Fernando Alonso in decline...according to the bbc!

[JimClarkFan]

Well he's certainly not replicating last year's performance so far, is he?

He has 2 points more than this time last year!

The difference being this year he is driving comfortably the best car.

Vettel is doing in 2013 what Alonso did in 2012 - maximising your points haul.

Sometimes I think people watch different races than I do .

The season has been everywhere, there are 4 teams with very good cars, two which have greater out and out speed, Red Bull and Mercedes, and two which are more consistent with their tyre usage, Ferrari and Lotus.

No one team has it their own way.

I don't know how you can possibly say that Ferrari have clearly the best car, they don't even lead the constructors lol.

[SilverArrow10]

The BBC sensationalise everything. Andrew Benson is a poor tabloid writer who assumes things and gives his own opinion in writing instead of just stating the facts. Alonso had a bad race and I agree with what Jenson Button said after Monaco. That he wasn't willing to take risks to move up the field because he had one eye on the championship. It all came from a poor qualifying performance. He got beat by Mercedes, current one lap masters, Red bull, usual one lap masters, and Kimi. Not that bad as it sounds if you think about it and who beat him. Ferrari have always been not as good on Saturdays as rivals, and its all about Saturday in Monaco.

[Jonnycraig]

You don't know that is the best car! It wasn't best in Australia, Bahrain and Monaco, nor it was 'comfortably' best at other races.

Australia is a race he should've won. Bahrain we will never know, but he would've had at least second there and Monaco he didn't qualify well enough and then drove poorly. Vettel is picking up all the points he can, Alonso is throwing them away.

[JimClarkFan]

You don't know that is the best car! It wasn't best in Australia, Bahrain and Monaco, nor it was 'comfortably' best at other races.

Australia is a race he should've won. Bahrain we will never know, but he would've had at least second there and Monaco he didn't qualify well enough and then drove poorly. Vettel is picking up all the points he can, Alonso is throwing them away.

Rather than argue I'm just going to put you on ignore.
The F1 races must be different than the ones I am watching.

Edit - no ignore function

[wesley123]

I wouldn´t worry. As long as he stays out of trouble he will win the championship quite easily.

Good to see you can read the future, can you predict mine too?

He´s just had the odd incidents in Malaysia and Bahrain and just raced on the kryptonite-like track called Monaco.
Canada and Singapore will probably be similar to Monaco but once he gets to open tracks i can only see Kimi following him.

[SectorOne]

Just remind me of this thread at the end of the year

Edit: I believe he would have won both Malaysia and Bahrain relatively easy had he not crashed and had DRS problems.

[spadeflush]

Over the years I have come to realise Andrew Benson's articles should not be taken that seriously. The only part in the article I agree with is that Ferrari started with a much better car this year and have somehow failed to capitalize on it the way they should have. I am not a big Alonso fan, but I think he is probably the best driver on the grid.
Malaysia was the team's/driver's mistake while Bahrain was a one off reliability issue. Fernando has had one poor race on a track which is very different than most tracks on the calender and hence, headlining it as a driver on the decline is plain stupid. 13 more races to go, I will be surprised if Andrew Benson doesn't write an article praising Alonso by the end of the year

[Richard]

That article starts off citing Alonso's race consistency and that for the last couple of years he's only dropped places due to mechanical problems.

I'm not sure how Benson leaps from praising consistency to say Alsonso has a problem with motivation because of one poor race?

I also note Benson's previous article said Alonso probably made the right choice to avoid the accident with Perez and it was tough to be instructed to yield. Its silly to then pick fault with him for losing those places in the next article.

[krisfx]

Andrew Benson is the worst journalist in F1 imo. His articles are usually either incredibly biased or contradictory and are often not really great to read anyway.

Alonso is probably the most complete driver on the grid right now, and is certainly one of the fastest.

[diffuser]

I've been a big Alonso Fan Since after his championship years at Renault. So I've followed Alonzo quite closely. In my opinion Alonzo got absorbed with his issues and wasn't watching when he got passed. He has gotten complacent in races where he didn't feel he had a chance for advancement, which he obviously felt. Based on that I race I think it is impossible to say anything about Alonzo driving. That being said, the artical isn't bad. He is obviously using Alonzo name to get his artical read. I agree it isn't saying much but then many of these articals don't say much.

Judging drivers is very difficult for people like us from the outside. You just don't have all the raw data to make to comparison.

The artical uses the term "commit" which is interesting. I've always felt that Hamilton had more commit that Alonzo and was a little more creative that Alonzo when it came to passing but given the choice between the 2, I'd take Alonzo. If Hamilton loses some "Commit" will that make him old or better? Its kind of like judging figure skating at this point but you lose points if your car does triple axles!

[WhiteBlue]

That article was a total waste of my time. Unworthy of the BBC...

Thanks for letting us know. Saved me the effort. Benson has written bs before. He does not seem to be a very well balanced chap.

[mnmracer]

BBC is jumping the gun, but what I find extremely funny is that everyone who was burning Vettel last year, is now excusing Alonso for the exact same thing: bad luck, different cars being faster at different times. It only makes me appreciate more my skill to judge drivers on equal grounds, so I don't have to change my standards every other year.

[Kiril Varbanov]

That article was a total waste of my time. Unworthy of the BBC...

Thanks for letting us know. Saved me the effort. Benson has written bs before. He does not seem to be a very well balanced chap.

The less we talk about it, the better.

From a journalistic point of view, it is very clear that sometimes you need to deliver your column, but there's little to talk about, as Tomba said earlier - slow news week. Either make it short or state the facts, else you are turning the situation in tabloid to simply attract traffic and comments.

[Pierce89]

BBC is jumping the gun, but what I find extremely funny is that everyone who was burning Vettel last year, is now excusing Alonso for the exact same thing: bad luck, different cars being faster at different times. It only makes me appreciate more my skill to judge drivers on equal grounds, so I don't have to change my standards every other year.

Who burned Vettel last year? I seem to remember people complimenting him for doing well in a car that wasn't the fastest.

P.S. I always get a laugh out of people who feel the need to give themselves compliments and tear other people down.

[radosav]

Andrew Benson in decline...according to the bbc!