I'm supporting not-Alonso

[ajams]

Just wanted to add a word of agreement to JohnsonsEvilTwin on this.

I think Webber sums it up quite well, also worth reading is James Allen's article:

http://www.jamesallenonf1.com/2010/07/g ... decisions/

which infers from the events of Sunday that Massa was only asked to give up the place after he'd had the opportunity to prove he was able to pull away from Alonso.

This also explains that period of a couple of laps where Alonso fell back by 3 or 4 seconds and then reeled Massa back in.

[nipo]

In essence, we don't know.

We don't know for sure if Alonso black-mailed Ron Dennis.
We don't know for sure why the crash-gate was staged.
We don't know for sure how Alonso got his deal to Ferrari.
We don't know for sure what Massa is given in his new contract.

Or do we, honestly?

Some of the claims in this thread might be a little too far-fetched.
But piece the picture together and I think it's too much to call it coincidence.
For me, the truth about his manners in a team is whispered aloud.

Moreover, the arguments in defence are as weak, if not weaker.
Like... "Ferrari signed him up proves he is not a devil".
And... "He does not care about what the press say" (actually an irrelevant point).
As you lot pointed out, we don't know the guy in person, do we?
We haven't seen his contract or heard his negotiations, have we?

I remember reading Alonso being asked about his expectations of Ferrari.
He mentioned "I work 100% so if they don't work 100% it is not fair, right?"
It's "I" and "they", not "us". I think it sums it up.
I posted my opinion at the time and people said I read too much out of it.

Fair enough. Think what you want to think.
You are free to support this very talented driver. I don't have a problem.
He's one of the best, if not THE best. That I can agree on.

But I think I've seen enough, and it adds up to a big picture.
So far I haven't seen anything different.

Let me make this clear:
I don't mind his on-track misbehaviours. Schumacher had loads more.
I don't have a personal reason to dislike him. I barely know the guy as you say.
I don't have a reason to follow the herd. There's no herd here in HK.
I'm not being emotional and I appreciate ppl here telling ppl to calm down.

It's years of observation and looking at the factual things that surround him.
For me, they add up.
For me, his selfishness is in illogical proportions.
For me, he's much more than Senna / Schumacher / Hamilton.
And that's why I'm so vocal when people try to defend his PERSONALITY.
Period.

[ajams]

I couldn't care less about Alonso's personality.

Speaking as a fan of Ferrari (and the sport in general I might add) since the days of Villeneuve and Scheckter, I must say that I have been very impressed with Alonso so far. He's had some bad luck and made a few mistakes, but his determination and will to win is second to none. Certainly makes a refreshing change from Kimi's seemingly lackadaisical attitude over the last two years. He has consistently been faster than Massa this season, so to my mind that makes him clear number 1 at Ferrari on merit, as Raikonnen was in 07 and Massa was in 08. In both 07 and 08 the driver who was challenging was offered support by his team mate.

This season Alonso has shown that he is the one to challenge. We're now 10 races into the season and it's clear it's not going to be Massa's year. Alonso has already had his results compromised by his team mate's mediocre form on a couple of occasions, although to his credit he has resisted the urge to make any risky manouevres (recent debatable first-corner incident aside, which was, after all, a first corner incident), despite his obvious frustration and desperation to get past.

I was at the Melbourne GP and standing track side it was clear that Alonso was far faster and more confident in his car than Massa. He did a great job working his way through the field, but as soon as he came up behind the other Ferrari that was it. Not only did it cost him a potential podium, he very nearly lost a position to Hamilton as he was getting backed into him toward the end of the race.

From a sentimental point of view it would have been nice for Massa to win last weekend, but from a team point of view it made little sense. I very much doubt the decision to let Alonso through was made solely or even mainly at Alonso's insistence, more likely it was a decision by the team management, a decision that benefitted Alonso as he has earned the right over the season so far to be the beneficiary of such decisions.

Alonso is a great driver - certainly one of the best around. Any Machiavellian traits he may be accused of having are almost certain to be found in most other leading drivers on the grid too and I sincerely doubt he's worse than anyone else in this respect.

He always gives 100% to win, and as a fan that's good enough for me.

[mep]

In essence, we don't know.

We don't know for sure if Alonso black-mailed Ron Dennis.
We don't know for sure why the crash-gate was staged.
We don't know for sure how Alonso got his deal to Ferrari.
We don't know for sure what Massa is given in his new contract.

Or do we, honestly?

If people would be just so reasonable when it comes down to Schumacher.
Whenever something happens to him the hole world starts calling him names. The same people who defend misbehaviour of Alonso as hard as they can.

We don't know if Schumacher deliberately parked his car on Monaco.
We don't know if he broke the rules while overtaking Alonso on Monaco.
To be continued…..

[rifrafs2kees]

This thread does not exist because of the mere change in position between Massa and Alonso. What many of us have a disdain for, is that through Alonso's politics with the pitwall, and general lack of respect and decency he got his team to shuffle the order. Ferrari had no plans to send a code out to Massa asking him to move over or they'd have done it in the pits. He, Alonso orchestrated that thing and he knew exactly what he was asking for when he discribed Massa's pace as ridiculous. It's almost as if there's no limit to what he'll do to win. He's fundamentally different from other champions as he has penchant for pushing beyond the confines of the track. For Alonso, blackmail, ridicule, politics are all part of the grand game.

The quest to win must be tempered with certain principles as winning at all cost is simply a recipe for anarchy and destruction. Can anyone deduce one principle Alonso possesses other than a single minded objective to win? From his past actions, what can we say Alonso won't do to win or get ahead of his team mate?

It's one thing when team mates publicly try to destroy each other. It's another when a team mate orchestrates what is infact an order for the other to hand over his win, then procedes to hug him when the deal is done.
He has the balls, lack of respect and supreme hypocrisy to hug the team mate he had just sold? As long as he remains who he is, I cannot look away and say, oh well, he's faster so all else are irrevelant..NEVER.

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

Mep

Did people villify Schumacher as they do Alonso? Schumacher actually drove rivals off track on purpose. Now Im not an Alonso fan I repeat. But I do see when a driver comes in for unfair treatment and Alonso has had this for the last 3 years no Question.
Im surprised he hasnt been blamed for the BP oil spill or the Volcanic ash clouds.....

[gridwalker]

Did people villify Schumacher as they do Alonso?

Oh yes, if you weren't a Ferrari fan then he was the man that most people loved to hate ... I villified the man more than most, but generally in the form of a Pantomime villain : the Panto would be nowhere near as much fun without that character who you can happily boo.

Unfortunately, these things are actually good for the sport : friends who hate F1 have become much more interested when they have heard about the "soap opera" ...

You see, not everyone can see the beauty of physics and the wonder of technical progression, but the casual viewer LOVES human conflict and drama.

For every great hero, you need a villain. For every golden boy, you need an underdog. It is the dichotomy of human existence.

Alonso is now my villain du jour, which is actually a high compliment : any villain needs to be a major contender, relentless, ruthless and on top of their game ... the ever-present threat is what makes any good villain into a great!

Alonso will never match Schumi the Red Baron in these stakes, but the fact that he arouses this kind of emotion is a very great compliment indeed (regardless of your opinion of his personal qualities).

[ajams]

I thought it was pretty clear Alonso used the word 'ridiculous' to describe the situation. Massa had already slammed the door on him a couple of times, risking a Webber/Vettel-style collision in the process.

Alonso was clearly the faster of the two drivers and the only one with a chance of the drivers' title, and meanwhile the fight was holding both of them up, bringing Vettel back into play.

As for the post race 'hug', it was simply a basic courtesy on Alonso's part. Massa did the decent thing and moved over (Smedley praised him for being 'magnanimous'), Alonso was clearly not entirely comfortable with the situation and gave him a pat on the back by way of thanks and an apology. It was an unfortunate situation, but under the circumstances it was necessary, and nothing that hasn't happened many times in the past.

[mep]

Did people villify Schumacher as they do Alonso?

Alonso always gets away to easily.

Look MS made a team order switch with no rule prohibiting it and in a fight for championship.
Punishment 1Million dollar and everybody calling him big cheat.

MS mad a super overtaking move against Alonso in Monaco. The rule was unclear and mistakes where made by FIA/race control.
Punishment: All points taken away and everybody calling him big cheat.

MS stops in Monaco to avoid crashing into the barriers. There is no evidence or prove that it was done on purpose. There is no rule covering such a incident and deleting his fastest lap would be enough to give the advantage back to the other drivers.
Punishment: All lap times deleted -starting at the back of the field on a track like Monaco and really every idiot calls him biggest cheat ever.

MS crashes into JV to protect his CS on the last race of the season like it has been done several times before by other people without any trouble.
Punisment: All points of the year taken away and called cheat.

Alonso makes team order switch with a clear rule not allowing it. Furthermore he is not really fighting for championship.
Punishment: no punishment for Alonso, team pays 100.000 dollar but probably gets the money back with got CS position in the end of the year.

Alonso blackmailed his team McLaren Mercedes. Proved by the quotes of Ron Denis. This is not just a race incident but also a criminal act in civil live.
Punishment: none for Alonso.

Alonso asks his team-mate Pique to crash his car on purpose. Its quite possible that he blackmailed his team again with his contract and the Sponsors.
Punishment: no punishment for Alonso (he even can keep his points), Piques career is over, Briatore gets livelong ban,

[myurr]

Look MS made a team order switch with no rule prohibiting it and in a fight for championship.
Punishment 1Million dollar and everybody calling him big cheat.

Alonso makes team order switch with a clear rule not allowing it. Furthermore he is not really fighting for championship.
Punishment: no punishment for Alonso, team pays 100.000 dollar but probably gets the money back with got CS position in the end of the year.

MS and Ferrari were punished for bringing the sport into disrepute, which they undoubtedly did. Through their cynical and unnecessary actions they were booed by the public - a result that brings the sport into disrepute.

The FIA are not yet done punishing Alonso, should he get away with just the current fine then I will agree with you on this point as they were in material breach of the rules. However we should wait and see what happens.

MS mad a super overtaking move against Alonso in Monaco. The rule was unclear and mistakes where made by FIA/race control.
Punishment: All points taken away and everybody calling him big cheat.

I agree this one was too harsh, they should have just swapped the positions back as the FIA were in breach of their own rules with the signals used.

MS stops in Monaco to avoid crashing into the barriers. There is no evidence or prove that it was done on purpose. There is no rule covering such a incident and deleting his fastest lap would be enough to give the advantage back to the other drivers.
Punishment: All lap times deleted -starting at the back of the field on a track like Monaco and really every idiot calls him biggest cheat ever.

Fully deserved on this one. The telemetry showed the MS pushed the brake pedal, from memory, two or three times harder than at any other point in the weekend at that point causing a deliberate lock up. It was clumsy and stupid and not at all becoming of one of the best drivers of all time.

MS crashes into JV to protect his CS on the last race of the season like it has been done several times before by other people without any trouble.
Punisment: All points of the year taken away and called cheat.

Times change, and people were already upset with him for him pulling the same stunt on Hill three years before. With Senna and Prost being the other two to decide championships in this way there was at least a feeling that the two balanced it out winning one apiece - there was also no blatant swerve. That last point may be harsh on Schumacher as there is no doubt of the intentions in the previous incidents, but the swerve in both 94 and 97 graphically showed the intent to the public. It didn't help that it was MS in both circumstances pulling the same stunt on different drivers, rather than a single rivalry with the blows heading both ways.

Alonso blackmailed his team McLaren Mercedes. Proved by the quotes of Ron Denis. This is not just a race incident but also a criminal act in civil live.
Punishment: none for Alonso.

This single incident is, for me, worse than anything Schumacher ever did. At least you can attribute most of Schumachers incidents to split second, heat of the moment incidents and merely a will to win rather than malicious intent. Alonso's act was both malicious and premeditated.

Alonso asks his team-mate Pique to crash his car on purpose. Its quite possible that he blackmailed his team again with his contract and the Sponsors.
Punishment: no punishment for Alonso (he even can keep his points), Piques career is over, Briatore gets livelong ban,

I wish you hadn't brought that up, whilst I agree that Alonso probably knew that Piquet was going to crash on his behalf, we have no idea how heavily he was involved. What you'll find all the Alonso defenders will pick on this one weak argument and pick it apart rather than answer your points as a whole. It's a repeated tactic, pick on a couple of points that you think you can justify believing that this then invalidates or distracts from the rest of the points that have been made.

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

Mep the overtake in Monaco was fantastic and should have stood.

At worst Schumacher polarised opinion. Alonso is different, and is villified by almost all English speaking countries fans.
Its a generalisation sure, but when was Schumacher ever villified that badly?
The Damon Hill saga perhaps, but that lasted all of 3 months and was forgotten about.
The Villenuve incident? Yea it left an indellible mark but the uptide in opinion was scant in comparison to what Alonso is going through.
And it faded after a year.

gridwalker has it spot on in my opinion. F1 needs its dick dastardly, or anti-hero.
Alonso fits the bill according to the media, when in fact a few others could easily be just that.

I dont agree with it, but it sure does happen.

[mep]

I don't know about other countries but in Germany they don't make a big hype about non German sports mans. So Alonso incidents don’t get much attention. But whenever Schumacher does just the slightest thing wrong its everywhere on page 1.
Regarding English press I think they will not leave out any opportunity to bash on a German guy in particular.

[gridwalker]

I don't know about other countries but in Germany they don't make a big hype about non German sports mans. So Alonso incidents don’t get much attention. But whenever Schumacher does just the slightest thing wrong its everywhere on page 1.
Regarding English press I think they will not leave out any opportunity to bash on a German guy in particular.

The english press bash ANYONE when given the slightest opportunity : our tabloids are scavengers of human misery and a disgrace to the news industry ... I have got a long and complex rant about media standards, censorship through omission and the dumbing down of society, but this isn't the place for it.

Nevertheless, what I have read has indicated that they are no more harsh to Alonso than they are to any other "celebrity" or "sports star" who happens to give them a sniff of a story.

The biggest difference is in their reporting of positive stories : Foreign drivers never receive the same praise as Brits, because they cannot strike the same sickening jingoistic nationalist tone.

As foreign drivers do not get the same plaudits, the criticism seems even more harsh.

EDIT : Max Mosely was a brit & we all saw what happened there ...

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

Gridwalker

I share your sentiments on the state of british media. As a one time budding journalist, I cringe that the biggest selling papers are tabloids like the Sun and Mirror.
People dont care for standards anymore, they care for juicy celebrity gossip.

A sad indictment of British culture in my view.

Hamilton has a foil in Alonso, when this dissapears I bet Hamilton will become Persona non grata.

[Miguel]

Gridwalker

I share your sentiments on the state of british media. As a one time budding journalist, I cringe that the biggest selling papers are tabloids like the Sun and Mirror.
People dont care for standards anymore, they care for juicy celebrity gossip.

A sad indictment of British culture in my view.

Hamilton has a foil in Alonso, when this dissapears I bet Hamilton will become Persona non grata.

It's more or less the same in every country I've been to. In Spain, for example, the best selling newspaper is Marca. This is a sports-only newspaper, which on one hand is good, because it doesn't even try to cover politics and stuff in a yellow fashion. However, this may be somewhat bad, because many people never get to read about politics. Marca ran a campaign last year to sack Manuel Pellegrini (Real Madrid's former manager), and they were pretty harsh with Guardiola as well.

I'd say that the only real difference between Marca and Sun is that marca doesn't show a topless girl on page 3.

Following my cycling similes, Alberto Contador was also treated as the bad guy after Schleck's chain issue. I'd say that AC's support came mostly from other cyclists, in this case.

Finally, someone could run basically the same ad in the UK as Vodafone do in spain: "You can't deny it. The badder the evil guy is, the better the film". Just put Ferrari and Alonso instead.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtbHKWJw-sg]

Manichaeism galore.