a fantastic job.
Q: This $100 million fine is an awful of a lot of money. On what comprehensible basis is this fine based?
MM: Had we to deal with one of the smaller teams, the fine would have been lower. And although this fine is severe for McLaren, the amount is less than the difference between the huge McLaren budget and the annual budget of Renault or Williams. Those 100 million dollars are no catastrophe for McLaren - and less would have missed the point. And as McLaren did not appeal it indicates that it is not endangering the team.
Q: Critics argue that the whole affair was a private vendetta between you and Ron Dennis. How is your relationship with him?
MM: Civilized. We phone once in a while. Personally I have no problems with Ron but otherwise there are differing positions. Just to give an example: Ron would like to finish every race with a one-two victory whereas it is my take that every entrant should have equal opportunities. So those two opinions don’t jar. But what goes for Ron also goes for Jean Todt, Frank Williams or Flavio Briatore.
Q: For Luca di Montezemolo as well?
MM: With di Montezemolo it is different. He is chairman of Fiat and President of Italian business lobby Confindustria. My relationship with him is very personal.
Q: So you are intellectually, socially and personally closer to him than to Ron Dennis?
MM: That is probably correct as I know Luca longer and therefore better than Ron. Indeed I’ve known Ron since 1970, but I became really acquainted with him at the end of the eighties, whereas I have known Luca very well since the beginning of the seventies.
Q: But do you commiserate with Ron? 2007 was an extremely tough year for him.
MM: Personally I pity his situation, on the other hand McLaren is his team, ergo his responsibility. I don’t know if in the reverse case he would feel sorry for me. But with jobs like ours you have to learn to live with problems.
Q: What should he have done to avoid penalty? Where did Mr Dennis make a mistake?
MM: If he would have admitted at the first World Council hearing that his team made mistakes, everything would have been much easier for him. But we had to press the facts out of his drivers, find evidence in the police files and invest immense time to bring the truth forward.
Q: Did Mr Dennis deliberately conceal something or was it a personal problem that caused his problems?
MM: I have no idea. At the first hearing he reassured us that he had investigated everything and everybody in his team and that only one person had knowledge of the Ferrari papers. But then it became evident that a prominent member of his team - one of his drivers - was in on this. This did not build faith in Ron Dennis.
Q: Is Ferrari more important for Formula One than other teams?
MM: Yes, firstly, because it holds a historically important position, as the team has been involved in Formula One since 1950. The second point has something to do with existential orientation: imagine that there were only one British team and all other teams were Italian, that the commercial rights holder was Italian, as was the FIA President, the race director and his assistant and the sport’s commissioner. Wouldn’t it be understandable that this team would be very careful? I therefore use my neutrality with a huge amount of responsibility and stay in close contact with Ferrari to assure them that no British ‘mafia’ or cartel tries to take advantage of them. But should we find it necessary to impose our technical or sporting regulations, than Ferrari is treated like any other team. Should we find irregularities on a Ferrari - like the moveable floor after the Australian Grand Prix - it is removed and banned.
Q: Has the so called ‘spy scandal’ harmed Ferrari?
MM: It does not read well for the team management that someone was able to secretly possess a 780-page document with the complete intellectual assets of the team and hand it over to the chief designer of a competitor. I am sure Ferrari has learnt from it.
Q: Many believe the penalty was too severe because it could not be proved that McLaren implemented Ferrari technology on their 2007 car. There is the legal principle of giving the defendant the benefit of the doubt…
MM: We could not prove that on this year’s McLaren there was any part derived from Ferrari know-how. At the time of the handover the 2007 McLaren was completed. What was important for McLaren was to learn about the weight distribution of the Ferrari, the aerodynamics and the race strategy. At heart we are more worried about the ‘08 McLaren as it was designed when McLaren’s chief designer Mike Coughlan received the confidential Ferrari dossier. We are speaking here of the period between the end of April until the beginning of June of this year. In addition to the papers there was a daily flow of information.
Q: What does that mean?
MM: We are now facing the situation of going through the ‘08 McLaren with a fine-tooth comb. And we are not speaking about a single component but of the incorporation of intellectual property and ideas in order to solve technical problems. If you look at ten technically possible solutions and somebody can precisely point out the malfunctioning ones because he has already tried them, you have a big advantage. Fact is that we are stuck in a very complex situation that requires intense communication with McLaren.
Q: So the case is not closed yet?
MM: For 2007 yes. Not for 2008 where the outcome is wide open and very difficult. We want to play fair with McLaren but want to give the other teams and the public the guarantee that the new McLaren is not built upon Ferrari information.
Q: When will this process be finished?
MM: We hope we can close the case at the World Council Meeting in Paris on December 7th.
Q: What happens if incriminating material is discovered on the 2008 McLaren?
MM: Then the World Council has to decide how to proceed.
Q: What could be a scenario?
MM: It is idle to speculate, as we don’t know yet if there is a case. As penalty I could imagine sending McLaren into the ‘08 season with a minus of championship points as is used in soccer - or exclude the team for the whole season.
Q: How can Formula One teams in the future avoid such conflicts?
MM: Ferrari should have been more cautious. And McLaren should have informed Ferrari the moment they received the dossier that they have a spy in the team. This should have happened at the latest at the Australian Grand Prix where Ferrari spy Stepney informed McLaren about the non-compliant floor of the Ferrari F2007. My recommendation for all teams: immediate information and transparency.
Q: Didn’t Ron react that way when Fernando Alonso allegedly tried to blackmail him with new details of the ‘spy-gate’ at the Hungarian Grand Prix…
MM: To this day I wonder what happened between Ron and Fernando in Hungary. Fernando doesn’t speak about it so I only know Ron’s version. It would have been better had Fernando informed us about his information much earlier.
Q: How do you rate Alonso’s part in all that?
MM: As long as we don’t have his version it is difficult to judge. We have to wait. I could imagine he will move to another team and probably then he will tell us a fascinating story.
Q: But has the whole affair not damaged McLaren and Ferrari and thus indirectly Formula One? There were a lot of voices claiming that it was unnecessary to hang out the dirty laundry…
MM: Contrary to those critics I want transparency and clarification of facts. The whole matter did damage both teams but some years down the line it will be forgotten.
Q: Why was it that only Pedro de la Rosa and Fernando Alonso were called and not Lewis Hamilton? Was he deliberately spared?
MM: He was present in Paris but we were basically interested in those 300 emails and intense sms contacts between McLaren’s Mike Coughlan and Ferrari’s Nigel Stepney - and in the communication between Alonso and de la Rosa. McLaren had brought Lewis to Paris but as his name was not in the files he didn’t have to answer any questions. We thanked him for his presence - and he was free to go.
Q: Why was McLaren only stripped of the constructor’s points and not those of their drivers. If something isn’t right with the cars then the results of the drivers who drove those cars cannot be right either. Ferrari’s Luca di Montezemolo said that if Alonso or Hamilton becomes champion today they should thank Ferrari’s engineers…
MM: This is Luca’s view. McLaren would definitely not agree…
Q: And you?
MM: When McLaren was stripped of their constructor’s points it would have had a certain logic to also slash the drivers’ championship points. But the majority of the World Council was of different opinion.
Q: Why?
MM: It was a decision of logic versus emotion. Logic would have demanded to slash all points, but emotion was not willing to wreck such an incredible championship with an armchair judgment. If McLaren had objected to the verdict it could have happened. But they didn’t. Though, I would have excluded McLaren from the championship before. There is a legal rule of thumb in the UK: emotional judgments produce weak findings. There’s no doubt that I have sympathy for Hamilton and Alonso, but that fundamental decision rendered by the World Council could haunt us one day.
Q: In light of your opinion, and indirectly that of di Montezemolo, then the title of one of the McLaren drivers is of little value…
MM: There is a question mark behind the title win of a McLaren driver. On the other hand one must acknowledge that both drivers did a fantastic job.
Q: This $100 million fine is an awful of a lot of money. On what comprehensible basis is this fine based?
MM: Had we to deal with one of the smaller teams, the fine would have been lower. And although this fine is severe for McLaren, the amount is less than the difference between the huge McLaren budget and the annual budget of Renault or Williams. Those 100 million dollars are no catastrophe for McLaren - and less would have missed the point. And as McLaren did not appeal it indicates that it is not endangering the team.
Q: Critics argue that the whole affair was a private vendetta between you and Ron Dennis. How is your relationship with him?
MM: Civilized. We phone once in a while. Personally I have no problems with Ron but otherwise there are differing positions. Just to give an example: Ron would like to finish every race with a one-two victory whereas it is my take that every entrant should have equal opportunities. So those two opinions don’t jar. But what goes for Ron also goes for Jean Todt, Frank Williams or Flavio Briatore.
Q: For Luca di Montezemolo as well?
MM: With di Montezemolo it is different. He is chairman of Fiat and President of Italian business lobby Confindustria. My relationship with him is very personal.
Q: So you are intellectually, socially and personally closer to him than to Ron Dennis?
MM: That is probably correct as I know Luca longer and therefore better than Ron. Indeed I’ve known Ron since 1970, but I became really acquainted with him at the end of the eighties, whereas I have known Luca very well since the beginning of the seventies.
Q: But do you commiserate with Ron? 2007 was an extremely tough year for him.
MM: Personally I pity his situation, on the other hand McLaren is his team, ergo his responsibility. I don’t know if in the reverse case he would feel sorry for me. But with jobs like ours you have to learn to live with problems.
Q: What should he have done to avoid penalty? Where did Mr Dennis make a mistake?
MM: If he would have admitted at the first World Council hearing that his team made mistakes, everything would have been much easier for him. But we had to press the facts out of his drivers, find evidence in the police files and invest immense time to bring the truth forward.
Q: Did Mr Dennis deliberately conceal something or was it a personal problem that caused his problems?
MM: I have no idea. At the first hearing he reassured us that he had investigated everything and everybody in his team and that only one person had knowledge of the Ferrari papers. But then it became evident that a prominent member of his team - one of his drivers - was in on this. This did not build faith in Ron Dennis.
Q: Is Ferrari more important for Formula One than other teams?
MM: Yes, firstly, because it holds a historically important position, as the team has been involved in Formula One since 1950. The second point has something to do with existential orientation: imagine that there were only one British team and all other teams were Italian, that the commercial rights holder was Italian, as was the FIA President, the race director and his assistant and the sport’s commissioner. Wouldn’t it be understandable that this team would be very careful? I therefore use my neutrality with a huge amount of responsibility and stay in close contact with Ferrari to assure them that no British ‘mafia’ or cartel tries to take advantage of them. But should we find it necessary to impose our technical or sporting regulations, than Ferrari is treated like any other team. Should we find irregularities on a Ferrari - like the moveable floor after the Australian Grand Prix - it is removed and banned.
Q: Has the so called ‘spy scandal’ harmed Ferrari?
MM: It does not read well for the team management that someone was able to secretly possess a 780-page document with the complete intellectual assets of the team and hand it over to the chief designer of a competitor. I am sure Ferrari has learnt from it.
Q: Many believe the penalty was too severe because it could not be proved that McLaren implemented Ferrari technology on their 2007 car. There is the legal principle of giving the defendant the benefit of the doubt…
MM: We could not prove that on this year’s McLaren there was any part derived from Ferrari know-how. At the time of the handover the 2007 McLaren was completed. What was important for McLaren was to learn about the weight distribution of the Ferrari, the aerodynamics and the race strategy. At heart we are more worried about the ‘08 McLaren as it was designed when McLaren’s chief designer Mike Coughlan received the confidential Ferrari dossier. We are speaking here of the period between the end of April until the beginning of June of this year. In addition to the papers there was a daily flow of information.
Q: What does that mean?
MM: We are now facing the situation of going through the ‘08 McLaren with a fine-tooth comb. And we are not speaking about a single component but of the incorporation of intellectual property and ideas in order to solve technical problems. If you look at ten technically possible solutions and somebody can precisely point out the malfunctioning ones because he has already tried them, you have a big advantage. Fact is that we are stuck in a very complex situation that requires intense communication with McLaren.
Q: So the case is not closed yet?
MM: For 2007 yes. Not for 2008 where the outcome is wide open and very difficult. We want to play fair with McLaren but want to give the other teams and the public the guarantee that the new McLaren is not built upon Ferrari information.
Q: When will this process be finished?
MM: We hope we can close the case at the World Council Meeting in Paris on December 7th.
Q: What happens if incriminating material is discovered on the 2008 McLaren?
MM: Then the World Council has to decide how to proceed.
Q: What could be a scenario?
MM: It is idle to speculate, as we don’t know yet if there is a case. As penalty I could imagine sending McLaren into the ‘08 season with a minus of championship points as is used in soccer - or exclude the team for the whole season.
Q: How can Formula One teams in the future avoid such conflicts?
MM: Ferrari should have been more cautious. And McLaren should have informed Ferrari the moment they received the dossier that they have a spy in the team. This should have happened at the latest at the Australian Grand Prix where Ferrari spy Stepney informed McLaren about the non-compliant floor of the Ferrari F2007. My recommendation for all teams: immediate information and transparency.
Q: Didn’t Ron react that way when Fernando Alonso allegedly tried to blackmail him with new details of the ‘spy-gate’ at the Hungarian Grand Prix…
MM: To this day I wonder what happened between Ron and Fernando in Hungary. Fernando doesn’t speak about it so I only know Ron’s version. It would have been better had Fernando informed us about his information much earlier.
Q: How do you rate Alonso’s part in all that?
MM: As long as we don’t have his version it is difficult to judge. We have to wait. I could imagine he will move to another team and probably then he will tell us a fascinating story.
You could argue that having two closely matched drivers cost Mclaren both constructors and drivers championships this year.
The best driver pair, imho, would be Hamilton and an older, more experienced driver who is prepared to play a supporting role but capable of winning races when required. Trulli maybe, even Ralph at a push.
Alonso/Hamilton and Prost/Senna type partnerships are too destructive and counter productive, Hakkinen/Coulthard, Schumacher/Massa(et al), Senna/Berger and Alonso/Fisichella are all examples of good driver combinations.
Personally, I'd have Alonso driving the team bus before I let him race again.
The best driver pair, imho, would be Hamilton and an older, more experienced driver who is prepared to play a supporting role but capable of winning races when required. Trulli maybe, even Ralph at a push.
Alonso/Hamilton and Prost/Senna type partnerships are too destructive and counter productive, Hakkinen/Coulthard, Schumacher/Massa(et al), Senna/Berger and Alonso/Fisichella are all examples of good driver combinations.
Personally, I'd have Alonso driving the team bus before I let him race again.
Edited by David_s on Tuesday 23 October 21:51
David_s said:
You could argue that having two closely matched drivers cost Mclaren both constructors and drivers championships this year.
The best driver pair, imho, would be Hamilton and an older, more experienced driver who is prepared to play a supporting role but capable of winning races when required. Trulli maybe, even Ralph at a push.
Alonso/Hamilton and Prost/Senna type partnerships are too destructive and counter productive, Hakkinen/Coulthard, Schumacher/Massa(et al), Senna/Berger and Alonso/Fisichella are all examples of good driver combinations.
Personally, I'd have Alonso driving the team bus before I let him race again.
The best driver pair, imho, would be Hamilton and an older, more experienced driver who is prepared to play a supporting role but capable of winning races when required. Trulli maybe, even Ralph at a push.
Alonso/Hamilton and Prost/Senna type partnerships are too destructive and counter productive, Hakkinen/Coulthard, Schumacher/Massa(et al), Senna/Berger and Alonso/Fisichella are all examples of good driver combinations.
Personally, I'd have Alonso driving the team bus before I let him race again.
Edited by David_s on Tuesday 23 October 21:51
i agree with you completely!http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport/formula...
Massa may have a new deal but Ferrari remain impressed with Alonso. Team president Luca di Montezemolo said: "Alonso is world class in every sense.
"I have appreciated very much his sportsmanship. He lost by one point and I believe it wasn't his fault."
sportsmanship? is that what ferrari call it!
Massa may have a new deal but Ferrari remain impressed with Alonso. Team president Luca di Montezemolo said: "Alonso is world class in every sense.
"I have appreciated very much his sportsmanship. He lost by one point and I believe it wasn't his fault."
sportsmanship? is that what ferrari call it!
David_s said:
You could argue that having two closely matched drivers cost Mclaren both constructors and drivers championships this year.
The best driver pair, imho, would be Hamilton and an older, more experienced driver who is prepared to play a supporting role but capable of winning races when required. Trulli maybe, even Ralph at a push.
Alonso/Hamilton and Prost/Senna type partnerships are too destructive and counter productive, Hakkinen/Coulthard, Schumacher/Massa(et al), Senna/Berger and Alonso/Fisichella are all examples of good driver combinations.
Personally, I'd have Alonso driving the team bus before I let him race again.
Completely agree, if you're a championship contender it doesnt really pay to have two equally matched drivers of the very highest calibre, all they'll do is simply take points off each other. Think about how many times Alonso finished behind Lewis or vice versa and tot up those "lost" points. If you have a second driver who's quick enough to be close but not in front 8 times out of 10 then you lose very little manufacturers points (if any) but your driver points are more focussed to one driver. I know to a certain extent it has been the same at Ferrari but Raikkonen did start getting the upper hand over Massa in the second half of the year and I think that will continue next year. Im not sure the same can be said of Alonso / Hamilton though who I suspect would continue to fight to be top-dog which could allow Raikkonen to nab another title even if the Macca was the quicker car in 08.The best driver pair, imho, would be Hamilton and an older, more experienced driver who is prepared to play a supporting role but capable of winning races when required. Trulli maybe, even Ralph at a push.
Alonso/Hamilton and Prost/Senna type partnerships are too destructive and counter productive, Hakkinen/Coulthard, Schumacher/Massa(et al), Senna/Berger and Alonso/Fisichella are all examples of good driver combinations.
Personally, I'd have Alonso driving the team bus before I let him race again.
Edited by David_s on Tuesday 23 October 21:51
I think this year will be pretty much unique in that both top teams had this situation for most of the year, Mclaren because they never expected Lewis to be quite that good straight away, and Ferrari because Raikkonen took time to get up to speed. Given how its bitten Mclaren so badly this year, I can't see them risking the same again.
LocoBlade said:
if you're a championship contender it doesnt really pay to have two equally matched drivers of the very highest calibre, all they'll do is simply take points off each other.
Ron is in it for the Constructors Championship first, the Drivers Championship second. Logically the best chance of getting the biggest total points is to have two race winning drivers. This approach falls down when the drivers don't get on & work out their own pecking order. Other teams may enforce the pecking order but McLaren trust the drivers to sort it out, sometimes to their cost.I guess it could be compared to Ferrari always having red cars with minimal sponsor logos way, way after it's been abandoned by all other teams. It's just part of the personality of the team.
johnfelstead said:
Riverside said:
I guess it could be compared to Ferrari always having red cars with minimal sponsor logos way, way after it's been abandoned by all other teams. It's just part of the personality of the team.
Marlboro money would have a slight hand in that i would imagine.I reckon if someone wants to know when Ron is going to 'wake up' and start using team orders the answer is probably that it's about as likely as Ferrari using a car that isn't some shade of red
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