Should Ferrari and Alonso backtrack on cheating claim?

[WhiteBlue]

just wait till ... Luca M. opens his mouth

Luca will say that GP3 cars have no purpose on the same track as his divine machines and that they should be replaced by third fourth, fifth and sixth cars all from Ferrari. With enough Ferrari cars the accident would not have happened and the safety car had not been deployed.

[vladi57]

My thoughts here are these - there were 22 drivers on the track at the moment of this SC car pass. None of the drivers complained, except one. If you look at the "resume" of this driver (this might get a bit long - sorry!), it reads:

* At the 2003 European Grand Prix, David Coulthard and McLaren managing director Martin Whitmarsh accused Alonso of giving the Scottish driver a brake test. This was in relation to a passage of racing towards the end of the race when Coulthard was trying to overtake Alonso, who was holding him up. Coulthard swerved off the track and into retirement during an attempted overtake. After talking to the drivers and viewing telemetry and video data, the FIA stewards decided that the incident did not warrant any "further judicial action".
* At the 2006 Hungarian Grand Prix, Alonso was involved in an incident in which he brake tested Red Bull Racing test driver Robert Doornbos in the second free practice session. The stewards decided that Alonso’s actions were “unnecessary, unacceptable and dangerous”, and awarded him a one second time penalty to be applied to his fastest lap time in each of the qualifying sessions.
* After a separate incident from the same race, when Michael Schumacher was asked whether he thought Alonso deliberately slowed down so that Schumacher had to pass him under red flags in practice, Schumacher replied, "You said that, I didn't."
* In the 2006 Italian Grand Prix, after stewards ruled Alonso had potentially blocked Felipe Massa in Saturday qualifying and relegated him five places on the starting grid, Alonso stated "I love the sport, love the fans coming here — a lot of them from Spain but I don't consider Formula One like a sport any more".
* In the qualifying for the 2007 Hungarian Grand Prix, while both McLarens were in the pits, Alonso remained stationary in the McLaren pit for a few seconds. This delayed the then provisional pole sitter (and his team mate), Lewis Hamilton long enough to prevent him from getting another 'hot lap' in. Alonso then went on to claim pole. McLaren boss Ron Dennis later said the team had got "out of sequence" when Hamilton did not as agreed allow Alonso past earlier in the qualifying session. He added that Alonso was "under the control of his engineer" when he was waiting in the pit lane.[53] However, Alonso was subsequently given a five-place grid penalty and his McLaren team were docked the 15 constructors' World Championship points they would have earned in the race.
* As a result of this investigation, it emerged that some team members within McLaren, among them Alonso, were aware of confidential information belonging to the Ferrari team. This information was commented on to Alonso by McLaren test driver Pedro de la Rosa who had also received information from McLaren chief designer Mike Coughlan. The email contained text suggesting that Alonso was surprised by the data and doubted its authenticity. According to the "spygate" related email exchanges between Alonso and de la Rosa, it was clear that Alonso knew about Ferrari's pit strategies in the Australian Grand Prix and Bahrain Grand Prix. Alonso finished 2nd and 5th respectively in those races. Ron Dennis told the FIA about the case during the Hungarian Grand Prix. Amid media allegations that Alonso threatened Dennis with reporting the team to FIA himself if he was not given number one driver status, Ron Dennis stated in a televised interview that there had been an argument, and that Alonso had said something in the heat of the moment but immediately apologised. This was when Dennis found out about Ferrari data and immediately informed the FIA. Pitlane sources have suggested, from published FIA stewards data, that an argument involving reporting the McLaren team to the FIA was prompted by the fact that there was no stewards' investigation regarding the qualifying pitlane incident until Anthony and Lewis Hamilton made a formal complaint on the Saturday evening; costing Alonso a five-place grid penalty and loss of Constructors' Points for the team. FIA then revealed that it had had knowledge of the Spygate case thanks to a slip made by Coughlan.
* In what became known in the media as "Crashgate", Renault allegedly ordered Alonso's teammate Nelson Piquet Jr. to crash at the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix, causing a safety-car incident at a moment where Alonso would get tremendous benefit from his race strategy, putting him towards the front of the grid, and giving him a fighting chance to win the race, after a number of opponents (Felipe Massa, Robert Kubica and Kimi Räikkönen to name a few) suffered. However, the FIA confirmed that no evidence had shown that Alonso had knowledge of the plan, and neither did many of the personal mechanics of both drivers.

Yet he was bold enough to blame today the organizers in his own country, where he is an icon and an idol, for fixing race? And was backed up in this disgrace by the entire team? Well, the right word here is outrageous...

But, nothing will happen to correct such behavior, I am sure - until FIA and Ferrari are hand by hand best friends and buddies... At least, this is what is visible from the stands...

[AbbaleRacing77]

I think alot of you are focusing on what drivers did wrong when you shouldnt be. The fact is that this whole fiasco is the FIA's FAULT COMPLETELY. The safety car should have came out in front of Vettel NOT Alonso. Which would have grouped Vettel, Hamilton, and Alonso in the pits. Alonso is completely justified in his comments because the fact is that the FIA DID MANIPULATE THE RESULTS! The European Grand Prix was a joke... How does a 3rd place driver on the same pit strategy come out in ninth when Hamilton and Vettel came out 1st and 2nd? Those of you who say Alonso is whining just shut up because you have no idea what your talking about and he his completely justified in his statements.

[Poleman]

Mr. Alonso talking about race manipulation...Hilarious and ironic...

[myurr]

My thoughts here are these - there were 22 drivers on the track at the moment of this SC car pass. None of the drivers complained, except one. If you look at the "resume" of this driver (this might get a bit long - sorry!), it reads:

* At the 2003 European Grand Prix, David Coulthard and McLaren managing director Martin Whitmarsh accused Alonso of giving the Scottish driver a brake test. This was in relation to a passage of racing towards the end of the race when Coulthard was trying to overtake Alonso, who was holding him up. Coulthard swerved off the track and into retirement during an attempted overtake. After talking to the drivers and viewing telemetry and video data, the FIA stewards decided that the incident did not warrant any "further judicial action".
* At the 2006 Hungarian Grand Prix, Alonso was involved in an incident in which he brake tested Red Bull Racing test driver Robert Doornbos in the second free practice session. The stewards decided that Alonso’s actions were “unnecessary, unacceptable and dangerous”, and awarded him a one second time penalty to be applied to his fastest lap time in each of the qualifying sessions.
* After a separate incident from the same race, when Michael Schumacher was asked whether he thought Alonso deliberately slowed down so that Schumacher had to pass him under red flags in practice, Schumacher replied, "You said that, I didn't."
* In the 2006 Italian Grand Prix, after stewards ruled Alonso had potentially blocked Felipe Massa in Saturday qualifying and relegated him five places on the starting grid, Alonso stated "I love the sport, love the fans coming here — a lot of them from Spain but I don't consider Formula One like a sport any more".
* In the qualifying for the 2007 Hungarian Grand Prix, while both McLarens were in the pits, Alonso remained stationary in the McLaren pit for a few seconds. This delayed the then provisional pole sitter (and his team mate), Lewis Hamilton long enough to prevent him from getting another 'hot lap' in. Alonso then went on to claim pole. McLaren boss Ron Dennis later said the team had got "out of sequence" when Hamilton did not as agreed allow Alonso past earlier in the qualifying session. He added that Alonso was "under the control of his engineer" when he was waiting in the pit lane.[53] However, Alonso was subsequently given a five-place grid penalty and his McLaren team were docked the 15 constructors' World Championship points they would have earned in the race.
* As a result of this investigation, it emerged that some team members within McLaren, among them Alonso, were aware of confidential information belonging to the Ferrari team. This information was commented on to Alonso by McLaren test driver Pedro de la Rosa who had also received information from McLaren chief designer Mike Coughlan. The email contained text suggesting that Alonso was surprised by the data and doubted its authenticity. According to the "spygate" related email exchanges between Alonso and de la Rosa, it was clear that Alonso knew about Ferrari's pit strategies in the Australian Grand Prix and Bahrain Grand Prix. Alonso finished 2nd and 5th respectively in those races. Ron Dennis told the FIA about the case during the Hungarian Grand Prix. Amid media allegations that Alonso threatened Dennis with reporting the team to FIA himself if he was not given number one driver status, Ron Dennis stated in a televised interview that there had been an argument, and that Alonso had said something in the heat of the moment but immediately apologised. This was when Dennis found out about Ferrari data and immediately informed the FIA. Pitlane sources have suggested, from published FIA stewards data, that an argument involving reporting the McLaren team to the FIA was prompted by the fact that there was no stewards' investigation regarding the qualifying pitlane incident until Anthony and Lewis Hamilton made a formal complaint on the Saturday evening; costing Alonso a five-place grid penalty and loss of Constructors' Points for the team. FIA then revealed that it had had knowledge of the Spygate case thanks to a slip made by Coughlan.
* In what became known in the media as "Crashgate", Renault allegedly ordered Alonso's teammate Nelson Piquet Jr. to crash at the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix, causing a safety-car incident at a moment where Alonso would get tremendous benefit from his race strategy, putting him towards the front of the grid, and giving him a fighting chance to win the race, after a number of opponents (Felipe Massa, Robert Kubica and Kimi Räikkönen to name a few) suffered. However, the FIA confirmed that no evidence had shown that Alonso had knowledge of the plan, and neither did many of the personal mechanics of both drivers.

Yet he was bold enough to blame today the organizers in his own country, where he is an icon and an idol, for fixing race? And was backed up in this disgrace by the entire team? Well, the right word here is outrageous...

But, nothing will happen to correct such behavior, I am sure - until FIA and Ferrari are hand by hand best friends and buddies... At least, this is what is visible from the stands...

The 2006 Italian GP incident with Massa was highly dubious from the FIA's point of view and I support Alonso on that issue, but you missed off his biggest offence of all time and the one which first made me severely dislike him as a driver:

Brazilian GP, I think in 2003, Webber had a huge crash. Alonso decided to go into the waved yellow flag zone at full speed without lifting at all, something he admitted he did because he thought he'd gain a time advantage. He hit Webber's debris pitching him into his own massive crash. Had he hit Webber or had there been a marshall on track at that time then he could have easily killed someone.

[xpensive]

I think this entire thread is a very good xample that the procedure of opening new, in this case meaningless, such should be evaluated asap, as there is currently no less than three threads on th board basically dealing with the same topic.

[tpe]

I draw everyones mind back to China...

"I made a serious mistake at the start as my reflexes let me down and I left early," said Alonso.

"It's never happened to me before and I am very disappointed with myself.

"Luckily, despite the penalty, I managed to finish fourth."

And, in how much many laps had Alonso in order to build a gap? Can you remember the time that was needed in order to announce the penalty?

Simple. All drivers make occasional errors of judgement in a sport which relies on quick reflexes and fast decision making. No drivers accused Alonso of cheating because they couldn't get past him in China despite his penalty. Clear cut case of sour grapes on Alonso's part.

Ferrari and Alonso accused FIA, not Hamilton.

Not only should Ferrari withdraw their unprofessional comments but the FIA should punish them for bringing the sport into disrepute. Alonso needs to be taught to keep his mouth shut, loose lips sink ships, as they say.

I could agree with you on that, but on other hand, Hamilton had a DT penalty. So, for a similar error, the 9 drivers took a +5secs penalty. FIA should have handed them the same penatly as in Hamilton's case and that is +25''...
Anyway, it is very clear that Hamilton fans will never accept the fact that this year is clearly the favority boy of FIA/FOM/etc...

[myurr]

Anyway, it is very clear that Hamilton fans will never accept the fact that this year is clearly the favority boy of FIA/FOM/etc...

Or it's just clear that all the Ferrari / Alonso fanboys are just deluded on this point. Hamilton got a penalty, he served it. This isn't the first time the FIA have taken a long time to come to a decision, and they were well within their 25 lap limit on this occasion, and Alonso has benefitted from slow decisions in the past. Why suddenly bleat about the slow stewards now? Could it be anything to do with their car updates not bringing them the glories they were expecting?

[neilbah]

Alonso was a vicim of the rules this time, the safety car has always caused problems in F1, there is no fair way to do it, someone is always going to be worse off, especially when there is only one pit space per team and cars have to queue. It seems perhapse Macca and Hammy were unsure of the rules causing the hesitation just like brawn didnt know where they stood in the alonso incident in monaco. Either way ferrari have always used the rules to their advantage when they could, didnt schumi take a stop-go on the last lap once when his pit box was past the finish line? Alonso had an extra test session before valencia where he could quite clearly be seen taking a corner at speed and yet they are still off the ultimate pace - Ferrari quite clearly follow the spirit of the rules dont they! Koboyashi gets a +1 from me for his performance and a brilliant overtake on the whinger who needs to grow up.

[Steven]

Really, this thread is about Valencia 2010. Singapore has absolutely nothing to do with this. As such, any further insinuations towards that race will be removed, no matter in which Valencian GP related thread.

And then there's this...

Brazilian GP, I think in 2003, Webber had a huge crash. Alonso decided to go into the waved yellow flag zone at full speed without lifting at all, something he admitted he did because he thought he'd gain a time advantage. He hit Webber's debris pitching him into his own massive crash. Had he hit Webber or had there been a marshall on track at that time then he could have easily killed someone.

How does a race from 2003, Alonso's second season in F1, relate to Ferrari cleaming that the race was fixed?

And finally, so many people have been complaining F1 drivers have no more emotion these days. Raikkonen for instance was considered dull and not right for F1, and now he'd be better and Alonso should shut up. Turning with the wind are we?

Controversy is part of this sport, and it is good, but not when it's caused by artificial safety car regulations like the FIA have been producing in recent years.

[meves]

It's good to question the FIA, and getting clarification should be sought if teams want to do that. I think that Ferrari are a little strong in their wording of it and maybe should rethink how they put the point across but so much passion is great for the sport. It can be summed up in quite quickly, drivers cheating unlikely, poorly thought out rules probably.

Also you must remember that at the start of the weekend everyone was questioning how Ferrari tested last week, so I'd guess this is begin used as a distraction from that affair.

[vladi57]

Anyway, it is very clear that Hamilton fans will never accept the fact that this year is clearly the favority boy of FIA/FOM/etc...

Or it's just clear that all the Ferrari / Alonso fanboys are just deluded on this point. Hamilton got a penalty, he served it. This isn't the first time the FIA have taken a long time to come to a decision, and they were well within their 25 lap limit on this occasion, and Alonso has benefitted from slow decisions in the past. Why suddenly bleat about the slow stewards now? Could it be anything to do with their car updates not bringing them the glories they were expecting?

Agree! Remember the radio transmission between Alonso and team after the penalty? What I understood from it was "Did I improve my position? No... Then this penalty is not enough!". From it it doesn't look like someone is interested in the fairness of the race, but how much he personally will benefit. Just like clarkiesyeah mentioned:

I draw everyones mind back to China...

"I made a serious mistake at the start as my reflexes let me down and I left early," said Alonso.

"It's never happened to me before and I am very disappointed with myself.

"Luckily, despite the penalty, I managed to finish fourth."

Simple. All drivers make occasional errors of judgement in a sport which relies on quick reflexes and fast decision making. No drivers accused Alonso of cheating because they couldn't get past him in China despite his penalty. Clear cut case of sour grapes on Alonso's part.

Lets not forget Alonso's refusal to give up his race win that was the result of real "cheating" a short while ago. To start making these kind of noises is just sickeningly hypocritical.

Not only should Ferrari withdraw their unprofessional comments but the FIA should punish them for bringing the sport into disrepute. Alonso needs to be taught to keep his mouth shut, loose lips sink ships, as they say.

This to me is what the topic is - up until what degree the egocentrism of brats will take over the rules of the sport. In football, there are yellow cards that can turn to red for "diving". How about F1?

[WhiteBlue]

For a long time now, I have also followed races in championships in the United States, where the appearance of the Safety Car is a frequent occurrence, but I have never seen anything similar to what happened today at the Valencia circuit. If it raises some doubts over the actions that led to a false race, to me that would seem more than reasonable.

The Italian accusations continue with "false race" by Ferrari. Something has to be done about it. Either Ferrari bring evidence of cheating by the FiA or they stop this media campaign that clearly brings F1 into disrepute.

[donskar]

WB, what a waste of a new thread. All it does is encourage fan boys and trolls. Can we please look OBJECTIVELY at the issue -- even though it involves Ferrari?

1) Hamilton clearly broke a rule, and therefore deserved punishment.

2) Before breaking the rule, he was second.

3) After being punished, he was . . . second.

If you really see no cause for dispute, then you are truly hopelessly prejudiced.

Yes, Ferrari seems to be going too far with their comments. (I says "seems" only because I have not read those comments in their entirety.) BUT they clearly have reason to complain.

I believe the REASON for the complaint should be the focus -- not the complaint itself. What you are doing is saying that the damaged party is wrong because they are complaining too loudly about being damaged. I'd have some respect for you if you showed some balance.

[WhiteBlue]

Controversy is part of this sport, and it is good, but not when it's caused by artificial safety car regulations like the FIA have been producing in recent years.

I agree that the safety car regulation for 2010 do not make much sense. But we also know that these rules are not made by the FiA. F1 rules are made primarily by the F1 commission and in this case the sporting working group which is essentially made up of the teams.

In this case the teams have been more concerned about "the show", the drama and the entertainment value that the element of luck brings to the races. In my view the SWG needs to give precedence to the sporting ethos that is concerned about making it the "same for all". Introducing a safety car lottery that deals out massive position penalties in an arbitrary way is not helping that sporting idea. At least short term competitors are not being treated as equal although it is supposed to equal out over time. The problem is compounded by a timing problem which is imposed on the stewards. If the penalty is served shortly after a safety car it may cause a drop of many positions. If a bigger time lag occurs the penalty can bring no position drop at all. Depending of the race circumstances race control or the stewards may be too busy to deal with transgressions in the same time frame. This is particularly true for cases in the final phase of the race as seen in Monaco this year.

So the safety car rule is not a good rule, we agree on that. But does it give Ferrari the right to bring F1 into disrepute? I think not! Ferrari to a certain degree are responsible for the decisions of the SWG and the F1 commission and have brought the rule upon themselves by their voting. So when they end up with the bad luck IMO they have no right to cry "foul" and accuse the officials who have been given an impossible job to do. They should admit that the rule is wrong and get busy to change it.

WB, what a waste of a new thread. All it does is encourage fan boys and trolls. Can we please look OBJECTIVELY at the issue -- even though it involves Ferrari?

1) Hamilton clearly broke a rule, and therefore deserved punishment.

2) Before breaking the rule, he was second.

3) After being punished, he was . . . second.

If you really see no cause for dispute, then you are truly hopelessly prejudiced.

Yes, Ferrari seems to be going too far with their comments. (I says "seems" only because I have not read those comments in their entirety.) BUT they clearly have reason to complain.

I believe the REASON for the complaint should be the focus -- not the complaint itself. What you are doing is saying that the damaged party is wrong because they are complaining too loudly about being damaged. I'd have some respect for you if you showed some balance.

Please compare my thoughts above. I agree with your sentiments but not with the exoneration. Ferrari can say that the rules are wrong but they should not say that the races are being fixed. That is over the top.