Alonso pulls an "ALONSO"!!!

[allan]

Alonso: McLaren favours Hamilton
12 June 2007


Double Formula 1 champions Fernando Alonso has admitted he is not feeling that much at home at McLaren as he had hoped for. Hamilton has taken his maiden win in Formula One on Sunday and is now leading the F1 championship.

"From the first moment I arrived at McLaren I wasn't comfortable with everything," the Spaniard told Cadena Ser radio. "This is an English team, with an English team-mate. You know that all of the help goes his way. I have understood that from the first moment and I won't complaint about it."

Alonso is currently eight points behind on Lewis Hamilton after finishing seventh in the Canadian Grand Prix. Alonso isn't worried and believes he has enough chances to win the F1 championship title for the third time in a row. "I am not too worried," he said. "I feel good and I know some might have higher expectations but I am standing where I wanted to be when I joined Mclaren."

Reminds me of last year's Chinese Gp.

[f1.redbaron]

You know, I've read that earlier today, and I was trying not to comment on it (just so I don't offend anybody), but I don't care. That comment pi***d me off! We all got the impression that Hamilton could've had more points had Ron favoured him from the beginning, but Alonso was the one who got the "perks" (better fuel strategy, Hamilton being told to back off so that Alonso could win...)

Now, I read about favouritism towards the Brit because the boss is British....wouldn't that mean that last year, Fisichella would've gotten a better treatment because the boss in that team was Italian.

What a baby!

His comments remind me of his, "I no longer consider Formula 1 to be a sport" (Alonso at Monza 2006).

[Phoenix]

I never have agreed with the way Alonso talks about his teams in a negative light. Everything was fine and peachy, but now the tables have turned and he starts getting defensive (it's most evident in his driving). Let's hope that he doesn't start blaming his team for mistakes and start claiming "F1 is not a sport anymore."

He is a great racer, however, I think he needs more confidence and be more collective of himself.

[Venom]

Let's not get carried away too much, remeber you can't rely on such source of information especially from some probably local radio station...

[Phoenix]

You do have a point Venom, but Alonso has said such things (and things far worse) in the past.

[JimmyK]

In fairness I'd be quite sceptical about translated non-official kinda sources.
It does seem a bit unhelpful whichever way you look at it. I think in the full source there was a comment about the British media, which I thought was pretty fair, not exactly the most shining example of resistance to bias, but that's to be expected really.

It's not really as dramatic as "F1 is not a sport anymore." but then again I thought he was pretty justified in saying that, though again his comment about Renault later on wasn't very useful.

[DaveKillens]

Perception, reality, and communication can be weird things at times. What the originator thinks sometimes gets lost and the message receieved is quite different than what is intended. I wonder what Alonso was really thinking about, because generally, he has actually had things his way, especially Monaco.
But all teams have individual members assigned to each driver/car, and we have teams within teams. Alonso has his gang, and Hamilton has his mates. And understandably, Hamilton has most likely established a very good working relationship with his people. So I think this is what Alonso is referring to, that he does not enjoy as good communication as Hamilton has.
But regardless, it's a pretty dumb statement to make.

[checkered]

Everywhere I look, this has

attracted huge attention. I can only imagine Alonso and his managers intended to get a fairly big audience from the beginning by choosing an influential media (Cadena SER, or Sociedad Española de Radiodifusión which ranks at the top in terms of listeners). If you know Spanish, you can still listen to the interview at their website, in a program called El Larguero: "Desde el primer momento no he estado cómodo en McLaren" ... and there's already a reply from Ron Dennis, too, assuring that his drivers get equal treatment.

I don't quite know how Alonso and his managers think this will play in the long run, F1 management might be concerned that a sizable part of the audience might lose interest if the sport appears "unfair" to their particular idol and keep McLaren under the microscope. This is a double edged sword, of course, as Fernando is playing with actually eroding the base that is responsible for his marketability towards the sponsors who are interested in his primary target groups. He did leaf through some British papers while being interviewed which might've had him present his points with more force than he intended (his remarks veered into blanket statements, I wonder how a BBC journalist would view his opinion about Brit lack of "respect" in relation to Spanish media), but we'll never know.

In this day and age, media really has incredible reach. In the end, though, I'd be surprised and disappointed if this season got played out anywhere but in the races. It's not only Alonso that's being rattled by Hamilton's successes - each and every driver has had to process his effect on their career. Still, there are 22 cars on the track and one winner per race and in that situation it's futile to just have eyes for the new guy on the grid.

Predictably people have jumped on this on very many messageboards, so perhaps there's "no such thing as bad publicity" (I wonder how Bernie sees this...). Too bad this thing has apparently done no favors on the quality of the conversations. Good thing there's F1T.

[Saribro]

Typical Alonso behaviour, he gets under pressure in the championship and he starts shouting the world is against him. Been there, done that, let's just move along...

[allan]

i actually dont know what to say... i've never liked the guy, and i dont wanna say anything stupid.
It would be better if these comments are not true, or else alonso would be in a real tight corner, especially with his team boss, Ronni...

[Rob W]

..Hamilton being told to back off so that Alonso could win...

On this note. When are people going to get in their heads: HAMILTON WAS NEVER GOING TO GET PAST ALONSO AT MONACO! It wasn't going to happen unless Alonso crashed. People, mainly general sports journos, speak about Monaco as if Hamilton was robbed of a sure win. He wasn't, he was given good advice and collected 8 points instead of perhaps none.

The comments mentioned in this case however seem to be from someone who is frustrated at losing four/five places due to random safety car periods which no-one could predict. Alonso seems pretty quick to always say what he thinks - often not complimentary to other drivers or even his team - he sounds like a frustrated perfectionist.

If you look at the facts of some of these past situations I think he's actually been right a lot of the time - people just wish he'd knuckle down and be the quiet achiever. He drives his ass off for a living and doesn't want non-driving factors to hinder his success - clearly he's an insanely competitive person. I don't see tons of people discussing Massa's straight dissing of his pit stop red-light disqualification. Why? Because he's irrelevant in the Hamilton-media love story (this week at least).

Some of the crap I've heard other driver's say- Button, Irvine, Schumacher - over the years never got seized upon by media on as much as Alonso does at the moment. It's weird and almost as if the media want to find someone to hate as wonder-boy Hamilton's roadblock to success. (Alonso is the perfect guy as he's the benchmark driver still)

Rob W

[Venom]

Every living being in the world knows that Hamilton wouldn't be able to overtake Alonso in Monaco, under any, any normal circumstances. Regarding the "crashing", Hamilton was far too more exposed to crashing then Alonso. Lewis himself admitted touching the barrier few times during that race.

So, how the hell on earth would he pass 2x world champion (Alonso) who even 7x world champion, most succseeful driver in history couldn't manage to overtake on even several even easier occasions as a result of Alonso's elite driving, not to even mention anyone's chances at Monaco circuit...

Ron's decision at Monaco favoured Lewis as much as it did Alonso.

What mostly amuses me about Alonso's statement is that he is a clever sportsman, who has loads of experience at this stage of career and went through all this mess previously... and even thou he does know the consequences of such statements, he still expresses himself that way. Why?

More from ITV-F1:
http://www.itv-f1.com/News_Article.aspx?PO_ID=39593

Plenty of that on any British website

[pRo]

i've never liked the guy

Yes, that has been very obvious.

Alonso gives a 30 min long interview to local radio station, where the reporter is trying to make a tiny scandal about a dozen of matters and keeps pushing Alonso to answer and say stuff he doesn't seem to want to comment. This was his best succeeding and what a noise it made.

"I won't complaint about it." really says it all. But I have to agree, it's easy to turn that against him, if you take it out of context and focus on it.

[ds.raikkonen]

Typical Alonso behaviour, he gets under pressure in the championship and he starts shouting the world is against him. Been there, done that, let's just move along...

+1....I almost started liking him, until now...im back to square one...remember the ruckus he created in Monza 2006 when the stewards charged him for blocking Massa....and the s#$%^* face of Flavio Briatore shaking like it was his death sentence or something....after Schumi 'parked' his car at La Rascasse.

[m3_lover]

I just want to hear the actual voice recording of that interview..Not even he is stupid to say something like that. I am thinking the reporter took the quote of context..