2018 United Arab Emirates Grand Prix - Yas Marina, Abu Dhabi, 23-26 November

[GrandAxe]

Just to be clear, Alonso threatened the team principal and attempted to blackmail the team in to giving
him what he wanted. From that moment on, Alonso was on his own.

Exactly, 'Give me number 1 status and an easy run to the title, or I tell the FIA about some secrets'
Ron did the right thing, won the title the following year and Fernando went his own way.

Just in case you didn´t notice... Alonso accepted equal treatment with a rookie despite being the current WDC. The rotation on the best strategy between the two drivers in first half of the season is an unquestionable evidence, even if some people tend to ignore this fact.

Then we could argue about if a team spying a competitor is responsibility of one of the drivers, but I find it a bit absurd so you can continue blaming the messenger if you will

Alonso has never ever accepted equal treatment with a rookie or anyone else.

It was that Lewis measured himself against Alonso, particularly after overtaking Alonso on track in his very first F1 race, only for McLaren to switch the cars back with a pit stop. Lewis quickly learnt that he was faster and began rebelling against playing number two. This position hardened especially after Monaco 2007 where he felt his race was deliberately compromised to gift Alonso the win.

Alonso didn't like a fast rookie not meekly rolling over and playing number two, so ended up blackmailing his own team with emails in his possession. This led to a 100 million Euro fine (amongst other very damaging things); and of course, the team returning the bad blood.

[NathanOlder]

Thats how I remember it too.

[Andres125sx]

Alonso has never ever accepted equal treatment with a rookie or anyone else.

Sorry but that´s far from true, even at Ferrari he received equal treatment... at least to the point his teammate was far in the table what usually happen quite soon. Same as with any other driver at any team, except because most drivers can´t lead their teammates as frequently as Alonso

I love the power you claim Alonso has had over all F1 teams who hired him, but he´s just a driver, he´s never been able to force any team to do anything they didn´t want to do, let alone at McLaren with Dennis protege...

Best strategy went for one driver each GP, fact. Since when that´s #1 status?

[GrandAxe]

Sorry but that´s far from true, even at Ferrari he received equal treatment...

You know this diversion only came up because of a side mention of Alonso in a discussion about Max? So, I'm going to make one last relation of 2007 events and hopefully we can get back to Max and the last race. I won't respond to the matter anymore after this.

David Coulthard always tells repeatedly how equal status in McLaren was anything but that. He was the number two driver to Hakinnen, it hurt him, but he understood that. In his own words, he was always an outsider while race strategy, setup etc were a discussion between Mika and Ron Denise.

The same thing was happening to Lewis, with him as the outsider and Ron and Alonso being "the team". Things came to a head in Hungary 2007 when Alonso as a particularly upfront #1, decided to punish Lewis for not playing ball by blocking him from a final Q3 run.
After the race, both the stewards and McLaren decided to do nothing about it. Lewis father was incensed and made an official report. The FIA punished both McLaren and Alonso for deliberately impeding Lewis and began an investigation to check if this was a pattern of behaviour as Lewis had hinted.

All of this only hardened Alonso's position; he began insisting his #1 status be made black and white in his contract. This led to a row with Ron Denise, during which Alonso threatened that if he didn't get his way, he would sink McLaren by reporting them to the FIA for possessing confidential Ferrari car designs, race strategy and data. These things were in Alonso's possession only because he was the #1 driver; as #2, Lewis did not have them. Alonso had also shared the stolen info with the McLaren test driver, de la Rosa.

It is at this point that Alonso's relationship with McLaren became irreparably damaged. Ron Denise decided not to back down to blackmail threats from his employee and reported the matter to the FIA himself instead.
The punishments the FIA meted out and the trajectory of Ron Denise's career after that are all well known.

Please lets get back to Abu Dhabi.

[Morteza]

[djos]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjhuPdqHE9Y

That was fantastic!

[Andres125sx]

Sorry but that´s far from true, even at Ferrari he received equal treatment...

You know this diversion only came up because of a side mention of Alonso in a discussion about Max? So, I'm going to make one last relation of 2007 events and hopefully we can get back to Max and the last race. I won't respond to the matter anymore after this.

David Coulthard always tells repeatedly how equal status in McLaren was anything but that. He was the number two driver to Hakinnen, it hurt him, but he understood that. In his own words, he was always an outsider while race strategy, setup etc were a discussion between Mika and Ron Denise.

The same thing was happening to Lewis, with him as the outsider and Ron and Alonso being "the team". Things came to a head in Hungary 2007 when Alonso as a particularly upfront #1, decided to punish Lewis for not playing ball by blocking him from a final Q3 run.
After the race, both the stewards and McLaren decided to do nothing about it. Lewis father was incensed and made an official report. The FIA punished both McLaren and Alonso for deliberately impeding Lewis and began an investigation to check if this was a pattern of behaviour as Lewis had hinted.

All of this only hardened Alonso's position; he began insisting his #1 status be made black and white in his contract. This led to a row with Ron Denise, during which Alonso threatened that if he didn't get his way, he would sink McLaren by reporting them to the FIA for possessing confidential Ferrari car designs, race strategy and data. These things were in Alonso's possession only because he was the #1 driver; as #2, Lewis did not have them. Alonso had also shared the stolen info with the McLaren test driver, de la Rosa.

It is at this point that Alonso's relationship with McLaren became irreparably damaged. Ron Denise decided not to back down to blackmail threats from his employee and reported the matter to the FIA himself instead.
The punishments the FIA meted out and the trajectory of Ron Denise's career after that are all well known.

Please lets get back to Abu Dhabi.

Thank you very much for telling me what british media told to the world, but british media told what was better for his favourite british team and his promising british driver

Best strategy went for one driver each GP, fact. Since when that´s #1 status?

What happened in Hungary was that in THAT race, it was Alonso turn to enter pits first, but Lewis disobeyed TOs and didn´t let him pass... until last moment after several reprimands from the wall

I´m talking about facts anyone can check himself, and you´re talking me about what Coulthard said about his era when he was at McLaren with Hakkinen 6-7 year before? Are you serious?

There are so many facts and evidences proving McLaren favouritism toward Lewis it´s almost comical, they did provide equal strategies to a complete rookie and current WDC, something no F1 team would do, his team principal claimed they were fighting Alonso, not Kimi (and comically Kimi won the title what was deserved as McLaren never understood who was their enemy), when Lewis made a pole or won a race the wall was full of joy, when it was Alonso the wall looked like if it was a Ferrari driver who got the pole, and Alonso went to a midfielder in 2008 when he had a valid contracto with best car. Not even the most stupid driver in F1 history will do that if he´s not sick of unfair treatment and is conviced his team will never allow him to fight for the title.To me this is the most unquestionable evidence. BTW, Ron Dennis paid Lewis career since he was 12, another fact

Heck, even Withsmarch apologized with Alonso because of unfrair treatment in 2007 (very politely to not harm McLaren) before signing him again in 2014, what I´m sure was Alonso requirement to sign up with them again

In F1 you will never get more evidences than these

[sosic2121]

Now we can go back to the Abu Dhabi race
Why there was no penalty for Bottas cutting the track?

[djos]

Now we can go back to the Abu Dhabi race
Why there was no penalty for Bottas cutting the track?

Good question, he certainly deserved one for that.

[Phil]

I find the talk about 2007 highly fascinating. Perhaps the mods can split it to its own topic? At the very least, it seems like a reoccurring theme for some and would warrant its own dedicated topic?

Anyway as for the Abu Dhabi race; I originally thought it was wrong of Mercedes to pit Hamilton. It just seemed way too early and the fact he needed to do so many laps to the end and him being the only one of the front-runners who was pitted, reinforced my feeling that it was wrong.

However, given how the race did turn out, it was absolutely the right thing to do. Had they not pitted, Ferrari probably would have, at least with one of their drivers to cover off all eventuality. This probably would have handed the win to them, as that would have later turned out to be track position in the lead on a track where overtaking is close to impossible. By pitting Hamilton first, they per-empted and covered that possibility. The only risk was that a second VSC or safety car at a later point could have played into either RedBulls (Ricciardo) or Ferrari's (Vettel) hands.

Another thing though is looking at how Bottas struggled with his tires, makes you admire how it needed flawless execution on Hamilton's part to pull off the win without compromising his tires. That was crucial and he did so superbly. Even in the fight against Verstappen, he remained cool, measured and in control, not tangling with a driver who was crucial to his race.

[iotar__]

Now we can go back to the Abu Dhabi race
Why there was no penalty for Bottas cutting the track?

- Driver behind wasn't close enough. Unlike in previous incodents like that, this season it was Verstappen AFAIR (not SUzuka mentioned below)
- He slowed down, giving back some of the advantage
- If you insist - what kind of penalty would you expect if Verstapen got 5 s for:
A. cutting the corner but with another car much closer and thus preventing an overtake
B. going off and coming back on track in an unsafe manner
C. causing a collision

-5s ?

[NathanOlder]

Thank you very much for telling me what british media told to the world, but british media told what was better for his favourite british team and his promising british driver

So the biggest Spanish Alonso fan in here knows the real truth then yeah

If the British press say anything about Hamilton or Mclaren, its 100% made up. Damn, about a month ago I read in the newspapers here than Hamilton is a 5 Time World Champion, but as its in a British Paper, I guess its made up

[Phil]

Wikipedia must be written by the british media too then.... well, now that you mention it, McLaren is british too.

[sosic2121]

Now we can go back to the Abu Dhabi race
Why there was no penalty for Bottas cutting the track?

- Driver behind wasn't close enough. Unlike in previous incodents like that, this season it was Verstappen AFAIR (not SUzuka mentioned below)
- He slowed down, giving back some of the advantage
- If you insist - what kind of penalty would you expect if Verstapen got 5 s for:
A. cutting the corner but with another car much closer and thus preventing an overtake
B. going off and coming back on track in an unsafe manner
C. causing a collision

-5s ?

Only 5s for Max in Japan is as much of a farse as it was in Mexico(2016).
But that's off topic.

Ocon and Alonso both received 5s penalties, but Bottas did not. I can't find any YouTube video of the accident so I can't claim anything, but at the time I was sure Bottas will be penalised.

[Wynters]

Ocon and Alonso both received 5s penalties, but Bottas did not. I can't find any YouTube video of the accident so I can't claim anything, but at the time I was sure Bottas will be penalised.

I believe that Bottas immediately slowed down in the next sector, negating his gain. It's similar to overtaking illegally then immediately giving the place back.