planetf1.com

Between Monaco and Silverstone, the McLaren was utter crap. I reckon Hamilton was doing the same as Alonso in putting the car in positions it really shouldn't have been in.

I don't think the Ferrari was ever "slow" it was just a very difficult car to drive quickly due to the problems with handling it had. It was a very unstable car through the corners with Alonso stating it understeered going in to a turn and oversteered coming out. The Ferrari is a fast car, just very difficult to drive fast.

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Drivers I like:
Raikkonen
Grosjean
Perez
Vettel

Teams I like:
Lotus
Merc
RBR
Marussia

In fact, this second analysis looks more like it...

I can't help but think that the barrage of threads about Ferrari, Alonso and/or who deserves the WDC are attempts at painting Vettel in a favorable light. It's a personal, far-off, unsubstantiated opinion, I know...

But still, the fact of the matter is that Alonso has driven an almost miraculous season. And that only thanks to two first corner accidents through no fault of his own he is not, by now, the immensely deserved 2012 WDC.

And he is the lucky guy!
Go figure...

It has a Ferrari 750 bhp engine, it won't be "slow". But yeah, losing shedload of time in the corners doesn't mean it's slow, it's not like you lose big chunk time there in Formula 1...

i think Ferrari is a fast enough car the real problem is its too unpredictable and the team just does not understand it. they often find it hard to set it up at its optimal performance. it does show some very fast pace every now and then. would be fun if they manage to sort out all their problems and match RBR performance in austin.

If the OP used both Red Bull and McLaren, I think we would see how the Ferrari has never been the class this season. That's the point. It's not a slow car in the same league as the HRTs or Marussias. Alonso is winning plaudits because he is not cruising to victory in the fastest car, which he had the privilege of enjoying in earlier seasons.

Setting his championship challenge aside, I am struggling to remember a season where a driver has made so few mistakes. Alonso was a little sloppy in 2010 (Monaco, Spa) by his own very high standards but has been outstanding this year. Even if his car is not quite as slow as you believe.

I never bought the argument of the slow ferrari, however if we view it from a perspective of drivers avoiding mistakes, I dont remember alonso making one (may be the start in suzuka) and there has been some breath taking overtakes, valencia and India come to mind.

The overtakes prove how good the driver is and also the fact that the car has some pace.

More on both drivers cant extract max from the car.

The car has been good all time, but tyre lottery hampered the progress.

Mclaren has clearly been vastly superior in qualifying, in the dry the lead Ferrari must not have out qualified the lead Mclaren no more than twice in 16 races.

Race pace is completely different, the Ferrari gains 0.3-0.8 seconds per lap relative to the Mclaren come race day. However the Mclaren has been the better car (pace wise at least) for about 2/3 of the races.

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http://www.racefan.co.uk

Always the baloney.... There is are myths for sure, and biokimi listed most of them in his first paragraph. And it so fascinating to read about how much more some of you seem to know than the F1 media, paddock and drivers. Oh the wasted talent that this forum has to offer, if only F1 knew!

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Forza Ferrari
WCCs = 16
WDCs = 15

Zero....

Now you are exposing yet another "myth".... the fact that so many of these Ferrari is better than anybody knows is somewhat motivated by personal bias.

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Forza Ferrari
WCCs = 16
WDCs = 15

How in the world was Vettel's pass impressive? He had the ONLY front-running car on the grid set up for the race and he was on options rather than on primes and on top of that his options were much fresher than Button's primes. And while I don't remember the corner, but he probably also had DRS.

Nah, the car was genuinely crap in Canada and particularly Valencia where they brought no upgrades.

Lewis sticking the car on the front row in both races, winning Canada and looking good for a podium in Valencia, really masked how poor the McLaren was in those 2 races.

I'm not too sure about Canada. He geniunly had race winning pace on that day, even if Alonso and Vettel had pitted again they wouldn't have caught him. And I think the margin between these 3 is so little that I can't see any of them beating the others in a straight fight in a crap car.

But yeah, it looked crap in Silverstone, Valencia and Monaco.

Well, if I am not mistaken, you are somewhat of a Ferrari fan. Nothing you would like better, then, that have people admit Ferrari is the fastest and best car out there... Correct me if I'm wrong.

Well, guess what, you have no idea... Helmetphiles will tell you Ferrari is better than you think, just in order to big up their man's season and belittle that of Alonso.

Watch Alonso's overtakes in Valencia. Most of them have nothing to do with straight line speed, just racing lines. And apart from Hamilton, who is quite simply godlike on the brakes, any other driver's overtaking moves can be attributed to the car. Straight line speed is not the only important factor for overtaking. Traction is almost as important. Ferrari's incredible straight lines speed is also a relatively recent development, like 5/6 races. At the start of the season Ferrari themselves said they were weak at both straight line speed and traction, and their strength was high speed cornering.

The Ferrari obviously is not a "slow" car. But over the whole season both the Red Bull and the McLaren has been better, and the Lotus only marginally worse. The Ferrari is a monster in the wet. But how many wet sessions has there been ? Only 3 on my count. 2 qualis in Silverstone and Hockenheim, and the race in Sepang. Their dry quali is awful, probably even worse than Lotus. Their race pace is comparable to McLaren and Red Bull but its hard to fight with a guy who is consistently qualifying 3-4 places above you.

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I made a comparison. Yes, the Red Bull was set up for the race, but so was the Ferrari and the McLaren. No team sets up their car to be slow in the race. Red Bull compromised their ultimate race pace to allow Vettel to find overtaking easier by gearing him quite long. Other than overtaking Button (who seems to hate starting in the middle of the pack) in the first few laps, Alonso was not able to pass cars that were reasonably quick. He couldn't pass Maldonaldo until Maldonaldo's KERS issues, and he couldn't pass Raikkonen at the end of the race either. However, Vettel obviously had a faster car than Alonso. Shame he started so far back.

Zero... I was agreeing with you....just accusing you of exposing the "Myth" builders true agenda! Ferrari has not been the superior car for the season, or sadly, not even the second best... and, one can make the case for either Renault & Ferrari as 3rd best. And YES, I would love to be able to say Ferrari had the best car in the field...because if that were true the WDC would already be wrapped up and perhaps the WCC as well.

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Forza Ferrari
WCCs = 16
WDCs = 15

Alonso actually made a minor mistake on his penultimate lap that could have cost him a shot at the win.

When Raikkonen was coming out of the left hander out of the hotel, behind him you see Alonso's car twitching as he came round the corner. Given that he was fractionally outside the 1 second DRS zone, had he not made that mistake he'd most probably have had DRS down the first straight - Alonso with DRS and a long straight pulls him quite close to Raikkonen going through turns 7 and 8, then it's just a question of who gets the better drive out of turn 8 into the 2nd zone, if Alonso's close enough to pass him on the straight, and whether he's close enough to pull a move into turns 9 and 10.

I know, I know... I was just expanding on the subject...

Better luck next year with that car...

This year it has been a lost cause for the duration of the season...

Canada IMO was as much about Lewis wringing absolutely everything he could out of the car combined with strategy errors from Ferrari and Red Bull. Button was absolutely nowhere that weekend.

Lewis managed to overtake Vettel in the pits and Alonso just after he got out of the pits, and he was 3.5s+ in front of Alonso by the time he made his second pit stop, so the pace was there. Jenson had major issues in Canada, his setup was fundamentally wrong, his car was destroying the tyres. I think he was the ONLY driver to pit 3 times while people like Grosjean and di Resta made 1 pit work.

How is Vettel 1.3 seconds (not tenths, SECONDS) faster than the quickest Ferrari??!

This! McLaren have had the fastest car this year for the most part. Faster than RBR most of the times. However, Button had setup issues, and Lewis had more poor reliability issues.

Ferrari at best were third on pure pace, but worse a lot of times. Through the season, sometimes they were behind Williams, Lotus and others.

On the other hand my respect for Mark grew. Lewis approached him post qualifying session and gave a backhanded complement, which I quote below:
"you guys were very fast"
Mark's reply was curt enough:
"he's the faster one," as he pointed Lewis towards Vettel.

I'm a tifoso, but anyone who says Vettel is only good as the car is great needs their head looked up. I'm tired of Lewis and Alonso trying to discredit Vettel somewhat with what they're doing, which now seems more sad and pathetic than silly when it all started. Alonso did rather well... perhaps his best season so far in his career, when you speak of performance, even if he doesn't win the WDC. He more than deserves it, but math is a cruel bitty, he should ask Massa. Also, it just doesn't befit his stature in the sport. He should just man up and take it on the chin. Same goes for Lewis... more so after Twittergate. About time they start acting as intelligent as they're.

note: I'm expecting more posts on twitter and Alonso to whinge about Newey.

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My Top 5 drivers of all times:
1) Prost/ Schumacher
3) Fangio
4) Lauda
5) Brabham

if you don't like it, too bad! There's a reason why it says "My Top 5"

Looking at the way Massa drove in the last few races, one ownders whether the much maligned Ferrari is really 'slow' or is it just Alonso's set-up preferences not suiting the car design.

Massa certainly seemed faster in his Ferrari and clearly had to slow down to let his teammate pass him. So where is all that speed for Massa coming from and why does Alonso have to make that extra effort in a similar car?

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Vettel / Raikkonen / Button

The raw speed of a car will show up in qualifying. This is when the car can run at it's ultimate pace. This isn't black and white due to the tyres not switching on, and the team who suffered most at the sharp end was lotus. The Ferrari was just not as competitive as Redbull, Mclaren and lotus and some other teams during different stages of the year. When the fuel goes in and they try and save tyres there not driving no where near there peak performance so this helped Ferrari stay in touch.

You can say that Ferrari were lucky that the tyres were so hard to understand so the other teams couldn't capitalise on there pace but to say that the F2012 wasn't Inferior to the teams at the sharp end is just plain wrong.

The Ferrari always had good pace. It was just incredibly difficult to drive. I remember Alonso saying something of the like. This would have benefited Alonso as he's able to drive around a car's problems better than Massa. Then when the car became easier to drive, Massa was able to get much closer to Alonso, who lost some of the advantage he had.

But maybe, by making the car easier to drive, they may have lost some of the out and out performance the car has. In recent races such as Austin, where Massa has been faster than Alonso, the car was nowhere near the RB or the McLaren.

Just my thoughts on the matter.

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Forza Fernando !

I realize that this guy doesn't know anything, or at least will be made to feel that way by the time some of you have set him straight, however, it seems as though his view of the Ferrari and of Alonso's performance differ just a bit with the vast knowledge we have seen here in the forum for several months now...

http://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/fernando-alonso-driver-of-the-year/

"Equipped with a car called one of the worst Ferrari creations in history..."

Now that article may be a bit dramatic, but to those who have been claiming for weeks that the Ferrari is not and has not been slow/difficult/second tier.... perhaps you are more fearful of Alonso getting credit than you are realistic about the Ferrari F1 car of 2012.

It has seldom been the fastest, it has not qualifyied well putting it in an almost constant catch-up mode, nor has it had consistent front of the pack race pace. What it has had has been reliability, excellent strategy & teamwork, and some excellent driving to offset the weaknesses... to a degree. If most every knowledgeable source in F1 media can see it, why are some of you having such a difficult time and what do you know that they do not?

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Forza Ferrari
WCCs = 16
WDCs = 15

They have better armchairs to judge from

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Forza Fernando !

I haven't read the article in full, just the first few paragraphs (too busy atm), but does he cite a credible source to corroborate the "one of the worst Ferrari creations in history" line? Or is it just that, a claim with absolutely no reference made? I don't see any footnotes etc. All I see is a complete overstatement with absolutely nothing to back it up.

The Ferrari was pretty poor in qualifying, there's no doubting that, but let's not forgot, both cars were in Q3 50% of the season, both featuring in Q3 regularly in the second half of the season, but then on race day, the car suddenly came alive and had front running pace, and the gap between Massa and Alonso wasn't huge. It was basically a switch of the Red Bull - RBR had massive pace in qualifying, but then suffered during the race.

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PLAY A RECORD KARL COS I'M GUNNA KNOCK YOU OUT!!!

No, sgt. he does not list his sources. What he does is have an article printed by Motorsport who apparently thought him credible enough to make it worth publishing. Is his word the end-all? No, but it is not like he is the only media source (not to mention F1 personnel) who have said that the Ferraris were not the top cars in F1 this year or even in the top 2. If he were the only one to say so, then his article would be much more suspect.

As it is, I am still curious as to what so many of our forumites know that the media does not know, and just how it is that they became such experts and what their sources are.

We can all speculate, and often do, but so many here seem to state their opinions as facts that surely they must have some inside knowledge.


as for the "footnotes"... how often have you seen F1 columnists use footnotes?

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Forza Ferrari
WCCs = 16
WDCs = 15

That writer is guilty of hyperbole. The Ferrari of 2009 (JB championship winning season) was worse. It didn't even figure in the championship and won a single race. You could argue that the Ferrari of 2005 was even worse, as it only won the sham grand prix in the USA.

A car that allows one to be second in the championship is a decent car and wins 3 races. It is not a great car by any stretch of the imagination, but it was second in the WDC and in the WCC, and it is well acknowledged that Massa underperformed in the car.

So no, Alonso was not driving the worst Ferrari ever.

My take on this topic is that I simply do not remember a season since I started following F1 where so many people involved in various aspects of the sport have all repeatedly stated how amazingly Alonso has done in a car that's not often been a clearly fastest car.

By the way I started watching the sport in the mid 80's.

As these people know more about it than most, if not all of us, I tend to believe them.

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Oh and Bernie, National flags should be raised not flipped. Sort it!

Is Fernando doing his Montgomery Scott bit, saying the car can't challenge the front runners so when he does it makes him look like a miracle worker

Yes, you listen to them because they do know a lot. But make up your own mind based on your own personal conclusions.

The Ferrari always had the potential to be quick, but it was unstable, and scary to drive. Just look at the very first race, in Australia. Both Alonso and Massa spun out at the same spot on the track, doing the same thing. Going into turn one, the car just spun out. That speaks volumes, where under hard braking the drivers put the slightest steering input into the car and snap oversteer occurs immediately.

Obviously Massa suffered a loss of confidence, but obviously, Alonso just drove through it, controlling and mastering a car that sometimes did things it wasn't supposed to do, and I mean that in an unpleasant manner.

So what happened was from the beginning the Ferrari was almost on par with the competition. But once past the first race, other teams devoted their resources in making their cars quicker, while Ferrari had to devote their resources just to get the car under control, and understand what was going on. The other teams improved, the Ferrari did not improve (pace-wise) over that period of time because they were working hard on just fixing the scary handling characteristics.

Consider Massa as the benchmark of just how scary the car was, because Massa isn't a crap driver. For the first half of the season the car was scary unstable, and it reflected in Massa's lack of confidence and poor results. But once the car got sorted out and stopped doing scary things, Massa's results improved.

Anyone can drive a car up to 90% of it's performance potential. But once you get into the last 1 or 2 percent, the car can start to respond quite differently, and it can get weird and scary. And in Formula One, the drivers do their business in that last 1%.

A few of the comparisons didn't seem quite right, here are my comments and also adding the final two races:
Australia - slower than McLaren - agreed
Malaysia - faster than McLaren in the wet - disagree, Alonso was a little bit quicker in the extreme wet, but then Hamilton was closing the gap to him big time, Ferrari made a timely pit stop that bought them 10 seconds, which really decided things in the end, at best a tie
China - slower than McLaren - agreed
Bahrain - slower than McLaren (but Alonso finished ahead due to Hamilton's botched pitstops) - agreed
Spain - faster than McLaren - not certain, Hamilton qualified on pole (though with under-fuel), it's likely Ham could have stayed ahead if it wasn't for the penalty, a tie
Monaco - finished ahead. It's Monaco, so let's call it a tie - agreed, very even on pace, Hamilton 40/78 laps faster than Alonso, the rest for Fernando
Canada - tie. Ferrari messed up on tyres. Could have finished ahead of the McLaren. - disagree, McLaren clearly had an advantage
Europe - Ferrari faster in the race (Hopeless in qualifying though) - agreed
Great Britain - Ferrari faster - agreed
Germany - Ferrari faster (quali and race) - agreed
Hungary - slower than McLaren - agreed
Belgium - slower than McLaren (difficult to call, but Jenson was supreme) - agreed
Italy - slower than McLaren - agreed
Singapore - slower than McLaren - agreed
Japan - faster than McLaren (shame Alonso retired) - agreed
Korea - Difficult (LH anti-roll bar failure), but on the basis of Massa's performance, will have to say Ferrari was faster than McLaren - agreed
India - faster than McLaren - agreed
Abu Dhabi - slower than McLaren (LH was absolutely killing everyone in the race) - agreed
USA - slower than McLaren
Brazil - slower than McLaren

So, overall, 11 races where McLaren was faster, 3 ties, and 6 races where Ferrari was faster. It shows that it was quite a feat for Alonso to beat both McLaren drivers in the WDC. To be fair though, it wasn't all a matter of driving as Ferrari had superior reliability, consistent pit stops, and better strategy calls.

alot of people underestimate the team works.....something that lotus failed terribly in terms of pit stop, strategy and choosing the right tyre compounds....

So basically, Ferrari wasn't as bad as Santanders main sponsor to SKY told us? I'm shocked, to think that somebody's opinion would be bias based on $$ and/or country affiliation. Wait, does that mean that McLaren/Button and Hambone weren't actually second most important(to FA) as on SKY coverage?

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Kimi has always looked better in black.

As one who crunched numbers for a while, I can tell you that the kind of evidence we are considering in deciding which car is faster or slower is pretty iffy, grade B at best. All the pundits out there are guessing, no matter how big their reputations are. In statistical analysis, even with hard data, you finally have to accept a 1-5% probability that your final conclusion is wrong. A study with this "data" would never get published. That really should end this discussion.

Having said that, I still think the Ferrari was joint second in overall ability taking into account qualifying speed/lack thereof, race pace and reliability for the whole year. Ferrari started out really badly, and should paradoxically be given credit for improving their car faster than anyone else and ending up pretty close behind the best.

Qualifying positions 2012

------MW---SV---FM---FA
AUS---05---06---16---12
MAL---04---06---12---09
CHN---07---11---12---09
BAH---03---01---14---06
SPA---12---08---17---03
MON---02---10---07---06
CAN---04---01---06---03
EUR---19---01---13---11
GBR---02---04---05---01
GER---03---02---14---01
HUN---11---03---07---06
BEL---07---11---14---06
ITA---11---06---03---10
SIN---07---03---13---05
JPN---02---01---11---07
KOR---01---02---06---04
IND---02---01---06---05
ABD---02---03---09---07
USA---03---01---07---09
BRA---03---04---05---08

TEAM MATE HEAD-TO-HEAD QUALI RESULTS:
Webber-Vettel 9-11
Massa-Alonso 3-17

AVERAGE QUALIFYING POSITIONS:
Mark Webber 5.5
Sebastian Vettel 4.25
Felipe Massa 9.85
Fernando Alonso 6.4

HOW MANY TIMES IN TOP FOUR IN QUALIFYING:
-----MW---SV---FM---FA
1st---1x---6x---0x---2x
2nd---5x---2x---0x---0x
3rd---4x---3x---1x---2x
4th---2x---2x---0x---1x
TOT--12---13---1----5-


It's not exactly a myth that the Ferrari was slow. Not Minardi-slow of course but for a car that could challenge for the title it was slow. It never had the raw pace to challenge the Red Bull consistently. Both of Alonso's pole positions were achieved in wet qualifyings, and apart from those he only qualified in third place twice and in fourth place once. Massa fared even worse, only once did he qualify in the top four, with a third place in Monza qualifying.


EDIT: These are qualifying numbers, not eventual grid positions which were sometimes effected by grid penalties.

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