planetf1.com

Yes, totally agree. Read Lauda's book for the story on how, a few years earlier, Prost came in as Ron's favorite and how Ron worked to undermine Lauda's position and actually turned virtually the entire team against Lauda. The one person Lauda seemed to bear no grudge against was Prost himself, who Lauda describes as being a simple, warm, friendly person. But his description about racing when your entire team wants you to lose is chilling.

There is something in Ron Dennis's DNA that makes him support the up-and-coming star and try to destroy the established champion. As soon as Prost had become the established star, Ron apparently did it with Senna against Prost, just as he had earlier done it with Prost against Lauda. This is why I really felt for Fernando in '07, it's really tough when everyone at your job, from the boss on down, wants you to fail. I always thought that's what caused Fernando's behavior, not vice-versa.

Well, "we were racing Fernando" should have done it for you but, i guess it is never too late

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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"

This is interesting...


Even with what you say, losing almost an entire second as someone suggested, is not plausible. You not only can up ballast, but instead put more fuel in... burn more when needed. It all depends on the car, weight and its distribution and what else have you. Whichever way you cut it, Prost was still in a better position compared to Senna with what you say, and i'm willing to bet my kidneys (yes, both!) that Prost wasn't so slow, as you're perhaps inferring. I don't know if you read a story about a young Prost sandbagging... can someone link it please?
http://www.grandprixhistory.org/ramble5.htm
anyhoo, for want of a better source, here's a link for those who want more to find on Prost (well, for free that is)...

_________________
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"

Using POBs system the change in time was 0.7 and the first thing I said in my post was that Honda/Mclaren were up to something because Prost was never that slow.

However, the weight thing is important and would have been a chunk of that time.

That Prost anecdote was slightly debunked last time somebody quoted it, the author gets a little carried away. Senna lead both Ferrari by 3.7 seconds with 2 laps to go. Hardly breathing down his neck. He also increased the gap to them by 0.2 on the previous lap. Still it is a nice story. Prost was a thinker, but I would expect no less from most drivers in that situation.

If Senna had won that race, which he was less than 2 laps from winning. Prost would have had to have won all of the remaining 4 races just to draw the championship as it would have been 8-4 in wins. Maybe he over sandbagged that year. So the author is a little generous in how close the championship was at that points, Senna lead 7-4 in wins and the first to win 9 races won the title.

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http://www.racefan.co.uk

Great read, I've seen snippets of it but only read the whole thing now. Prost really was epic

My bad, on Honda/McLaren front. Accept my apologies.

er, the somewhat famous sandbagging incident is one from his younger days.

About .7 of a second, lost due to mere adjustment in weight...? I guess I've seen much worse, but never with someone at that level in F1. Do you remember any other such drops in performance by anyone at the sharp end of the grid?

_________________
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"

No idea what you mean, seeing as Lauda/Prost/Senna all happened before "we were racing Fernando." I hardly needed any convincing that Ron had often treated his established world champions poorly. But actually, even in 2009, saying what I said above brought a hailstorm of outrage on this forum. The anti-Alonso know-nothings clearly felt that any suggestion that Ron might have had something to do with the problems meant the poster was a conspiracy-theorist, etc.

There is a direct linear relationship between adding weight to a car and its lap time. Most commonly we discuss adding fuel.

Add 1 litre and it will go 0.1 slower
Add 2 litres and it will go 0.2 slower
Add 5 litres and it will go 0.5 slower etc etc

During the refueling era and especially the qualifying with race fuel era it was hot topic among commentators as you could get pole by running lighter on fuel as I am sure most remember it was a major part of race strategy and he had a few midfield cars get pole positions by running a few laps less fuel.

I have no data for 1989 but during 2008/09 Renault used to publish how much 1 lap of fuel would slow the lap time down in their blog, they did this every race.

One lap of fuel was 2.7 Kg around Catalunya, slowed the car by 0.150 which was one of the highest time penalties due to so many high/medium speed corners. Monza had the lowest penalty for carrying for fuel I think it was 0.050 there. Around Spain carrying 10kg (3/4 laps of fuel) would cost you 0.5 a lap, but that is with much less power from the engine and modern aerodynamics so I have no idea how that transfers to 1989 as the cars have more power but less aerodynamic grip and I am not sure where the weight hurts you most (aerodynamic grip) or accelerating and braking.

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http://www.racefan.co.uk

apologies... i must have had you mixed up for someone else... a mistake at my end.

but yes, i remember being ridiculed, to have my posts deleted, was called a lot of names... ah, they were fun times.

_________________
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"

This driver weight info could be quite significant. I have never thought of taking it into account.
Isn't 10kg of fuel supposed to worth about 0.3 per lap?
Maybe Mark is driving at more of a disadvantage against Sebastian? If so his 2010 season was phenomenal, with four wins to Seb's five.

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http://grandprixratings.blogspot.com

Remember Mark and Seb and driving cars of the exact same weight at all times, it is just Seb has 18kg on lead in the floor plan which gives him more options with setup/ weight distribution and lower centre of gravity.

10kg fuel is worth 0.2-0.5 second per lap depending on the track.

_________________
http://www.racefan.co.uk

As a biased Webber fan I like to point out a major factor for Seb's pace advantage over Mark is the fact that Seb has the genetics of a jockey.

Although last year Seb was a bit more consistent.

On Senna v Prost I have nothing to add which hasn't been said.

I never saw anything in Prost that I liked (retrospectively, I was only allowed to stay up to watch races from 98/99ish onwards) seems Prost was all about pre-prep but Senna was all about beating you with whatever car he had on the day. I'm a Senna guy.

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[[[[Mark Webber for the win in 2013 and beyond]]]
[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[http://www.octanic.com]]]]]]]]]]]]

Remember Seb's first seasons? He was so thin that if he turned sideways you couldn't see it! In my family we call it asparagus genetics =D

Since I don't know how McLaren ruled on the use of set-up settings by the other team mate (either Lauda or Senna), I can only interpret something I heard Prost say during an interview from the time he was there with Senna. Prost regularly worked on his set-ups during morning practice, and sometimes even sacrificed some of the qualifying hour on Fridays and Saturdays to perfect his car. And this continued
during the Sunday morning warm-up.
I concluded that his data was sometimes/often used by his team mate, because he said that he sometimes had to have things changed on his car as late as when they were on the starting grid, just so he wasn't driving with an identical car to his team mate.
So, if he was sandbagging during qualifying, that meant that his ultimate pace was not shown at that time, at least not always. And depending on how well his search for the ulitmate set-up had been, the resulting pace was partially an outcome of that wish to "do the difference" (as he phrased it).

I was always impressed by Senna, but I felt he never really reached Prost's level of expertise.

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Use every man after his desert, and who should scape whipping? Use them after your own honour and dignity.

Maria de Villota