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He stated he didn't want to be the second best, he wanted to challenge for the championship. That's why he moved to McLaren-Honda which had a golden history in the 80s and early 90s. Had he stayed at Ferrari, 2015 and especially 2016 would have proved that his statement was 100% correct. Only in 2017 did Ferrari start to have a chance to challenge for the title, that means he had to wait for 3 more years, while the new McLaren-Honda partnership offered some new hope in 2015. We have to understand his thoughts when he said Ferrari gave him no hope.

You have a strange concept of proof. I note you didn't answer the question of whether the improvements were solely down to switching chassis, or whether winter development work may have had something to do with it? Honda have been trying to get it right for years and it stands to reason they would eventually make progress.

When the deal between Honda and TR was originally announced, it was pointed out that this would likely be a stepping stone towards a RB deal, where the junior team would do the development and the senior team would reap the rewards. So if it does happen then it's not proof of anything except that everyone could see it coming. As to McLaren sacking one of their designers, they've clearly not done a good job adapting the car, so it could be that. You have a tendency to read into things but it's best to wait for proof - proper proof - before jumping to conclusions

Ok so he decided a backmarker was the best option, anyone could clearly see Mclaren was going nowhere fast especially with the brain drain going on there.

I think it's not because he had no other choice, but the new McLaren-Honda partnership was his priority, of course because of the past history. Who would predict back then if the partnership would become that bad? For me it's the right choice if the basis is that he really was tired of being the second best forever. At that time, in 2014, everybody knew Ferrari would never be better than second best, and actually everybody was correct, the field was dominated by Mercedez for 3 years to come.

But I agree that his choice to return to Renault in 2008 is a big mistake. The fact is that McLaren were fighting with Ferrari for the championships while Reanult were nowhere close. He left McLaren only because of emotional reason, that's a big mistake.

Is this a serious comment? Red Bull have had years working together with Renault so it would look extremely odd if they suddenly couldn't fit the engine. McLaren made the decision to move to Renault quite late and so had to make compromises, which Red Bull would not have had to do. This is surely basic?

Don't agree at all. It was FAR off Mercedes, and in 2016 it was even further off.
Having the distant second best car would not have "stabilised Alonso's situation". Each passing year of Ferrari delivering a car not able to fight Mercedes would have added to his disappointment. Being surpassed by RBR in 2016 again would have surely been the last drop.

only if you don't understand the changes they had to make to accommodate the larger Renault PU, which by all accounts were substantial. Lotus49 has already listed them but they include the rear suspension, bargeboards, sidepods, floor etc. One account I read on another forum states they even had to move the front suspension forward, too. All that affects the centre of gravity, aero and handling of the car and is pretty major.

We'll never know how good last year's car was. But this year's car is quite different

Repeating my previous reply:
Because never before in F1 history have we seen a team come to the fore after a few lesser years?
I mean what have we witnessed Ferrari doing from 2014/15/16 to 2017?

Allison left Ferrari halfway through 2016. They were being overtaken by RBR. Nobody gave a penny for their chances at that point.

Because never before in F1 history have we seen a team come to the fore after a few lesser years?
I mean what have we witnessed Ferrari doing from 2014/15/16 to 2017?

What experience of the engine did they have in 2014 when they probably had the best chassis?

I don't understand what you are saying here, they knew all this before the end of last season, let's use Brawn as an example they could not even cool the engine properly after they had to last minute switch to Mercedes after Honda pulled out but they weren't as bad as Mclaren.

They dominated the first few races, also Mclaren with the Mercedes engine was slower than a Williams who got beat by Redbull.

I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask again: is this a serious comment? What is the point of this non-sequitur? How does this add to the debate?

What don't you understand? They had to make significant changes to the car which compromised aero, suspension, balance and handling. So why is it hard to understand that this year's car is not comparable to last year's, with all those changes?

What don't you understand? They had to make significant changes to the car which compromised aero, suspension, balance and handling. So why is it hard to understand that this year's car is not comparable to last year's, with all those changes?

So were would he go from being in the second best team?

Still at that point were else would Alonso go?

Repeating my previous reply:
Because never before in F1 history have we seen a team come to the fore after a few lesser years?
I mean what have we witnessed Ferrari doing from 2014/15/16 to 2017?

Allison left Ferrari halfway through 2016. They were being overtaken by RBR. Nobody gave a penny for their chances at that point.

Mclaren have been on a downward trajectory since '12 so I don't see how that applies here.

Redbull, Mercedes were on the way up till they started dominating.

Ferrari same as well building up to it.

It was his, Allison's design that sent Ferrari backwards in '16 as confirmed by the '15 car Resta re designed and the '17 and current car.

It's easy for one to see that, also one can see how he's getting on at Mercedes this year.

Honda had already improved the engine in the second half of the 2017 season but the McLaren was still slow on the straights, the Honda engine that started this season was still down on performance to the Renault engine so it's hard to see that they made a massive gain yet the STR was still appreciable quicker than the McLaren on the straights, even now the McLaren is the slowest of the Renault powered cars on the straight, this lack of straight line speed was as much to do with the car itself then the engine and towards the end of the partnership they exaggerated it even more to show how good the car was and how bad the Honda engines was, I think it was Lotus49 that mentioned it, he's a bit of an ace when it comes to these kind of things.

Whilst STR had it nice and easy?

Are you saying Mclaren cant build a car to specs over the winter period as they severed ties with Honda before the end of the season.

That's hindsight again though, towards the end of 2016 nobody thought Ferrari would be there at the beginning of 2017.

They've clearly done a bad job. Is anybody saying otherwise?

=> these are pretty much identical replies, one put right after another. What's the use?

At that point I could have see him join Renault, who just entered F1 again as a serious factory effort and whose first car would be delivered in 2017. Another multi-year project, but in 2016 Ferrari looked to be on a serious decline without much hope for 2017.

This doesn't look like proof to me. You stated it as a fact but it's looking like another one of those facts which are actually opinion

Honda did show some improvement towards the end of last year, although they were still well off the other manufacturers. I was one who continually argued that McLaren should continue with them until they got it right, as they would at some point. But they'd clearly run out of patience with it all and felt enough was enough. Now if you're arguing that they jumped ship too soon I'd agree with you, but if you're stating that Honda came good because of the split and this somehow proves that the McLaren chassis was bad and the Honda PU was a little gem, then you're making connections that simply aren't there.

I'd explained it to you earlier. Why do you insist on going over old ground? Renault engine bigger, compromises had to be made. Honda engine smaller, more room to play with.

But let's go down the road again, do you think that McLaren did not have sufficient time to design the car?

It's obvious that the Honda engine was not good, but this premise that it was holding back a race winning car seems to be wide of the mark, also it's looking like the split is going to benefit Honda more than McLaren, make of that as you will.

So what exactly is your argument then?

As all you are saying is the size of the Renault PU meant a lot of changes, like the first time they saw the PU was at the first test.

They had the PU spec as they signed up with Renault before they severed ties with Honda so I don't get it!

Well in 2015 he would have been winning races and been able to see how bad the McLaren Honda package was so why would he leave the second best car to go to a worse car?

Also you seem to be losing sight that Vettel joined the team that Alonso saw as no hopers, Vettel must have seen something in the team that Alonso didn't?

I repeat again though in respect to Vettel he replaced Alonso and walked into that situation.

It's a fact that McLaren were loading the car with downforce so they could say look how good our car is in the corners and making the straight line speed of the Honda engine appear worse than it was, as soon as Honda put the engine in the STR the straight line speed improved dramatically.

Yep but Alonso wasn't given preferential treatment so he left.

But this just swings back to the fact of how the McLaren was not allowed to be compromised by the Honda engine, the car came first, the engine second.

However he was proven wrong immediately the next season.

The proof is in the pudding, 3 months into the season and the engine that McLaren ditched is going to be taken onboard by Red Bull whilst McLaren have sacked one of their designers, the failure was not a one way street.

They've had to compromise the car for the Renault engine in comparison to the Honda engine, Red Bull don't seem to have any problems with the installation of the Renault engine in terms of chassis performance.

Well James Allison told him that the car would be so much better in 2015 but he couldn't convince him.

The larger Renault engine doesn't seem to compromise the Red Bull chassis performance, neither did it in 2014, if the problem for McLaren was insufficient time to design the car then why sack the chief designer if it was not his fault?

James Allison wasn't there for 5 years, he had recently been brought in to turn things around.