Formula 1 2020 - General Discussion Thread (See MOD warning on first post)

ELM327

It's getting to the stage where the best drivers will be out of the sport.
Vettel, Alonso should be in the top cars.

El_Duderino 09

quokula wrote: »

Yeah I think it's a bit of a myth the media have made up. Alonso made some bad career choices and ended up in the wrong places at the wrong times. But in no way was he "toxic" or inclined to bring a team down.
...

There's more to it than that. Wherever he went the team boss lost their job. Alonso was keen to control th team and he set about toppling the current team boss and having them replaced by a team boss who he could control or was already in agreement with him.

In other words a team boss that signs alonso, does so knowing that that will probably be fired in a year or two as a result. So, why would any team boss hire him?

Bring a crybaby on the team radio is neither here nor there.

El_Duderino 09

ELM327 wrote: »

It's getting to the stage where the best drivers will be out of the sport.
Vettel, Alonso should be in the top cars.

Does age not come into it at all in your reckoning?

Alonso is gone. Forget him.

ELM327

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

Does age not come into it at all in your reckoning?

Alonso is gone. Forget him.

Kimi is still racing. Age comes into it but Alonso, Seb etc are much better than most on the grid now.

quokula

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

There's more to it than that. Wherever he went the team boss lost their job. Alonso was keen to control th team and he set about toppling the current team boss and having them replaced by a team boss who he could control or was already in agreement with him.

In other words a team boss that signs alonso, does so knowing that that will probably be fired in a year or two as a result. So, why would any team boss hire him?

Bring a crybaby on the team radio is neither here nor there.

Correlation doesn't mean causation. Ferrari haven't exactly been a model of stable management after Alonso left (or frankly at any point in their post-Enzo history outside of the Jean Todt era), so I don't think it would be accurate to say Alonso has been responsible for any changes there. And any changes at McLaren were due to their woeful failure to produce a capable car, and were frankly overdue after quite a few years in the wilderness.

Like I said, Alonso clearly made bad career choices and joined teams that were in a bad state. He fundamentally left those teams better off by getting results they otherwise wouldn't on track, leading to more prize and sponsorship money to invest. He can't take all the blame for McLaren and Ferrari's back room failures, that were happening both before and after his stints there.

El_Duderino 09

ELM327 wrote: »

Kimi is still racing. Age comes into it but Alonso, Seb etc are much better than most on the grid now.

We have no idea how good alonso is NOW. Schumacher had a similar break form the sport before his comeback...

Seb is one of the top drivers but he's not in the top bracket which really onky contains Hamilton and Max. There are lots of young contenders like LeClerc, ocon, sainz, albon.

The only reason to want Alonso back is tha same reason to want to keep the old shirt at the back of the wardrobe. It's comforting reminds you of the past. It's time to let alonso go. If he never comes back his legend will continue to grow and he can be the best driver of all time. His coming back would likely ruin the legend.

PukkaStukka

quokula wrote: »

Correlation doesn't mean causation. Ferrari haven't exactly been a model of stable management after Alonso left (or frankly at any point in their post-Enzo history outside of the Jean Todt era), so I don't think it would be accurate to say Alonso has been responsible for any changes there. And any changes at McLaren were due to their woeful failure to produce a capable car, and were frankly overdue after quite a few years in the wilderness.

Like I said, Alonso clearly made bad career choices and joined teams that were in a bad state. He fundamentally left those teams better off by getting results they otherwise wouldn't on track, leading to more prize and sponsorship money to invest. He can't take all the blame for McLaren and Ferrari's back room failures, that were happening both before and after his stints there.

Agree with this. The managerial culture in Ferrari is poor. It's built around culpability, not capability. That alone is cited as a reason why they failed to lure Adrian Newey. He was supposed to have agreed terms with Ferrrari around 2014 following their on-track disaster with the F14T. He duly backed out when he saw the witch hunt and blood letting thereafter which saw lots of good heads role.

Alonso was not without his faults but he dragged near championship winning performances from cars that were mediocre, roundly beating team mates Massa and Raikkonen in the process. But again, and as they did with Alain Prost almost 25 years before, they dispensed with talent that was doing the business on track in the haste to remedy problems that weren't of the drivers making.

quokula

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

We have no idea how good alonso is NOW. Schumacher had a similar break form the sport before his comeback...

Seb is one of the top drivers but he's not in the top bracket which really onky contains Hamilton and Max. There are lots of young contenders like LeClerc, ocon, sainz, albon.

The only reason to want Alonso back is tha same reason to want to keep the old shirt at the back of the wardrobe. It's comforting reminds you of the past. It's time to let alonso go. If he never comes back his legend will continue to grow and he can be the best driver of all time. His coming back would likely ruin the legend.

Max does indeed look like a once in a generation talent but there's no evidence at all that Vettel isn't in the same bracket, or higher, than Hamilton were they in the same cars.

The last time they had broadly similarly performing cars was 2011 and 2012, in both cases Vettel was miles ahead of Hamilton while both McLaren's generally had the beating of the other Red Bull, driven by the very capable Mark Webber.

There's at least half a dozen drivers on the grid that would have won as many titles as Hamilton has in the Mercedes. More titles in fact, because not so many would have been beaten by Nico Rosberg over a season.

Hamilton's talent is wildly overrated after several years in the most dominant set of cars in the history of the sport, accompanied by a second rate team mate who isn't allowed to race him. The last time he had a half decent team-mate who was allowed to race him, he lost. And the last time he wasn't in an utterly dominant car, he didn't get close to competing for the championship in the way the likes of Alonso did.

El_Duderino 09

quokula wrote: »

Max does indeed look like a once in a generation talent but there's no evidence at all that Vettel isn't in the same bracket, or higher, than Hamilton were they in the same cars.

The last time they had broadly similarly performing cars was 2011 and 2012, in both cases Vettel was miles ahead of Hamilton while both McLaren's generally had the beating of the other Red Bull, driven by the very capable Mark Webber.

There's at least half a dozen drivers on the grid that would have won as many titles as Hamilton has in the Mercedes. More titles in fact, because not so many would have been beaten by Nico Rosberg over a season.

Hamilton's talent is wildly overrated after several years in the most dominant set of cars in the history of the sport, accompanied by a second rate team mate who isn't allowed to race him. The last time he had a team-mate who was allowed to race him, he lost. And the last time he wasn't in an utterly dominant car, he didn't get close to competing for the championship in the way the likes of Alonso did.

Ah now. You jumped almost a decade for evidence in Vettel's favour over Hamilton and skipped merrily over his dasasterous 2018 season in which he seems to have thrown away being odds on for the championship only to make a series of mistakes which constitutes a run of form which he hasn't actually broken out of. You also skipped how he was beaten last year by his rookie teammate. And was beaten by Ricciardo who was also a relative rookie.

How does anyone explain the last two seasons in a way that makes Vettel a top tier driver (on par with max and Hamilton)?

I like Vettel, but any objective analysis of the last few years has to conclude that he's not doing great at the moment.

Alonso has a reputation as a schemer, a disruptive presence. Most teams wouldn't touch him.

Carroller16

Got Stroll for a podium at 20/1 yesterday. Do you think they can push for it this weekend?

GarIT

It's a shame seeing Williams still so far behind. They barely beat one car by being on the softer tyres.

Inquitus

So the pecking order:

#1 2020 Mercedes
#2 2019 Mercedes

pjohnson

Inquitus wrote: »

So the pecking order:

#1 2020 Mercedes
#2 2019 Mercedes

Horner back lodging a complaint again about the legality of the Racing Point.

El_Duderino 09

OSI wrote: »

Spygate
Crashgate

2 of the biggest controversies in F1 history with Alonso right in the middle of both, but he's definitely never a disruptive figure in the team. The guy even went as far as paying his mechanics a bonus to beat his team mate.

Coincidence maybe? Along with all the other coincidences where team bosses got fired and teams went to sh1t and teams didn't actually hugely improve while he was with them.

He was a great driver but he leaves teams in a shambles. He's a terrible team member.

Rodney Bathgate

Can we drop the Alonso discussion? He isn’t racing in F1 in 2020 so any discussion of him in the 2020 thread is off topic.

chicorytip

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Alonso has a reputation as a schemer, a disruptive presence. Most teams wouldn't touch him.

Flavio Briatore is his long time manager pulling his strings and a man not averse to creating disruption, controversy and false rumours in order to promote his major client. Alonso seems a decent skin but is being manipulated.

Inquitus

There's still time to redo your Fantasy F1 team, out with the Ferraris and in with the 2019 Mercedes!

Inquitus

Big swing in the odds since FP1 & FP2

Lewis Hamilton 5/6
Max Verstappen 4/1
Valtteri Bottas 4/1
Sebastian Vettel 16/1
Charles Leclerc 20/1
Sergio Perez 25/1
Alexander Albon 28/1

Maybe Ferrari should bring their year-old car, could have a chance of beating Racing Point then.

quokula

OSI wrote: »

Spygate
Crashgate

2 of the biggest controversies in F1 history with Alonso right in the middle of both, but he's definitely never a disruptive figure in the team. The guy even went as far as paying his mechanics a bonus to beat his team mate.

How on earth did Alonso have anything to do with McLaren stealing those documents from Ferrari? That was entirely the actions of McLaren management and the engineers involved, none of whom should have ever been allowed to continue in the sport afterwards.

It's still a farce to this day that they were allowed to go and race and win the 2008 championship with a car they designed with the advantage of having the opposition's blueprints. Alonso gained nothing from that, in fact he's the one of the ones that stuck his neck out and did the morally right thing and spoke to the FIA, yet he is somehow responsible.

As for the crashgate controversy. There's never been any evidence that Alonso knew about it or had anything to do with it. He certainly seemed pretty surprised afterwards and even talked about how lucky he was with the safety car. While it's not impossible that Alonso knew about it, there is zero evidence of that. The only evidence of any wrongdoing there site on Pat Symonds, who again should never have been allowed near the sport again.

mrsoundie

Potential trouble ahead https://www.bbc.com/sport/formula1/53285413

Inquitus

mrsoundie wrote: »

Potential trouble ahead https://www.bbc.com/sport/formula1/53285413

It will be allowed to stand, the FIA were involved in discussions around the development etc.

Top Dog

Much waffle with little actual explanation as to why Ferrari dumped Seb - https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/ferrari-explains-vettel-exit-decision/4823977/?utm_source=home-page-widget&utm_medium=widget&utm_campaign=widget-6

El_Duderino 09

mrsoundie wrote: »

Potential trouble ahead https://www.bbc.com/sport/formula1/53285413

I think that was always going to be the case. They can't Lodge a complain based on testing. They have to wait until,a race weekend and then a team has to complaint and then the FIA investigate.

Frank Bullitt

OSI wrote: »

Spygate
Crashgate

2 of the biggest controversies in F1 history with Alonso right in the middle of both, but he's definitely never a disruptive figure in the team. The guy even went as far as paying his mechanics a bonus to beat his team mate.

That had nothing to do with Alonso.

mickdw

Gintonious wrote: »

That had nothing to do with Alonso.

It certainly benefitted Alonso and by design.

Charlie-Bravo

Vas ist DAS? Buxton's chat with his buddy about it below. Let's see tomorrow what the stewart's say if it's legal? I really hope Merc don't have extra pace than practice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqQgOoiEwas

Frank Bullitt

mickdw wrote: »

It certainly benefitted Alonso and by design.

Of course, but he didn't have any part in its orchestration. There is a difference.

Inquitus

Redbull protest rejected:

https://www.bbc.com/sport/formula1/53285413