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Viewing 15 posts - 1 through 15 (of 445 total)
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  • #247182
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    I really hope Alonso takes number 27, although I really think they should have made an exception for the number 27 since it has such historical importance. It would seem wrong for it not to be either on a Ferrari or one of the greatest drivers. The number should be retired as Enzo suggested after Villeneuve’s death, or Ferrari have an exception from the number rule where they always have 27 and 28 (or 1 and 2 with a champion.)

    #246566
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    1. Fernando Alonso
    2. Michael Schumacher
    3. Lewis Hamilton
    4. Sebastian Vettel
    5. Kimi Raikkonen
    6. Felipe Massa
    7. Juan-Pablo Montoya
    8. Nico Rosberg
    9. Jenson Button
    10. Rubens Barrichello

    Compared with my 2012 rankings Rosberg is a new entry after his impressive year alongside Hamilton, whilst time to reflect on Alonso’s 2012 season has meant I’ve moved him to the top spot. Button has gone down, pushing JPM up, whilst Vettel’s season has moved him ahead of Raikkonen.

    #246023
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    My heart sank every time I saw a DRS flap open. There are plenty of things making me feel disillusioned with the sport right now such as Vettel’s dominance and the number of lifeless Tilke-dromes on the calendar but it’s DRS that I’m finding completely intolerable. The art of defensive driving has been all but killed off and races are littered with “overtakes” that feel completely artificial. My worst moment of the season was in Canada where we saw the two most skillful racers in the field, Hamilton and Alonso, lifting off mid-way through an acceleration zone in attempt to be behind the other driver to gain the DRS advantage. It was a total farce and summed up why DRS in it’s current guise is so damaging to the credibility of the sport.

    Best moment was probably Grosjean’s start and his lead for much of the race in Japan. A year on from the lowest point of his career it was great to see him show so clearly that he really is a fantastic talent.

    #240807
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    Enzo seemed to rate this bloke pretty highly…

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EboUm16LsH0

    I do too and would probably put him at the top of any list of Ferrari drivers, and top of my list of all the drivers for that matter. But rating them into a list rather depends on how you define the question, for example I reckon Prost was a greater driver than Schumacher and Alonso, but if we’re rating them on Ferrari performances alone I’d put him behind them.

    #243995
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    As an Alonso fan I was much more worried by the prospect of Hulkenberg in the other Ferrari than Raikkonen. I’m confident that Alonso will comfortably beat Raikkonen who’ll not be much faster than Massa in terms if pace, just more consistent.

    #242970
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    I very much doubt it’s a done deal for 2015 yet, I imagine there’s some kind of agreement in place but ultimately it’s going to depend on whether Ferrari can get their act together for next season and give him a car worthy of his talent. If they do I’m sure Alonso will stay, but given their track record over the past few years it’s no surprise Alonso is giving himself other options.

    #229024
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    Perez cost Alonso a lot of points last season in Italy and Canada where he didn’t hesitate to pass him and in Malaysia the idea that Perez deliberately ran wide is so silly that it amazes me that Keith even entertained it on this site. If he was getting messages to “take care of Alonso” it was clearly not a message telling him you’re not allowed to race him and if it was he was obviously ignoring it! As he said himself he made no distinction between Alonso and other cars. It’s more likely if there was pressure on him it was in the sense of “if you take Alonso out of a race with a reckless move it will hurt your chances of a future with Ferrari,” which I reckon is probably pretty common with young drivers with hopes of moving to bigger teams.

    Either way it’s interesting that the Perez – Ferrari stories continue to have traction even though he raced Alonso hard at every opportunity, yet when the STRs moved over for Vettel in Brazil there were no complaints.

    #216658
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    I’m only going to do a top 3 for now but I might come back and do more later.

    1. Fernando Alonso:

    Alonso’s season has to be considered as one of the greatest ever by a driver in Formula 1. His wins in Malaysia and Valencia were probably the best of his career and other than Suzuka it’s very difficult to point to weekend where it would be have been possible for him to have scored more points by driving better. His season wasn’t perfect, he was at least partially to blame for that turn 1 clash with Raikkonen and was out-qualified by Massa twice. But total perfection over a 20 race season is probably impossible and Alonso came closer than anyone else has done in modern-times.

    2. Lewis Hamilton

    A sensational season from Hamilton which has to be seen alongside 2010 as his best season yet in F1. Constantly undermined by pit-stop errors, poor reliability and bad luck he was never able to mount a title challenge despite McLaren having produced a car that was frequently the fastest. Other than a moment of madness tweeting telemetry in Spa he very rarely seemed like the distracted driver of last season, and in nearly every race extracted the maximum out of the car.

    3. Sebastian Vettel

    When the Vettel/Red Bull combination is on form they are unbeatable, and Vettel made the most of the late season performance of the car to take the title. Vettel is an incredible driver but at the same time he was also more error prone this season than Alonso and Hamilton. He overtook Button off track in Germany, forced Alonso off the track in Monza, crashed twice on his was back through the field in Abu Dhabi and had a horror opening lap in Brazil for which he was mostly to blame. Is he a worthy world champion? Definitely. Was he the best driver this year? No.

    #216307
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    1. Michael Schumacher
    2. Fernando Alonso
    3. Lewis Hamilton
    4. Kimi Raikkonen
    5. Sebastian Vettel
    6. Felipe Massa
    7. Jenson Button
    8. Juan Pablo Montoya
    9. Rubens Barrichello
    10. Mark Webber

    #216157
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    OK, hold my hands up I was wrong. I’ve just watched the Schumacher pass again and the incident was completely different to how I remember it and wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it was.

    #216155
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    I lost an awful lot of respect for Schumacher when he did what he did on Sunday. Waving Vettel through showed complete disrespect to the sport and to Ferrari. For me it undid a lot of the work he’d done repairing his image since his return. There was a thread on here discussing whether anyone would actually move over for their preferred title contender in the race, and we all laughed at how ridiculous something like that would be. But Schumacher actually went and did it. That said I don’t see there’s any way that it can be policed, it’s just very very sad.

    Then there’s the problem of Torro Rosso, which I think could be tackled by Ferrari cancelling/threatening to cancel, their engine deal unless they stop taking orders from Red Bull. But ultimately that wouldn’t solve the problem of two teams being under the same owner. It’s like Manchester United also owning West Ham, and then when they came to play West Ham on the last day of the season ordering West Ham to lose. It’s unacceptable from a sporting point of view. Ferrari may use team orders within the team but whatever the conspiracy theories surrounding the Ferrari-powered Saubers, Kobayashi gave the Ferraris a seriously hard time on Sunday (as Perez had also done in Canada, Malaysia and Monza.)

    #215957
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    Well I’ve been persuaded the pass was legal, good sleuthing guys! It’s on things like this that the F1 Fanatic forum can be invaluable.

    Still think the inter-team orders absolutely stink though, and surely Ferrari need to use the influence of their engine contract to stamp it out. Sporting considerations aside, Ferrari shouldn’t be tolerating one of their engine customers accepting inter-team orders from their main rival. And to think Ferrari was the subject of wild conspiracy theories after Malasyia, yet on Sunday Kobayashi in his Ferrari powered car was making a right nuisance of himself fighting with the Ferraris while Torro Rossos were waving Vettel by.

    #215925
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    Yer I agree on how slow the STR was going, Vettel didn’t have much choice but to overtake so it probably wasn’t worthy of a penalty. If anything the video just underlines the extent to which the STRs were falling over themselves to let Vettel by, which is interesting in itself.

    #215390
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    There’s rain predicted every year at Interlagos, we won’t really know what the weather is going to be like until it happens. I’m not going to waste any time worrying about it.

    #214271
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    Alonso on Webber, one of the few non-DRS passes and it was perfectly executed. Brilliant example of Alonso’s controlled aggression on lap 1 this year.

Viewing 15 posts - 1 through 15 (of 445 total)