Alonso and Raikkonen “can work” at Ferrari – Prost

F1 Fanatic Round-up

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In the round-up: Alain Prost, who partnered three different world champions during his F1 career, believes Ferrari can make their line-up of Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen work.

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Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen’s Ferrari partnership will work, says Alain Prost (The Mirror)

“If you have a problem it is the management that has to make it work. It is going to be more difficult but it can work.”

Longer FP1 could hurt smaller teams (ESPN)

Martin Whitmarsh: “Oddly I think it will work against the smaller teams because at the moment they have a unique opportunity to sell FP1; many do and it’s a surprisingly important revenue for some of those teams. If every team has that opportunity then the value of what some of those smaller teams are able to sell is reduced.”

Massa revelling in fight for F1 future (Autosport)

“There is not so much I can do: the only help Fernando [Alonso] can have is coming from Sebastian, it’s not coming from me. This is the situation.”

Rookie diary – Sauber’s Esteban Gutierrez (F1)

“Unfortunately we don’t have a simulator, which would give me the chance to really get to know a new track before going there, so I still do it in the same way I’ve always done it in the previous years of my racing career. I watch a lot of video footage from the previous years.”

Is IMG really the “future of F1”? (Adam Cooper’s F1 Blog)

“It’s long been the paddock consensus that Ecclestone is no great fan of IMG, and compared to other sports, the company’s involvement at the top level of motor racing has been relatively limited. Will that now change?”

A Candid Interview With James Hunt (F1 Speedwriter)

“I think my way of living when I was driving would be difficult today. I was entirely responsible about my driving, and never misbehaved there, but after that, when the job was done, I led a fairly laidback lifestyle. I think modern sponsors in this day and age would find that a bit of a strain, and it would not be to my advantage in my career. People would hesitate before hiring me. And I would probably have to curb my behaviour and certainly put on a different public face.”

Tweets

Snapshot

Mika Hakkinen will get back behind the wheel of a Mercedes SLS AMG GT3 in a race in China next month. Details here:

Comment of the day

Patrick doesn’t think Red Bull are going to suddenly become uncompetitive because of next year’s rules changes.

I think that if you want to know if Red Bull is going to dominate next year, we must check why they have been dominating the past four years.

First, they have a perfect correlation between the simulations in the wind tunnel and the reality. That won’t change next year.

Secondly, they’re the leaders in aeroelasticity and in controlling aerodynamic fluxes.

Third, they understand completely the Coanda effect and they are quick to copy and improve others inventions.

These three things will remain the same next year, so RB will definitely be a top three team next year.
Patrick (@Paeschli)

From the forum

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On this day in F1

Alain Prost wrapped up his fourth world championship title 20 years ago today. He settled for second by Michael Schumacher in the Portuguese Grand Prix, the Benetton driver taking his second career win.

Here’s Prost pressuring Schumacher late in the race:

Image © F1 Fanatic/Joris Meuffels

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44 comments on “Alonso and Raikkonen “can work” at Ferrari – Prost”

  1. I think @paeschli should be commissioned to contribute towardstechnical articles on this site, at least to explain aeroelasticity!

    1. @splittimes it’s basically the effect they get with the flexi-front wing. I thiiiiiiiink…

  2. OmarR-Pepper (@)
    26th September 2013, 0:18

    It’s not really just management what Ferrari has to worry about. It’s to see if Fernando can keep the things a little more calmer next season. This one had the “press enhanced” commenet going both ways between Fernando and Luca, and even from Massa about Alonso, Alonso about the engineers…. a whole love story. But Kimi, even in silence, can be the disburbing force which can drive Fernando “a little” mad again. Let’s hope it doesn’t end as bad as 2007 ended (bad for Fernando, but great for Kimi).

    1. Fernando probably wont lose his cool. 2007 was just one year and he is a lot older now.

      Besides, Alonso loves playing mental havoc on his team mates. He knows that if we loses his temper, his team mate is winning the mental battle. If anything, we might see Kimi “lose interest” again once Alonso starts to dominate him.

      1. OmarR-Pepper (@)
        26th September 2013, 1:03

        Well, personally I don’t believe Kimi when he said last year “he preferred to end the season 4th so that he wouldn’t have to go to the ceremony”. I rather think he will be extra motivated knowing he is in a WCC team, with more possibilities to be champion again.

        1. I rather think he will be extra motivated knowing he is in a WCC team

          he has been in a WC winning team since he returned to F1…Lotus have won their fair share of WC’s ie. Renault F1 team, Benneton. He’s been at Ferrari before, he fluked a championship and then lost out to Massa. Then Ferrari actually bought him out of his contract so that they could employ another driver..

          1. Fluke??

            Against the super reliable MclarenXFerrari hybrid you mean??

            And Fernando and Mclaren were aware of Kimi’s setup data, race strategy, fuel level and pit stop window.

            I dont think he fluked it.

          2. 2007 was no fluke, Kimi lost a minimum of 10 points due to mechanical failure that year whereas Hamilton and Alonso’s only non-finishes were due to driver mistakes. Hamilton’s 2008 was certainly flukier given the wins Massa lost in Hungary and Singapore through no fault of his own…

          3. @darzan but then you can argue there’s a grey area over the Spa result too.

            Basically, there’s too many ifs and buts to call anything fluky and you just need to accept that Hamilton won it by a point.

    2. I genuinely don’t think it’ll be as bad this time round. Not only is Alonso a little older and maybe a little wiser, but with Raikkonen, he’s up against the devil he knows. He’s going to be expecting a challenge. A large problem with Hamilton was that his speed was a surprise, few people expected Hamilton to compete with Alonso in his first full season. Next year he’s going to be mentally prepared to fight for the number one status from race one, and I think he’ll probably succeed.

  3. that battle between prost & schumacher could never happen today sadly.

    the drs would have got prost by very easily.

    but equally importantly schumi would never have got the lead under todays tyre’s & tyre regulations.
    schumi won that race by planning 2 stops, but when tyre wear was better than expected & he found himself in the lead he ditched the planned 2nd stop & tried to hold on to the end.

    today the tyres would have fell to bits forcing a 2nd stop or seeing him so uncompetitive prost woudl be past easily.
    but also he’d have had to do a 2nd stop anyway in order to run both compounds.

    just shows how badly the drs/pirelli-era & rules forcing everyone to pit to swap compounds (with only 2 compounds selected by pirelli rather than the teams allowed at each race) is hindering good, close, hard fought & more importantly exciting & tense edge of the seat racing.

    1. ouch ! That puts things into perspective .

    2. I just can’t control myslef from commenting . The more I watch the video , the more fascinated I get about that kind of pure racing . It’s amazing to see how prost tails schumacher all the way and the cornering at 160 kmph looks fantastic too . I bet they had many scraps like that in the olden days ( though I don’t know for sure ) . We are excited if we have one such scrap for the lead today . Pity.

    3. Maybe we should resort to go-kats. Let these big boys race in karts!

    4. It also wouldn’t have happened for another reason. Today the drivers have hard and fast rules they have to adhere to when defending their position and some of MSC’s defending when Prost got a run on him was a bit marginal by today’s standards. I think he would have been accused of making multiple movements to defend his line.

    5. Sadly no more Portuguese GP :(
      That was a classic and always great to watch!

    6. Another reason that kind of racing cannot happen, is because of the aero dependency. In the current era, it isn’t possible to follow a car as closely as Prost was following Schumacher.

      Dirty air from following a car closely is the biggest deterrent of ‘close racing’ . DRS and Pirrelli tyres were measures taken to avoid this inability to follow a car closely, but they ended up butchering the racing even more.

  4. For the past 3 years the only driver that has really helped Alonso is Vettel (by finishing low in/out of the points). Sorry, Massa, you can only help your teammate if you finish between him and his rivals, not between him and the back markers.

    1. For the past 3 years, when both drivers finished the race, Massa has finished ahead of Vettel only once.

      So yeah, you’re spot on there.

    2. He might not have taken points away from Vettel, but saying he didn’t (have to) help Alonso is utterly wrong, considering Hockenheim 2010, or Austin last year, or even the Monza qualy a few weeks back… And the numerous situations in which he waved him by… Also like in Monza this year.

  5. Re the COTD, I though Coanda was going to be a thing of the past because of the positioning of the exhaust next season (A single central exhaust pipe exiting 17-18.5cm behind rear axle line and 300-525mm high)?

    1. Agreed I also think that RBR’s understanding of COANDA and sealing of the diffuser will not help them at all next year.
      Also one area RBR has not been strong is KERS, which will play an even bigger role next year.

      1. I’ve heard it mentioned that the top of the diffuser and lower part of the rear wing may be slightly (read exploitably) affected by exhaust gas. Not sure though.

        1. From what I’ve read, and I’m by no means an expert, there is only a small benefit (if any) which may be obtained from the exhaust. The rules have positioned them is such a way that it is incredibly difficult to use them to obtain an aerodynamic benefit.

    2. @geemac I don’t know if Coanda effect is going to be used next year but my point is that RB completely understand their car and can copy and improve others teams inventions quickly. If the Renault engine isn’t crap (which will not happen, pretty sure about it), Red Bull still will be one of the top teams.

    3. The Coanda effect is a general law of aerodynamics (actually, of fluid dynamics) so it will most certainly be employed again next year You might as well say that Ohms law will be a thing of the past next year. The Coanda effect is not tied to exhaust systems, it’s at work on every surface part of the car.

      I’ve seen people claiming that “aerodynamics will have reduced importance next year” but of course they are wrong. The specific areas on the car teams seek to exploit may change but aerodynamics will remain of key importance, as it must when you have vehicles traveling at the speed of light aircraft.

      None of which need confer an advantage on Red Bull. Aerodynamics is “old tech” which has been widely understood for at least the last sixty years. The Coanda effect was discovered in 1910. I’m sure there are many tens of thousands of people working for Airbus, Boeing, EADS, BAE, Lockheed etc who understand aerodynamics as well (or better) then anybody at RBR. It’s not black magic.

  6. There is not so much I can do: the only help Fernando [Alonso] can have is coming from Sebastian, it’s not coming from me

    Yes Filepe. You are spot on. Finishing in the range of 6th-10th has not helped Alonso in the past 3 years, neither it will in remaining races this year.

  7. I read in the German channel RTL newsfeed that Ferrari has “thrown in the towel” with Dominecalli declaring on the Scuderia website that they would now (after Singapore results) concentrate 99% of their focus on next year and merely try to get the best out of the current package and updates that are already in the pipeline. I am curious how come I have not seen this in any English newsfeed.

    Assuming the news is true, the question is whether Mercedes would follow suit, even though they are fighting for 2nd WCC place with Ferrari and when does Red Bull starts cruising and dedicate their resources to next year car.

    1. @ifelix Spanish media is reporting the same.

      If is true I think Mercedes, Ferrari and Lotus will fight for WCC position with the package they already have reach.

      1. @celeste: thank you for getting the verification! Your prognosis might be indeed valid

        I think though Mercedes would press on a bit more. They have too many senior people who can’t all be set on one car, and psychologically that 2nd place is more important for them (for Ferrari the season is a write-off anyway).

        1. Seems that Merc at least wants to announce it so:

          http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/110143

  8. Prost, my favorite driver of all time!

    1. Schumi, famous for his double-blocking maneuver.

  9. For Alonso it may be, “I’ve been here a while.” For Kimi, “I’ve been here before.”

    1. @alex-bkk actually I will said sentimental advantage Kimi “I was world champion with Ferrari”

      1. Yeah, no virgins there.

  10. Maybe Hunt would cultivate image of the bad boy like Kimi does, it works for the Finn. Talking about Finn’s, Mika Hakinnen is my fave Finn driver ever :). I’m a Schumacher fan but that move at Spa around Zonda to pass Schumacher is a classic.

    1. I loved MS, but he was the classic and original robot driver with a bit of unscrupulous software programmed within him. F1 has subsequently updated it and the best version so far is Vettel F1, but there are still those Alonso and Hamiltion loyalist out there who are trying to screw up everything.

  11. I think Whitmarsh is wrong about FP1 being a problem for the smaller teams. The reason being that the bigger teams tend to have established reserve drivers who are less funding-dependent to secure their drives, so they won’t really be competing in the same marketplace as the smaller ones. I doubt you would be able to “buy” a practice session with McLaren as easily as you could for Caterham or Marussia, whatever the regulations.

    1. I agree, McLaren and Ferrari will more likely run their own friday drivers again, and Caterham and Marussia can sell their car-time to rich hopefuls with less penalty on race set-up to themselves. A win for the rich teams, poor teams, and the fans, who get to see a) more friday running, and b) the promising youngsters testing against the current drivers.

  12. Hakkinen would probably race more often if he wasn’t busy delivering parcels for crappy MyHermes…

  13. Wow I had forgotten how mesmerising the active suspension cars were to watch, particularly the onboard shots.

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