I'm supporting not-Alonso

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JohnsonsEvilTwin
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Joined: 29 Jan 2010, 11:51
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Re: I'm supporting not-Alonso

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Call it a hunch Myurr,

It is my opinion after all. Like Boullier can dismiss a double world champion that won the titles in the same team.
He will never achieve the success Alonso had in the same timescale. Im even willing to place a huge bet on that.

Still, he is allowed his opinion. Maybe it would be wise to voice it in another manner rather than criticising the previous regime.
More could have been done.
David Purley

myurr
myurr
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Joined: 20 Mar 2008, 21:58

Re: I'm supporting not-Alonso

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JohnsonsEvilTwin wrote:Call it a hunch Myurr,

It is my opinion after all. Like Boullier can dismiss a double world champion that won the titles in the same team.
He will never achieve the success Alonso had in the same timescale. Im even willing to place a huge bet on that.

Still, he is allowed his opinion. Maybe it would be wise to voice it in another manner rather than criticising the previous regime.
Somewhat hypocritical stance though - beating up on people for having an opinion, saying that we shouldn't judge Alonso because we cannot possibly know him, but then doing the same yourself. Boullier has done more in the world of business than Alonso ever will, for all you know he will be able to build a formidable team around Kubica and achieve more than Alonso managed. As ever it's going to come down to money, resources, key personnel and team organisation. Kubica is every bit as talented as Alonso and is capable of winning the World Championship if given a car as equally capable.

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JohnsonsEvilTwin
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Re: I'm supporting not-Alonso

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Hypocritical is criticsing a succesful team, which alonso was part of, then putting forward your own "successes" of 5th in the constructors championship.

I get it Myurr, I really do. You dislike Alonso. Please dont hide behind the smoke and mirrors of what some guy says about the previous regime. I have proven to you that this guy has
a)never worked first hand with Alonso
b)new to F1 this year
c)shown total lack of respect to his (more succesful) predecessors.

The quotes are all there and its amusing he actually says "It's difficult to say, because I don't want to criticise anybody" then goes ahead and says it anyway.

All Im saying in respect to Boullier, which you have yet to acknowledge or accept, is this: Surely only once you have exceeded or perhaps matched the previous incumbents record, can you voice a qualified opinion openly deriding them.

Alonso as a double world champion and having twice beaten a Ferrari powered Schumacher(most succesful driver ever), has gravity to go with his opinion. Wether you, I, or the guy down the road likes that or not.
More could have been done.
David Purley

Miguel
Miguel
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Joined: 17 Apr 2008, 11:36
Location: San Sebastian (Spain)

Re: I'm supporting not-Alonso

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This being F1T and all, I have a hunch why Renault are getting considerably better results this year than the previous one. OK, maybe Kubica is faster than Alonso, but I don't think that's the main reason.

Please allow me to be an armchair aerodynamist and show you the R30 front wing in the Malaysian GP:
Image

This isn't the latest iteration of the R30 front wing. But let's take a look at the R29 front wing:
Image

I'm sure all of us here have been lectured on how important the front wing is. Reduction of the drag penalty by the frong tyres blah blah. Adapting the flow to the splitter and the diffuser blah blah. Aerodynamic balance blah blah. Some additional sealing of the floor, perhaps? OK, all this might be wrong, but I think even you areo guys get my idea. The thing is, I don't know which one is better* but I know which one looks more sophisticated.

We should also remember how the evolution of the doggy R29 was stopped around Valencia. As a result, Alonso didn't make it past Q1 in Abu Dhabi... and that was expected.

* The fact that Renault put the new one in their car might indicate that it is actually the better wing.

PS: Renault should have kept Grosjean, IMHO.

EDIT; I've just had this idea: let's suppose that Alonso not being motivated cost him half a second in qualifying. It's a lot, I know. This is what 0.5s would have given him in the last 6 races of the year:

Belgium: From 13th to ~9th
Italy: From 8th to 4th
Singapore: From 6th to 4th
Japan: From 12th to ~9th
Brazil: From 10th to 10th (Heavy fuel load, perhaps?)
Abu Dhabi: From 16 to 15

Please note that this demoralized driver tended to outqualify his teammate by over half a second using harder tyres. We still find that the Renault sucked big time. Half a second you say?
I am not amazed by F1 cars in Monaco. I want to see them driving in the A8 highway: Variable radius corners, negative banking, and extreme narrowings that Tilke has never dreamed off. Oh, yes, and "beautiful" weather tops it all.

"Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future." Niels Bohr

myurr
myurr
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Joined: 20 Mar 2008, 21:58

Re: I'm supporting not-Alonso

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JohnsonsEvilTwin wrote:Hypocritical is criticsing a succesful team, which alonso was part of, then putting forward your own "successes" of 5th in the constructors championship.

I get it Myurr, I really do. You dislike Alonso. Please dont hide behind the smoke and mirrors of what some guy says about the previous regime. I have proven to you that this guy has
a)never worked first hand with Alonso
b)new to F1 this year
c)shown total lack of respect to his (more succesful) predecessors.

The quotes are all there and its amusing he actually says "It's difficult to say, because I don't want to criticise anybody" then goes ahead and says it anyway.

All Im saying in respect to Boullier, which you have yet to acknowledge or accept, is this: Surely only once you have exceeded or perhaps matched the previous incumbents record, can you voice a qualified opinion openly deriding them.

Alonso as a double world champion and having twice beaten a Ferrari powered Schumacher(most succesful driver ever), has gravity to go with his opinion. Wether you, I, or the guy down the road likes that or not.
Yes I dislike Alonso deeply as a sportsman, so naturally I have put forward correlative evidence in this thread. You must also admit that you are defending Alonso regardless and looking to find any excuse to disregard any and all evidence of his misdemeanours and character flaws.

So far you have used four main methods for doing this: 1) the British press is incredibly biased and has skewed everyones opinions, 2) that most of those commenting on him haven't worked with him personally, be it fan or professional, so can't possibly know him, 3) whenever you can't dismiss evidence of his character you try to generalise and say all drivers are as bad, and 4) Ferrari signed him so he can't be all that bad. Forgive me if I've forgotten any of your defences.

In response I would say this:

1) I agree that the British press can be really quite biased, just like every other nations press, but a lot of the fans on this board are able to see through that and decide for themselves. Personally I don't read the newspapers and the only press coverage of F1 I really pay any attention to comes from the BBC, Autosport and James Allen. I don't think I'm being at all biased against Alonso out of purely nationalistic reasons or because I've been 'brainwashed by the media'. It is entirely because of first and second hand evidence that he is a tough competitor but a horrible sportsman. That is not something I can respect.

2) Taking this to the extreme, neither of us have worked with Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, etc. and yet we know them to be bad people. We only have second hand or even third hand evidence of what they were like, presumably biased media reporting, evidence gathered by those who did not work with them, etc. And yet we quite rightly judge them.

Let me be clear that I do not hold Alonso as being anywhere near that category of person, I am merely using it as an example to show that it is perfectly valid to judge people based on second hand evidence.

3) This one comes down to your purely subjective opinion. For example you think that Lewis Hamilton lying to the stewards and then publicly apologising is as bad as Alonso blackmailing McLaren. Most people on here recognise a massive difference between the two.

4) In my view Ferrari know what Alonso is like but are prepared to work with him because they seem him as a driver they can build the team around like they did with Schumacher, are used to working with controversial sportsmen from those days, and have a win at all costs attitude. Time will tell whether it is a match made in heaven (they will, after all, pamper Alonso in the way he expects) or whether he will end up being too divisive and tears the team apart.

Miguel
Miguel
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Joined: 17 Apr 2008, 11:36
Location: San Sebastian (Spain)

Re: I'm supporting not-Alonso

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I... I... I don't think Alonso blackmailed McLaren. :oops:

Personally, I think Ron Dennis is another person with a funny interpretation of reality. But that is just the opinion of a man partly polarised by the press that hasn't met any of these two personally.
I am not amazed by F1 cars in Monaco. I want to see them driving in the A8 highway: Variable radius corners, negative banking, and extreme narrowings that Tilke has never dreamed off. Oh, yes, and "beautiful" weather tops it all.

"Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future." Niels Bohr

zeph
zeph
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Re: I'm supporting not-Alonso

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Lot of Alonso bashing going on here. I for one will always appreciate him for ending the Schu-era, arguably the most boring era in F1 ever.

The unhappy McLaren episode has obviously left its mark, on him and his detractors. I think he is still one of the best drivers out there, but he needs to find his spirit again- it has been conspicuously absent since the dramatic 2007 season. If he gets his groove back, I am sure he can nail another championship.

Unfortunately, it sometimes looks to me as if he could only get his groove back by winning another championship.

I thought it interesting that Mark Webber (of all people!) reckoned that Alonso deserved the German GP win, even at Massa's expense.

gridwalker
gridwalker
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Joined: 27 Mar 2009, 12:22
Location: Sheffield, UK

Re: I'm supporting not-Alonso

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Back in 2003, I wrote in my livejournal that I thought that Alonso's style would make him into the next Senna ... unfortunately, I didn't particularly like Senna whilst he was still alive.

Shortly after the infamous 1990 Senna-Prost champinship deciding incident, I found a track suit at a jumble sale that looked a lot like the McLaren uniform. It was a few days before bonfire night and I was grabbing materials to make a guy for the massive fire that my family had built. As I was 10 years old at the time, I thought it would be a great idea to make a guy with a distinct Ayrton theme.

I guess I liked having an on-track villain, even back then.

It just goes to show that you can recognise someone's incedible talent without warming to their personality, tactics, ethics or attitude.

Edit :
At this point of my life, I had never seen an on track fatality but had seen a lot of lucky escapes. Ayrton's death was a tragedy and I wouldn't have wished genuine harm upon him ... I just thought I'd make that very clear.
"Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine ..."

autogyro
autogyro
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Joined: 04 Oct 2009, 15:03

Re: I'm supporting not-Alonso

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zeph wrote:Lot of Alonso bashing going on here. I for one will always appreciate him for ending the Schu-era, arguably the most boring era in F1 ever.

The unhappy McLaren episode has obviously left its mark, on him and his detractors. I think he is still one of the best drivers out there, but he needs to find his spirit again- it has been conspicuously absent since the dramatic 2007 season. If he gets his groove back, I am sure he can nail another championship.

Unfortunately, it sometimes looks to me as if he could only get his groove back by winning another championship.

I thought it interesting that Mark Webber (of all people!) reckoned that Alonso deserved the German GP win, even at Massa's expense.
Find out who runs Webbers affairs and you will find the reason why.

andrew
andrew
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Re: I'm supporting not-Alonso

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Webber's other half acts as his manager now I think.

autogyro
autogyro
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Re: I'm supporting not-Alonso

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andrew wrote:Webber's other half acts as his manager now I think.
So you dont think Briatore is still pulling his strings then.

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JohnsonsEvilTwin
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Re: I'm supporting not-Alonso

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So after all thats happened this year with Webber, you dont think he is his own man?
More could have been done.
David Purley

andrew
andrew
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Joined: 16 Feb 2010, 15:08
Location: Aberdeen, Scotland - WhiteBlue Country (not the region)

Re: I'm supporting not-Alonso

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No, he's still same a loud-mouth/outspoken (depends what your view on him is).

zeph
zeph
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Joined: 07 Aug 2010, 11:54
Location: Los Angeles

Re: I'm supporting not-Alonso

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autogyro wrote:
Find out who runs Webbers affairs and you will find the reason why.
Although I am normally quick to adopt any conspiracy theory as my own, I can not see what Webber has to gain by saying that Alonso deserved the win. Sometimes people just have opinions of their own, you know. Even if they are controlled by the evil puppetmaster Flavio.

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siskue2005
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Joined: 11 May 2007, 21:50

Re: I'm supporting not-Alonso

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zeph wrote:
autogyro wrote:
Find out who runs Webbers affairs and you will find the reason why.
Although I am normally quick to adopt any conspiracy theory as my own, I can not see what Webber has to gain by saying that Alonso deserved the win. Sometimes people just have opinions of their own, you know. Even if they are controlled by the evil puppetmaster Flavio.
just look at all the quites from weber in the previous years
He always has licked Alonso's as.. all the time