planetf1.com

if he was a driver avoiding accidents, he would have lifted or moved left a bit.

At the beginning of the season, it was an awful car. As the season progressed it got better, but all it ever was a was a decent car. Nothing more. The Lotus and McLaren were far better cars.

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He did which is why he put 2 wheels on the grass.But alonso didn't back off and he paid for it.

In a season where mechanical failures caused drivers in the title fight to lose WINS, not just points, you gotta say the Ferrari earned major snaps in the "best car" judgement simply for never breaking in a major points robbing way.

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The F2012 was not a slow/bad car at all. It just was not the fastest, which any top driver would complain about.

By my ratings it was the fourth-fastest car, 0.2 slower than the Red Bull and the McLaren, driver-neutral. This 2/100ths second deficiency per lap was shown, as one measure, by Alonso's 3 wins and 2 poles against Vettel's 5 wins and 7 poles and Hamilton's 4 wins and 8 poles. Against such good teams as Red Bull and McLaren, and such outstanding drivers as Vettel and Hamilton, not even Alonso could make up the car difference.

Fernando beat Button and Webber though, despite their top-rated cars: they scored 3 wins/1 pole (Button) and 2 wins/ 0 poles (Webber).

Alonso certainly gave it a good go! Has anyone got stats on how many overtakes he made before the first corner?

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http://grandprixratings.blogspot.com

A million. I hope he gave whichever engineer does his start a big bonus.

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I read it and you said from the start of the season. Even in 4th round he was 2 seconds slower than the fastest lap guy.

it was fastest in some races, 2nd, 3rd fastest in others and in a selected very few races, below 3rd.

There was also a difference between Massa and Alonso's cars, so it is hard to make a generalization.

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I can't be the only one that is getting bored with this revisionism that undermines only the successful. Nobody is questioning whether the Force India was not a good car or whether Kimi could have done better. He is a fan favourite, albeit with good reasons, so he gets the praise but because he didn't get close to the championship in 2012, he won't attract the constant digs that Vettel, Alonso, Red Bull and Ferrari have been getting.

So you complain about the constant moaning at alonso and vettel and at the same breath want people to moan about raikkonen? A tad hypocrite i feel..

He is not asking anyone to complain about Raikkonen or Force India; he is asking people to stop complaining about the other two ones. I thought the meaning of his post was very clear!

If that is the case his first statement was sufficient enough.

Oh, come on. His post is three lines long, it is not as if he had been going on a long rant against Force India and Raikkonen (by the way, I just noticed you did not seem to understand that he was asking people to criticise Force India), he just used them as examples of a different attitude towards teams and drivers.

Ashley, for somebody who was so upset at people granting Newey a significant chunk of the merit in Vettel's victories, your post seems to take the same rational to extremes when it comes to others.

It is no secret that Ferrari had to put some work on Alonso's clutch until he was happy with it, but that was before this season. I don't know if Massa had similar issues or was happy with and is still using the previous clutch version. In any case, I am sure that Ferrari rewarded the people who ironed out that particular crease.

I think one line is sufficient to make it a rant .I don't know if you noticed but he did seem to go on about raikkonen. By the way if i mentioned force india instead of raikkonen would you have replied to my post ? I don't think so..

To clarify, I don't want people to moan about Raikkonen. That's negative. He was a useful example for my argument, to show how what these threads are really about is undermining the drivers and teams who succeeded against "their" guy. I don't want people to be undermining the success and achievements of others, Raikkonen included. I can't abide this hypocritical, false science of questioning the success and achievements of Red Bull and Vettel and Alonso from 2012.

The same logic that has been applied to those champions and the Spaniard should be applied to all the drivers if we're going to be consistent. After all, who's to know how good any driver, any car, any designer, any team boss, really is if we're to give threads like this a free pass? But: why focus on just a successful minority of the F1 field? There is no good reason to bring it up repeatedly. A first, second, even a third time is natural but by now it has worn very thin and those who are that curious could look somewhere else down the grid if their curious instincts are genuinely sincere and are not seeking to be provocative.

Yes, I would, because my point is not about Raikkonen but about your (in my view) unjustified attack on hittheapex, who does not deserve being calle a hypocrite for such a post. But in all fairness, I would have found your comment very original - I am far more used to seeing people in this forum jump at a Raikkonen reference than at a Force India one!

Funny that coming from a poster who jumps whenever alonso & kimi are mentioned in the same sentence.
On a seperate note , i doubt hittheapex needs any help in " defending " judging by his above post.

Funny that your only line of defense seems to be attacking others. Nice to have met you.

Likewise.

It's funny seeing how a thread to discuss about a car ends up becoming something different.

Well, Alonso was driving one and Massa the other.

But, I doubt that's what you were hinting at

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Forza Fernando !

Maybe he means in Alonso's hands it looks like a different car !

It's hard enough to drive one's car to even try to drive both at the same time.

I don't get upset about anyone giving Newey any credit for 6 titles won in cars he's designed for a team he has steered. He's a significant part of the team, it would be foolish to think otherwise.

All drivers are dependent on how good their start settings are, and those settings come from an engineer. There's a difference between poor reaction times and poor performance from the car. You have to have everything just right for your good reaction times to mean anything. Ferrari has those starts on lock, what's wrong with saying it?

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Because neither Alonso (a double world champion and usually considered as one the best drivers in the sport), nor Massa (a multiple race winner and an excellent qualifier) were able to qualify it on the front row one single time (barring wet conditions).

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I'm a racing driver. Always was, always will be.

It did in barcelona.

Actually it was because Hamilton was excluded from his result, also in that race Ferrari introduced a new rear end and it slightly had the edge over most of the other cars, they kept it for the rest of the season so there was no major upgrade since then.

Yeah but technically he did qualify on the front row so i was just pointing out Porsan's mistake.
Also ferrari did bring a major upgrade package somewhere at hockemheim IIRC including the diffuser.
Edit: Here is the link http://www.formula1.com/news/technical/ ... 3/982.html

OK, I made a horrific mistake, I should have said that neither Alonso nor Massa managed to qualify on the front row one single time barring wet weather or technical disqualification or other drivers having qualified ahead of them. But this does not change anything, the Ferrari was never quick enough for qualifying on first row in normal conditions, so it wasn't good enough for winning the WDC. If it was good or bad for eventual race wins in wet conditions or for getting podium positions is debatable but irrelevenat (IMO), because Ferrari goal was to win both Championships (and specially the drivers Championship).

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I'm a racing driver. Always was, always will be.

Since when does qualifying win the WDC? If there is one thing Alonso showed this year, it is that his car was good enough for him to lead the drivers' championship until he threw his lead away in Japan.
What a sad state of affairs when a leading constructor, one who constructs both car and engine in-house, only values a title won by one of its employees.

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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

...or you can see it the other way round: what a huge success for Alonso to have kept his title hopes alive until the very last race. Concerning your question "Since when does qualifying win the WDC?", well, I'd say that having a car unable to qualify on the front row is a massive disadvantage for winning the Championship since British GP, 1950. Or do you think it is not?



For a start, I don't think drivers are emplyees of a team...more like contractors. That said, I think the only championship that ultimately counts is WDC...I see the constructors Championship as merely a system for distributing Bernie's money...Do you think Ferrari was happy because they had won the Constructors Championship when Massa won and lost the drivers Championship in the lapse of some seconds? 50 years after his retirement, most people know Moss did never win the WDCs...but how many care that Vanwall (lead by Moss) won the WCC?

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I'm a racing driver. Always was, always will be.

Fiki, does Porsan understand that he is playing the mouse to your cat when it comes to Ferrari &/or their drivers? You know it's not a fair fight. Regardless of whether you are right or wrong (you & I disagree about a lot to do with Ferrari) people should have their wits about them if they are going to debate with you on this subject .

1. Porsan is an intelligent poster.
2. I'll ask my cat.

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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

I might be wrong, but I think I recall some post from Fiki praising Jacky Ickx, who was my first F1 hero...So he is not necessarily "the cat" when coming to Ferrari &/or their drivers...

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I'm a racing driver. Always was, always will be.

Since Red Bull turned it into an art form.

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"I am a believer, but I start each Grand Prix with 195 liters of fuel behind me," he explains. "I don't rely entirely on God, I rely on Prost."

Vettel more so... Webbo was known as a qualy specialist while Vettel still was wearing night time diapers, so it is no mean feat...

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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"

My point being that their strategy is to get on the front row, lead away from the front and control the race to the flag. A strategy that went a long way to helping Vettel take 4 wins in a row in 2012.

At no stage in 2012 did Ferrari have the performance to use the same strategy in normal conditions.
(edit: actually perhaps they did have the performance at Monza)

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"I am a believer, but I start each Grand Prix with 195 liters of fuel behind me," he explains. "I don't rely entirely on God, I rely on Prost."

For what its worth I think that the Ferrari car and to a degree the Saber car in 2012, with the DRS and tyre issues we saw, created an unusual situation for F1. There were many races where we saw Alonso qualify 5th and well of the pace and then 10 laps into the race Alonso had the best race pace and was set to finish comfortably on the podium.
The Ferrari was not the fastest over the season maybe but fastest isn't always best. Vettel was only averaging 14 points per race. Speed and reliability are essential for winning a championship. For example if you win two races and then retire with an alternator problem you have 50 points from three races. If you finish 2nd and third twice in a more reliable Ferrari you have 48 points. Its easy to see how Alonso was aware enough to realise the strengths and weaknesses of his car and keep himself in the championship.

There is more to the "Art form" than just the Quali. Getting the most out ofthe car and out of the DRS in the early laps are also part of it. If Seb wasn't getting those early laps in Quali wouldn't mean much.

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Disclaimer: The above post maybe tongue in cheek.

"I thought I'd get your theories, mock them, then embrace my own. The usual."