Jinx wrote:
SnakeSVT2003 wrote:
[
First of all, great post.
Second, you clearly missed the two smilies at the end of my post or else you would not have written the first paragraph at all. You do know what they mean right? Accusing me of having a win at all costs outlook is weird when I clearly showed you I was having fun with the comment, meaning I wasn't being serious about it.
Third, as you said, all you have is speculation. The facts say that Alonso and Kimi, after a similar number of races, have similar stats even though Alonso has had tougher opposition and Kimi had two cars that were at worst equal-best to only 1 other car, something Alonso has not had. You can try to make it look however you want, you can try to speculate on all the behind-the-scene stuff and assume Kimi felt this way or that way or that Ferrari were out to make him fail, or as the other guy said, Schumi wanted Kimi to fail and made sure it happened, but if you have nothing to back it up then how am I supposed to believe any of it?
The one thing you guys keep saying is that Ferrari is a worse team now than it was before, yet Alonso has as many wins and podiums as Kimi after three years in spite of being in what you guys consider to be a worse team and having more opposition to compete against. Sounds to me like Ferrari traded up.
on second - ok, I didn't know if it was one of those "I put smiley there to disarm people but I really just want to do the opposite" things...
on third, hmm, I dun think I said all those things about Fonzie or Kimi. Yeah, I dun have evidence that's why I say it is speculation. I only really talked about Massa and why it is not a good idea to compare fonzie and kimi using massa as a yardstick. Then someone posted a link of Soren and wrcva's piece on the whole 08-09 thingy but the issue is if someone would read it and agree with it or not. The piece is a read-between-the-lines one backed up by articles with timelines. And I am one of those who agree with what these two people have pieced together. But from your reply here, I would venture a guess this piece would not be what you call hard-core evidence, something that none of us non-insiders would be privy to anyway, so anyone would have lost the plot right there and then when in such "debates".
Regarding whether Ferrari traded up... the main point I was making when replying to you was whether replacing raikkonen with fernando was worth it or not. I gave my opinions from financial and marketing perspectives. I dun really care for the stats between the 2 drivers, who IMHO, are two very very talented drivers with very very different personalities. And I haven't thought about it from a trading-up perspective. But if you do think they have traded up, it certainly hasn't materialized for Ferrari yet in terms of WDC or WCC (for whatever reasons). I certainly don't think Alonso is the weakest link but we cannot assume that his competitors stayed constant in their performances nor can we assume that Ferrari had not made inroads with their cars. Overall, I'm just having a hard time accepting that year x car is fairy cakes compared to year y or year z, etc. There are just so many variables and factors at play, it is just impossible to compute unless we are able to develop a data network that enables such analysis.
Also on your last para - why do you lump those who think ferrari is worse team now together as a group? Is it because we happen to have a difference of opinions. First of all, I am one of those who are of the opinion that the team is much more together than when kimi was there. This team is united and cohesive etc. Again, this unity and cohesiveness may have been due to several factors (of which none of us are also privy to). But it seems they have each other's backs (well except that Alonso kept saying that the car was fairy cakes right around the time when Massa started getting his mojo back). And when I contrast this to when kimi was there, they afforded him no such luxuries once Todt stood down. And yet, when he was called upon to help the team in their darkest moments, Kimi came through for them even in his darkest moments. So it is from this point of view that I wonder if Ferrari did trade up as you suggested. Again, I do not care for stats at all. I'm also not interested if this will eventually spiral into a senseless going-nowhere discussion. If we disagree, it's fine too. Everyone is rightfully allowed to have their own POVs

That's a weird reaction to have to such an innocent comment.

Instead of trying to read between the lines, just read what I write next time.
As for why I lumped you in with others on here, I assumed you agreed with what others were saying since you said they replied the way you would reply.
It's easy to see when a car is better compared to other cars because of how well they do against their competition. You're mistake is this:
Quote:
Overall, I'm just having a hard time accepting that year x car is fairy cakes compared to year y or year z, etc. There are just so many variables and factors at play, it is just impossible to compute unless we are able to develop a data network that enables such analysis.
That's not required at all because the cars are judged by how well they do against the competition, so it's easy to see when the Ferrari was a top-2 car and when McLaren and Red Bull had better cars.
The funny thing is you say the team seems to be better now than it was when Kimi was there. It's funny because you refused to make the assumption that Alonso had something to do with that but you are more than willing to make assumptions about why Kimi did not perform as well as Massa for most of his time there, and why Ferrari are worse financially and from a marketing perspective (BTW, isn't Alonso more sponsor-friendly than Kimi? I think Lotus has answered that quite a bit this year when they talk about how they handle Kimi and his time away from the circuit).
This conversation will go nowhere, that's for sure, so except for your weird response to my innocent comment, all went well.
Honda Quick wrote:
I, for one, am very impressed by the direction of this thread and maturity of the posters. This is by far the longest, most civil "Driver vs. Driver" thread I've seen in some time. And it's with two very polarizing entities which caused a few people banned via the Raikkonen Official thread. LOL I enjoy reading this stuff, everyone! Keep it up!
We're trying!

Usman wrote:
Honda Quick wrote:
Kimi and Alonso fans are way more civilized.
I'm not so sure about that

, but of course there are exceptions.