Alonso says he doesn’t regret Ferrari exit

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In the round-up: Fernando Alonso says he doesn’t regret leaving Ferrari for McLaren despite his former team’s success so far this year.

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48 comments on “Alonso says he doesn’t regret Ferrari exit”

  1. They always talk about this massive qualifying mode Mercedes apparently has. But is it only the works team supposedly using it? You don’t tend to see Williams and Force India have a disparity between their qualifying performance and race performance, they tend to be quite representative.

    I’m not so sure this supposed qualifying mode isn’t just Hamilton (and formerly Rosberg). We’ve seen Bottas qualify in between the Ferraris twice now and Ferrari and Mercedes have been touch and go for race pace. If you cast your mind back to 2013 Mercedes had a giant leap in qualifying performance that year. The ‘car’ was a considerably better qualifier than it was a race car.

    I’m inclined to believe Perez that Ferrari at least has closed the gap with Mercedes. The idea of a super qualifying mode doesn’t make sense with a fuel flow limit as from what I can gather that is the biggest limit on engine performance.

    1. @philipgb not entirely sure but I think there was someone saying recently that Force India or Williams could get to that mode during the race aswell. I can’t remember who it was tho. It’s probably not a qualy mode, but rather like a certain mode for overtaking, like they all have, but more powerful.

    2. @philipgb Some say it’s the mode that burns oil as well as fuel, considering there’s a fuel flow limit such a mode is theoretically capable of a massive boost of power.
      I don’t know if I believe in that story about burning oil, I’m more inclined to think that there’s some injection trickery around the fuel flow system or that simply the Mercedes engines are enabled to run harder than what other manufacturers are willing to do.

      1. That was mentioned at some point and fia clarified it quickly that such system would be illegal.

        1. And even though nothing illegal was found yet, they have begun enforcing stricter rules and checks.

          1. stricter rules and checks.

            Such as only allowing a single type of engine oil to be used in a race. Is this because Mercedes have a separate resovoir of a different type of engine oil that is a “high-power” oil that is somehow used to boost performance? Not sure how this could happen without the oil making it’s way into the combustion chamber, but the rules are being changed to outlaw it.
            Hopefully we will see more engine equality in qualifying next year.

        2. Interesting if such a mode exists. I think its just good Hamilton laps. If such a mode existed they would not have time to change the engines so maybe an updated Merc engine after 5 races all of a sudden does not go as great in quali. They could pass this off as Ferrari catching up or they are concentrating more on the race set up. Basically they may have a 5 race grace period.

    3. @philipgb they probably get and “extra gear” from a qualy designed mode but I think Ferrari has a qualy mode of their own. Maybe Mercedes is ahead still but it’s not by much, Ferrrai really is up there.

    4. In Bahrain Merc were overheard on teamradio on friday saying they had a half second in hand.
      And sure enough on Saturday both Mercedes cars were a half second out front.

      Both Rosberg and Bottas(so far) have been reasonably close to Hamilton in quali. Overall he’s the more consistent faster driver but his teammates have been keeping him honest and neither of them are considered to be in the very highest echelon of drivers.

      It’s blatantly obvious that Merc have still got something extra for quali, everyone is pretty much in consent about it.
      Sure Hamilton is a great qualifier but let’s stay in the realms of reality please.

  2. Fernando is right, when will the press stop asking him the same question over and over again?

    As we’ve discussed here in the past months, the Alonso-Ferrari relationship had become untennable by the end of 2014. If he’d stayed till the end of his contract, I can’t imagine how the situation could have improved in any way.

    Its hardly a secret, that in any race team, regardless of how brilliant a driver is, the emotional and psychological support that is afforded to a driver has proven to very important. Every driver that has gone to forge successfull stints in a team has had this (Senna, Schumacher, Alonso himself, Vettel, Hamilton). When both Domeniciali and LdM were outsted, Alonso lost his core support within the team. The transition to the Marchionne-Mattiaci axis was hardly a smooth one if you remember, there was so much uncertainty in the background. Marchionne seemed to be pretty intent on wiping the slate clean, and thats exactly what he did, in hindsight, seems a good move.

    Perhaps Alonso should have won more championships, but he didnt (conventional wisdom suggest that he wont win another one), and at the end of the day, he’s still in F1 performing at the top of his game, widely regarded as one of the greatest, makes 30 million bucks a year and seems like he can pretty much do whatever he wants…whats there to regret?

  3. It’s a good thing Lewis is inspired by Serena’s response, and not Serena herself. I really wouldn’t want to see him threaten to kill one of the officials, or cry and exclaim ‘it’s unfair’ if he loses.

    1. Not to mention the TUI’s some can dope others don’t, and the general lying, even about the baby there’s a couple dates mentioned. The supposed incident with a broken beer bottle, rumours of plastic surgeries, which arise questions over the use of steroids. I think Hamilton does well to try to be himself and live his life, though pandering to celebrities is not who Lewis Hamilton is, particularly she’s a Lance Armstrong to be, I hope Lewis is not that type of sports person.

  4. Sorry Fernando, it wasn’t a good decision at all to go to Mclaren looking at it now. No harm in admitting that.

    1. Yeah but he can’t quite say it that way can he? Needs to be a little diplomatic with so much season yet. And isn’t it obvious anyway? He’ll vent in the heat of the moment during the race, and F1 will slather over allowing us to hear it, and we all know this is very frustrating and his talents are being squandered without him saying a word.

      Unless Renault makes some kind of leap this season, I so want to see Merc take FA next year, to honour themselves by having the best, to keep him from being the competition, and to put him in a worthy seat while his age allows, and thus honour F1 and the audience as well, when no other team can do it for us.

    2. petebaldwin (@)
      28th April 2017, 13:41

      What do you think he’d have said if they weren’t letting him do Indy? ;)

  5. JV was, and no doubt still is, a monster racer. Btw have you seen the track he has built in British Columbia, that could handle an F1 race but for the lack of full pits and grandstands? See area27.ca JV is a purebred racer so for sure he is all about the car in the hands of the driver, and the challenge.

    It is particularly the direction F1 has taken this year, more so than recent years on ‘joke’ tires, that would have JV stoked again about F1. They still need to get rid of DRS and some of the clean air dependence though, for something even more in the drivers’ hands.

    1. I saw him on RTL.DE at the Bahrain GP @robbie, he was with the Italian Reporter they asked how big Ferrari being in it was(yuge, d’oh) ; he’s really enthousiastic abt. this new F1.

      1. I remember the January 2000 edition of Motorsport had interviews about the future of F1 with a number of F1 people: Stirling Moss, Roebuck Etta and JV was one of them. He said he wouldn’t change much of F1 except to go to big slick tyres.

        He reckoned that teams would have to run less wing as the drag would be huge otherwise and you’d be hammered on the straights. I always remembered that and wonder what F1 could be like with way less wing and way more tyre grip…

  6. Even if Williams had that engine mode, they’ve not had one of the best chassis for a while now. Manor ran the Mercedes engine last season, but you will find it hard to believe based on their finishing position.
    Look at how bad Williams struggled while running the Renault engine. The same engine was winning races for Redbull.

  7. Chris (@tophercheese21)
    28th April 2017, 3:14

    In hindsight, so far at least, it’s been an utterly horrendous decision to move from Ferrari to McLaren. But, everyone has 20/20 hindsight, so it’s easy for us to sit here now and say “Yeah what a dumb move that was!”. I don’t think even Honda knew that things would be this bad after three years.

    If Alonso could move back to Ferrari right now, he’d be on a plane bound for Maranello in a heart beat, with his Indy500 ticket cancelled happily, but he can’t so of course he cannot say that he made the wrong choice to move to McLaren (not that he had much choice once Seb had signed).

    1. @tophercheese21 I don’t think Alonso ran away from Seb, Ferrari is not that evil. I truly believe as it was originally suggested that Alonso made clear he wasn’t to stay at Ferrari, I’m now there was also a re-shuffle by that period but I think Alonso was the catalyst.
      Personally I never thought Alonso had made a right decision, I didn’t know however that he had indeed made an awful decision. I thought his move was at best a sideways step. Sometime I thought that Honda would overtake Ferrari on the PU department and that Ferrari would actually be the less powerful PU as it was back in 2014. Actually I don’t think anybody thought Mercedes period of domination would have lasted so long, longer than Rb’s…

      1. Chris (@tophercheese21)
        28th April 2017, 4:25

        No I don’t get the impression that Fernando left simply because Seb entered as I think he was looking for a way out of Ferrari irrespective of whether a new driver was coming in or not. But I also don’t think that Seb and Fernando could have worked. It was pretty plainly apparent that after their duels throughout 2010-2013, Fernando did not like Seb and vice versa.

        Actually I don’t think anybody thought Mercedes period of domination would have lasted so long, longer than Rb’s…

        Well Mercedes’ run at the top hasn’t quite lasted as long as Red Bull’s just yet.
        If they [Mercedes] win both trophies this year, then they’ll have both had four consecutive years at the top (RB: 2010-2013, Merc: 2014-2017)

        1. “Well Mercedes’ run at the top hasn’t quite lasted as long as Red Bull’s just yet.
          If they [Mercedes] win both trophies this year, then they’ll have both had four consecutive years at the top (RB: 2010-2013, Merc: 2014-2017)”

          And they’ll be the only defending champions to win the title again after a change in regulations.

          1. petebaldwin (@)
            28th April 2017, 14:30

            Yeah but the part of the regs guaranteeing them success didn’t change.

        2. @tophercheese21, if you believe Motorsport Magazine, Vettel was being signed with the express intention of replacing Alonso as Marchionne wanted to stamp his authority on the team by putting his preferred driver, not a driver who had been chosen by his predecessors.

          A Vettel-Alonso line up was never going to happen – indeed, their take on events suggests that the only reason Marchionne appointed Mattiacci was to make sure that he would push Alonso until he left the team in order to free up his seat for Vettel (hence why Mattiacci was kicked out soon afterwards), with Alonso only being made aware that Vettel was coming into the team after he’d effectively been pushed into leaving.

          1. Umm, that’s not how Motorsport Magazine has reported the story. Mattiacci’s brief wasn’t to push out Alonso but to keep Alonso only on certain conditions (no exit clause, total commitment, no say on technical staff hiring and other driver hiring). For an Alonso looking to leave the team, these conditions were just even more of a catalyst to hasten the exit. It was only after the MoU of exit between Alonso and Mattiacci was signed, that Ferrari contacted Vettel.

          2. Mattiacci wasn’t appointed by Marchione, but by Luca di Montezemolo when Domenicali left the team.

          3. @caci99

            Sorry mate but you’re wrong, Mattiaci was appointed by Marchionne with the task of removing both Dominicali & Alonso.

          4. @kgn11 Again, Mattiacci came after Domenicali left. How was he appointed with the task of removing Domenicali!? At the time LDM was still in charge, how was he appointed by Marchionne?
            If you’re talking about rumors of what might have happened behind closed doors, that would be speculative and not facts to base events on.

    2. Well he couldn’t have left because of Seb anyway since he was only able to sign with Ferrari because Alonso left? It was reported plenty at the time that his whole move to Ferrari was instigated by Fernando’s decision to leave opening up a seat, not Ferrari bringing in a new driver. People keep saying it was a bad decision but how many seasons does a driver wait in the same team hoping every year the team are going to get things right car wise?

      I can’t think of many world championship drivers that would be content with going through that disappointment 7 times, unless they were content with the possibility of winning no more titles in their career. I think it’s great to see a driver like Alonso in the latter point of his career clearly still with that fire wanting to win the world championship, so much so that he was willing to take the massive gamble that he did whether it paid off or not. It’s rare you see such a gutsy move in F1.

      We still don’t know how this season is going to pan out, to me it seems like it’s going to turn into a development battle between Mercedes and Ferrari of who can roll out the better upgrades the fastest. And who can keep turning them out thick and fast until the end of the season.

      1. (by 7 times I mean the amount of seasons he would have spent at Ferrari if he had stayed there)

      2. Sorry but you’re, when Horner announced Seb would be joining Ferrari at Suzuka, Alonso had not made any decision that he’d be leaving Ferrari. In fact, he kept saying he had a contract to drive in 2015 and that he also had options. One of those apparent options, was the rumour that Mercedes and Ferrari and agreed to swap Lewis for Alonso, which was a story put out by his agent.

  8. Fernando’s response is extremely dignified, logical and very humorous as well. He has spoken very little about Ferrari’s performance and focused on his life and his decisions only. Do read it:
    “I didn’t have a [Ferrari] contract for this year so … even in 20 years Ferrari will keep winning and hopefully they won’t still be asking if Alonso was right or not to leave Ferrari when I am 75 years old! I drove five years there and they won in the past, they won in my time — we were fighting for world championships until the end — they won a couple of championships the last few years and they are winning races now and they will win races and championships in the future. So it’s not always about if Fernando did well or not.”

    “We would like to be more competitive here, that’s for sure. At least in the years that I had a [Ferrari] contract in 2015 and 2016 I still think that I took a good decision to come to McLaren. I’ve learned many things, I’ve worked with one of the best engineers that I have ever worked with here in McLaren — who currently we have in the team — and I learned so many things.”

    “And there [at Ferrari] I arrived the time that it was too stressful not to keep winning. When you are in your first or second year [at a team] it’s OK, but when you are in your seventh or eighth year then it’s very difficult. So the quality of life improved for me in the last two years despite the results.”

    “But, yeah, now they are winning, like Mercedes are winning, every car that is winning you would want to be on it because you want to win races, but it doesn’t change what I did in the past. Even when I left Renault [in 2006 after winning two titles] I was told I should never leave Renault but they never won any more titles.”

    “Probably you ask this because it sells some covers of magazine and you can talk about a ‘wasted talent’, but I am super happy with my career and I was in a competitive car [in the past], thank God, and I had an opportunity to reach certain things. There are some very talented drivers here who have never been on the podium. I think we will see what the future brings, but at the moment I’m quite happy with what I did and what I am today.”

    1. i’m reading between the lines massively but it kind of sounds like he’s saying goodbye. i can well imagine him retiring at the end of this year which would be a huge disappointment for me. even when he’s battling for the minor placings it’s often the most exciting thing in the race.

      1. petebaldwin (@)
        28th April 2017, 13:40

        I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see him in Indycar next year if the Indy 500 goes well.

  9. If Vettel had won the WDC in 2015 or 2016 then yes, Alonso’s move would be a great mistake. If Vettel wins the title this year or in 2018, then it was probably never going to be Alonso’s title anyway.

    1. Yes sure, its better to be the last or dont enter in points positions, that fight for podiums and wins. And he’s not right, and he’s not humourous in his responses, they are fully bitter with anger and jealous. They are really a lot of fanboys of him in foreign countries, but here in Spain we know him very well, because he’s always talking nosense and bad things about everything, ofc to abroad countries only filtered things come, but if i make u a recollection of all the things he said, u’ll be scared to heard.

      1. And where exactly are the bitter comments in this interview? Is it when he says he is super happy with his career? Quite common in Spain: you won’t find more Alonso haters in any other country but 99% of them just started to follow the sport in 2005

  10. “Alonso says” is a new “Simon says” I believe.

    1. Well, when I hear simon says I think of one of the best action movies ever made.
      When I hear Alonso says I think drama queen.

      1. You came on here to write that!

  11. That Perez quote comes at an interesting time, with Ferrari already on their third turbo for both cars they’re looking at penalties later in the season, with Renault also unreliable and heavier than it should be, the Mercedes is clearly still the best engine

    1. He’s commenting on performance. It would seem that since 2015 Ferrari has inched closer to Mercedes in performance though they are still behind on reliability.

      Mercedes had such an advantage at the beginning of the turbo era they could turn their attention to reliability. Ferrari it would seem still chasing performance have compromised the reliability of components. But it’s easier to make a fast car reliable than a slow car fast.

  12. Alternative facts: Brexit was an inspired move. Electing Trump made the US great. Alonso made the right decision to go to McLaren. 2017 , the year the world turned… upside down.

  13. What’s wrong with chocolate? I love the stuff!

  14. petebaldwin (@)
    28th April 2017, 13:35

    Im getting really frustrated with these stupid comments from teams and drivers every week….. It was funny when it was just Toto but it’s now being said more often than “for sure” and “bwoah” combined! Stop it!!!!!!

    Everyone is faster than us.

    No were much slower than you.

    No you aren’t! We’re the slowest!

    No, we’re the slowest!

    1. petebaldwin (@)
      28th April 2017, 13:44

      Imagine Anthony Joshua saying “I think Klitchko will knock me out. He’s stronger, bigger, more experienced and all in all, a better boxer”

  15. Here we go again. Nobody was asking Alonso if he regretted leaving Ferrari, last year, when Ferrari were still outclassed.

    Not that I think Alonso bothers with regrets, but leaving Ferrari would surely come behind 1.Not signing for Brawn 2. Not signing for Red Bull. 3. Leaving Mclaren.

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