Pullrod wrote:
Lotus49 wrote:
mikeyg123 wrote:
Does anyone seriously think if Vettel's engine had blown up on the last lap at Abu Dhabi in 2010 and the last lap at Interlagos in 2012 he would be a worse driver because he only had 2 titles? Does anyone think it would make Alonso a better driver because he would have 4? Even though both drivers would have done nothing different in terms of performance.
This is what I can't get past and why I don't put as much weight into the stats in these type of sports as others do but it's subjective of course, people value different things but this is along the lines of what was first put to me in a similar conversation.
You can literally not need to change a single turn of Alonso's wheel, change a tenth of performance he showed across his career or anything like that and he'd have 2-3 more titles with a failure here or there or a DQ in 07 for Kīmi's illegal floor in Melbourne for example.
No extra brilliance from Alonso
No extra poor performance from his rivals
No better cars
No better team atmosphere
Nowt.
So it's hard to get excited about the pure stats when in a Sport like this they can be so heavily altered without changing a single driving input from Alonso himself. You get exited about the performances that are shown, surely? And those are there whether it's 2 or 4/5.
This isn't an Alonso only thing, you can add or takeway titles to lots of drivers without changing the level of performance they have shown in any way, you can even make Alonso have no titles, never mind the 2 he did get.
The stats are fluff, nice for the drivers themselves and fans of course to celebrate, it's the goal after all, but it's just not much use as a performance indicator when you can turn the stats on their head without changing any performance shown whatsoever from that driver in question.
A driver can have luck with a WDC car, but success needs to be nurtured and it is not done only through driving or engineering talent.
When Ferrari announced Vettel as their new driver, I said for Alonso that it was the beginning of the end for him and for Vettel, that
there is no way he will have worse stats(wins/poles) than Alonso during his Ferrari years.
You can call it luck if you want, but I don't think it is. With Vettel all you hear is Ferrari, and with Alonso, all you hear is Alonso and how life is cruel.
I wouldn't call it luck exactly but just better circumstances. One quick thing is Maranello itsellf.
Alonso's time had wind tunnel issues and infrastructure deficiencies to it's main rivals and a boss still in the mindset they had everything they need.
Sergio came in and brought class leading AVL test benches, hundreds of millions spent on new infrastructure and buildimgs housing state of the art sims and full chassis dyno's to the point it's as good as anything RB or Mercedes have. That's a huge advantage in the ability to produce better cars that Alonso didn't have and has been evidenced in their last few cars.
You could argue he should've done more to get Luca to open the wallet and get their facilities to their rivals standards but without knowing what he did in the first place it's a bit of an empty criticism.
It's just the way it falls and seemingly it falls badly for Alonso in multiple ways. Another quick one is the state of the PU Alonso left. He left at the end of summer and at that point the Ferrari PU was consensus worse because it had the same deficiencies as Renault but with a worse ERS system. And we had a token system locking that design in for the most part. Pretty hopeless looking situation.
Within 4 months of his leaving Allison found the loophole that killed the token system,Mahle brought them TJI which turned around their ICE, Cornebois brought the oil burn knowledge from Mercedes and Renault somehow managed to go backwards.
You just can't account for that level of things falling against you and for someone else and it's got nothing to do with the kumbaya rubbish we've spoke of before. Seb didn't suddenly turn into an expletive during the winter 2013/14, Mercedes simply brought things RB-Renault didn't.
Luck or just circumstances, call it what you want but Alonso hasn't had it since his first Renault stint when he had the engineers coming up with the tricks and a bespoke fuel and tyre supplier giving him priority. And guess what happened, he won. Give him it again and he'll do the same I'm sure.
Again, you are talking about engineering in isolation.
The problem with Alonso is that he wants to be a driver and the team manager.
I have heard disrespectulf radio communications between Alonso and his Ferrari engineers, something Vettel will not do. Sebastian is JUST a driver.
Alonso had a shot(albeit small) to drive for a Top team again and what was his genius move? He decided to skip Monaco GP for the Indy 500 to show he is bigger than Hamilton/Vettel/F1 alienating people(Lauda/Wolff/Horner/Ecclestone/F1 drivers) in the process. We know drivers are egomaniac but he is a special one and I strongly believe his lack of success can not be attributed to bad luck.
Some drivers are better fit to certain teams than others and engineers/rule makers/Big wigs will go the extra mile just to make them fast again.
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