Why is Alonso’s status not hurt by 07?
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I was just watching the BBC interview where Alonso says Vettel’s titles will be bad news for him if when ” he will have a car like the others” he is not winning, my question is that Vettel’s credibility is hurt by the fact he has such a dominant car, but why has the 2007 season not lost Alonso any credibility as far as his “status” is concerned. IMHO, having a rookie match/beat you when you’re the reigning double champ and reacting like he did, is worse as far as a loss in credibility is concerned than winning supposedly only because of a dominant car.
The way he acted wasn’t the best way to handle the situation, but I wouldn’t call Hamilton a rookie. Unlike now, he had thousands of miles of testing under his belt, so even though it was his first season, he still had a lot of experience in an F1 car, far more than any rookie has nowadays.
Given his talent, I don’t think it’s to Alonso’s discredit whatsoever, plus it was probably Hamilton’s best season to date, in my opinion.
It did somewhat hurt Alonso’s credibility in the long run, still, he matched Hamilton with 109 points and 4 victories, and came within only 1 point of winning the title. Therefore, even so 2007 still wasn’t that bad for Alonso performance-wise.
I would say that Raikkonen’s 2008, Hamilton’s 2011, and Schumacher’s comeback years from 2010-2012 have hurt their reputation a bit more than Alonso’s 2007.
@JamieFranklinF1, although Hamilton had tested in an F1 car before, the pressures etc of driving for the first time in a Grand Prix season is completely different to driving around testing, so yes he has comparatively more experience to a rookie nowadays, but he still was a rookie in nature. Lets for the sake of the argument say Hamilton was a driver with 1 yrs experience joining McLaren in 07, this can draw direct parallels to Riciardo’s move to RedBull although Dan has been in F1 now for 2 and a bit yrs. Can you imagine what would happen if Riciardo against Vettel performed like Hamilton in 07, what would that do to the reigning 4 times chapion’s “status”; as Vettel said back in Hungary talking about the prospect of Riciardo joining, i quote ” If Riciardo came and beat me, it would make me look a bit silly” @JamieFranklinF1, you honestly trying to tell me that if Riciardo beats Vettel next season, that’s not going to damage his “legacy”, I think not.
I think that what has saved Alonso to lose reputation in the long term is that in his Ferrari years he has almost always been “the best of the rest”. I mean, 2nd in the WDC. Let’s check:
2010: 2nd
2011: 4th
2012: 2nd
2013: 2nd
That, despite Ferrari’s team orders and his mind games, save his reputation on-track. Off-track, well, I reserve my opinion.To be honest I think Alonso did a really good job in 07. Childish tantrums aside, there was absolutely nothing wrong with his driving that year. Even if Hamilton was a rookie, time has proven that he was no ordinary rookie in terms of his ability as a racing driver, so it is not like it is something to be ashamed to be matched by such a good driver as Hamilton.
Lewis was also probably the best prepared rookie in F1 history, he had loads of mileage under his belt from testing, simulator work, he knew the team inside out and crucially he didn’t have to unlearn Michelin tyres, which Alonso and also Raikkonen had to deal with at the start of 2007. Alonso came in to a new car, having to switch to Bridgestones from Michelin, and was quick and able to win races almost straight away. That was pretty impressive. Alonso might have been the reigning double champion but in my view he was also at somewhat of a disadvantage by joining a new team, with new tyres to deal with. Hamilton obviously did great to hit the ground running like he did but he had a lot of things in his favour that year.
@ahmej010gmail-com in the short term it probably hurted him. But since 2010, he’s done incredibly well, even if he failed to win a championship. On track, he’s just a beast. Off track, I like him.
Maybe the fact that neither McLaren driver won the title in 2007 has a lot to do with what we think of that season. 2010 was probably similar between the Bulls (except from the Spygate, ofc), and Webber did say that the true story behind it might never be told, or at least not by him. So maybe there’s more in 2007 than we already know.
Also, I’m with @JamieFranklinF1. Hamilton was not a newbie per se. Obviously he had yet to race in a Grand Prix, but he had been part of the team for a long, long time. Still, to go head to head with then double world champion is a major highlight in anyone’s career, and I also think it was Hamilton’s best season to date.
I would say two issues speaks cleary about this question.
First, there were a huge communication media campaign in Spain, and other parts, that support Alonso’s results and questioned Hamilton’s work.
Fernando behavior shows by itself that he has experienced a big impact about that particular season, and still doing so, I mean, actually every time he has to speak about Sebastian’s success he attempt to discredit his work giving a simply explanation about it, explaining it just based on RedBull superiority and, another example, just as he sayd about Hulkenberg’s performance, saying it was based only on Pirelli’s “change”. The same was on that 2007.
By the way, I would say that no one pilot is faster than his car, that is impossible. There are better pilots than other, and they can get better performance of that specific car, but based on mechanics and fisics, no one pilot could made faster the car than it could be by itself. So, if he, Fernando, got that results this last seasons was becouse he has a good enough car to did so.
Regards,
@adyel “First, there were a huge communication media campaign in Spain, and other parts, that support Alonso’s results and questioned Hamilton’s work.”
And while British specialized press is very good and fair (I spend time reading all I have available), there surely were tabloids that critiziced Alonso. Maybe not as much as the other way in Spain (we even saw racst comments from “fans”), but the press can move things one way or another rather easily.
Also, I don’t think Alonso disregards Vettel sucess. But it’s obvious he had it easier with a better car, that’s been true for everyone since 1950. And he praised Hulkenberg. This season was rather special, and the Red Bull guys made comments about Pirelli early in the season, so…
Fer no.65 said 35 minutes ago:
Everybody knew what british press issued about that particular problem, but in any way this could denies the existence of the Spanish campaign, I think. And, i have to say, that campaign was based in lies, mainly, and fanciful interpretations of isolated facts.
In the other hand, ofcourse Alonso has disregarded Sebastian’s success; every time he said “well he won, great, but he has the best car” he is doing so, and he did so many times…, and, again, when he praised Romain’s work, inmediatly he said too, “it was becouse of tires” sad, but true.
This could be easily constated in press reports already published in many languages.
Regards,
@ahmej010gmail-com – No, I’m not trying to tell you that. Ricciardo beating Vettel next year would of course be damaging, unless Ricciardo turned out to be the best driver ever, or just had an outstanding season that he couldn’t repeat. But then again, Ricciardo isn’t a rookie either.
I’ll say it again, as others have said, 2007 was probably Hamilton’s best season, and considering how good he is, I don’t see how it hurt Alonso that much, especially since 2010, he has been runner up to Vettel 3 times, whilst Hamilton has at best been fourth.
2007 might have stung a bit when he was forced to go back to his old employer, not that they were angry, they had their talent back! His driving in that McLaren was as superb as always, on track it was coming together but off track….. well that’s for the history books.
In my opinion Alonso has been splendid in Every year he competed in bar 2009, it became very clear soon that a Ferrari move was going to happen and his car was shit, he clearly wasn’t driving like he could have. He showed as a small glimmer of his talent by taking pole at Hungary in that horrendous R29. Some might add ’08 as a bad year too but that is bollocks. He struggled initially with the car but came on top and had a great second half of the season, even if that one race was bought.
His status did deteriorate after that and Hamilton’s soared. It’s still mentioned quite a lot that Alonso was beaten by a rookie. The problem with that year is that no one except those in McLaren really had a clue what was going on. There was a lot of things happening behind the scenes which would have impacted on the drivers. It has to be remembered though that while Hamilton was a rookie, Alonso was adjusting to a new team, new tyres and didn’t like the brakes and eventually ended up hating the team. There was also the Hungary grid penalty incident which hurt Alonso’s points and that was about his temper and not his driving. Alonso was actually very critical of his 07 season in a recent interview with Sky and told Herbert that he underperformed that season (I actually don’t think he did on track). It’s not really a clear cut picture especially as this was back in the days when rookies were allowed to test. I’m not saying that Alonso was way better or anything but just that it’s a lot harder to judge how things really were that year than many fans make out.
I don’t think Alonso is being disrespectful either. He’s complimented Seb a lot (and Hulkenberg too) but Seb was in a machine which just worked for him. I think Alonso wads acknowledging that loads of people think it’s just about the car but when he loses the dominance of the RBR then people will give him more credit when he still gets the results. I don’t see him as very bitter – although I suspect he is when it comes to Ferrari and Luca in particular. Personally, I’ve thought it’s been Hamilton that’s constantly criticised Seb this season but Seb hasn’t won many friends either at times this year – he allegedly betrayed an agreement with Mark and RBR in Malaysia (a guy who is quite popular in the paddock) and then attracted some criticism when he implied none of the other teams were working as hard as Red Bull and I remember Nico Rosberg having a bit of a problem with that comment.
…..Because there was this car called the F2007 that, in addition to being faster compared to the MP4-22 than the F10 was compared to the RB6, was, under the hands of Kimi Raikkonen, able to beat the McLaren duo to the title, .
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