It was written in the stars, or rather the rumourmill, and today, Renault F1 has confirmed that Fernando Alonso will return to the team with which he won his two F1 World Championships with.
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Assuming he'll go to Alfa replacing Kimi if he retires or Gio if Kimi stays.
Considering Gio's general subpar performance (including quite idiotic behavior yesterday), don't you expect Gio to be out regardless? Ferrari has several decent Junior options; of course they will prefer Mick for the name (although Shoemaker is not that great a name, IMO, but ok) - but it would be rather unfair to say, Schwatzman, if he would become F2 champion as a ferrari-backed rookie and they choose Mick regardless. With Ilott at least they could claim it took him somewhat longer to rise in F2, but still. If both Kimi and Gio are out, AR could get 2 decent new drivers and it makes it somewhat easier for Ferrari. Kimi is fun, but honestly too old - he should make room. I understand they might want to keep him for commercial reasons, but not for sportive. Gio should be out regardless, he doesn;t have it.
I think two first year drivers would be a mistake. Especially considering their limited resources. An old head is need to guide 'by the seat of the pants' stuff
Perhaps, but one could also consider Hulkenberg or Perez, who both have some years ahead potentially. In that case, the second Ferrari academy driver could go to Haas.
Its like Kimi performs better when he is in the hot seat.. I was calling for his retirement maybe the third time now.... And the guy..... Just... Pulls this performance out of the bag trying make me doubt myself.
Still feel he should give a young pup a chance though. Perhaps after another year along Alonso?
Its like Kimi performs better when he is in the hot seat.. I was calling for his retirement maybe the third time now.... And the guy..... Just... Pulls this performance out of the bag trying make me doubt myself.
Still feel he should give a young pup a chance though. Perhaps after another year along Alonso?
From all his years in F1, only Kimi and Hamilton survived a year of Alonso as a teammate
Its like Kimi performs better when he is in the hot seat.. I was calling for his retirement maybe the third time now.... And the guy..... Just... Pulls this performance out of the bag trying make me doubt myself.
Still feel he should give a young pup a chance though. Perhaps after another year along Alonso?
From all his years in F1, only Kimi and Hamilton survived a year of Alonso as a teammate
Button lasted quite a while too, didn't he? And Massa...
Its like Kimi performs better when he is in the hot seat.. I was calling for his retirement maybe the third time now.... And the guy..... Just... Pulls this performance out of the bag trying make me doubt myself.
Still feel he should give a young pup a chance though. Perhaps after another year along Alonso?
From all his years in F1, only Kimi and Hamilton survived a year of Alonso as a teammate
Button lasted quite a while too, didn't he? And Massa...
it was a post with a
of course more did last a couple of years or even had a few years at other teams. But from all the drivers that took a seat next to Alonso, only those two are still in F1.
Fisi, Massa, Button, Marques, Young, Villeneuve, Trulli, Piquet Jr and Vandoorne never had any career after that.
oh, I forgot Grosjean of course, he had some time to build up some confidence at GP2 again for a second career.
As for rookies, Piquet Jr, Vandoorne, Grosjean... he doesn't seem the guy that takes you by the hand to learn about F1.
Its like Kimi performs better when he is in the hot seat.. I was calling for his retirement maybe the third time now.... And the guy..... Just... Pulls this performance out of the bag trying make me doubt myself.
Still feel he should give a young pup a chance though. Perhaps after another year along Alonso?
From all his years in F1, only Kimi and Hamilton survived a year of Alonso as a teammate
Oh sorry. I didnt mean as team mates.. My words came out wrong. Meant as two v10 era drivers fighting in the midfield.
From all his years in F1, only Kimi and Hamilton survived a year of Alonso as a teammate
Button lasted quite a while too, didn't he? And Massa...
it was a post with a
of course more did last a couple of years or even had a few years at other teams. But from all the drivers that took a seat next to Alonso, only those two are still in F1.
Fisi, Massa, Button, Marques, Young, Villeneuve, Trulli, Piquet Jr and Vandoorne never had any career after that.
oh, I forgot Grosjean of course, he had some time to build up some confidence at GP2 again for a second career.
As for rookies, Piquet Jr, Vandoorne, Grosjean... he doesn't seem the guy that takes you by the hand to learn about F1.
True, Alonso left a mess of a team wherever he went. Poor Ocon.
Button lasted quite a while too, didn't he? And Massa...
it was a post with a
of course more did last a couple of years or even had a few years at other teams. But from all the drivers that took a seat next to Alonso, only those two are still in F1.
Fisi, Massa, Button, Marques, Young, Villeneuve, Trulli, Piquet Jr and Vandoorne never had any career after that.
oh, I forgot Grosjean of course, he had some time to build up some confidence at GP2 again for a second career.
As for rookies, Piquet Jr, Vandoorne, Grosjean... he doesn't seem the guy that takes you by the hand to learn about F1.
True, Alonso left a mess of a team wherever he went. Poor Ocon.
Alonso doesn't do team work, he does me work. Which is ok, it's not kindergarten.
As for rookies, Piquet Jr, Vandoorne, Grosjean... he doesn't seem the guy that takes you by the hand to learn about F1.
Oh dear lord, it's the task of the star driver to caress through their hair and give them the bottle
How about Raikkonen, Kubica in the past, and quite frankly there's many more.
All this nonsense about how Alonso isn't 'TEAM', come on, you're just doing hatervision parroting from people that have no clue at all. The only 'comment' that MIGHT hold any water is that Alonso is more expressive in his emotions compared to Schumacher, perhaps Hamilton. Vettel surely isn't much different in that area, and nobody's claiming Seb isn't a team player. How about Verstappen, he's no different to Alonso in his emotions, it's pretty rediculous how these biased hate that has no base still is kept screamed around against Alonso in a Tech forum for all means.
"Explain the ending to F1 in football terms"
"Hamilton was beating Verstappen 7-0, then the ref decided F%$& rules, next goal wins
while also sending off 4 Hamilton players to make it more interesting"
As for rookies, Piquet Jr, Vandoorne, Grosjean... he doesn't seem the guy that takes you by the hand to learn about F1.
Oh dear lord, it's the task of the star driver to caress through their hair and give them the bottle
How about Raikkonen, Kubica in the past, and quite frankly there's many more.
All this nonsense about how Alonso isn't 'TEAM', come on, you're just doing hatervision parroting from people that have no clue at all. The only 'comment' that MIGHT hold any water is that Alonso is more expressive in his emotions compared to Schumacher, perhaps Hamilton. Vettel surely isn't much different in that area, and nobody's claiming Seb isn't a team player. How about Verstappen, he's no different to Alonso in his emotions, it's pretty rediculous how these biased hate that has no base still is kept screamed around against Alonso in a Tech forum for all means.
This was on a ongoing discussion whether it should be good for rookie drivers to be paired with someone with experience. Most of the time drivers like Alonso, Hamilton, etc will crush any aspirations a young driver has that he is fast, or they are so good that they can stand their ground and even challenge their experienced team mate.
Vettel, Hamilton, Alonso, Prost etc etc all fight for the commitment of their team for their goal, as they should. Nothing wrong with that, like I wrote, it’s not kindergarten.
As for a team manager, if you want your rookie to make it in F1, just don’t pair them with a the above drivers... They need someone with a bit more self knowledge next to them. It’s not by accident that Russell is still stuck at Williams. Good chance in hindsight, Renault would have gone with Hulk if they knew Alonso was coming. He’s going to dismantle Ocon piece by piece.
I highly doubt he'll 'dismantle' Ocon any way different than he'd 'dismantle' Hulk. Sure, Hulk is far more experienced, but the net result will be the same. Will it 'lower' Ocon's value?
Well to be fair, if Ocon isn't up for the task, he isn't up for the task. Button held his own pretty well against Alonso. Vandoorne fell through completely, but I really doubt that has anything to do with Alonso and much more with Stoffel himself. I think Stoffel is no better nor worse than Magnussen ever was, i think he was greatly over-hyped.
Albon isn't fairing 'fantastic' against Verstappen but that imho has little to do with Max, and much more simply with Albon's lack, likewise Gasly.
Gasly and Albon are i think rather close compared against eachother, having both of them @ RBR instead of paired to Max would do little difference to their 'value' or 'judgement' of sorts,
as they'd still remain ending at about p6-p9 when max would be p3-p5. RBR would still lack a quality driver, and neither of them would be judged any different, they're still lacking.
I think it's much more the other way around: a driver completely benefits from a superbly strong and fast teammate, as first of all, they get their data which is able to completely optimize the car. They also have a team where investments have been made, so he'll find himself in a 'made bed'. A fast teammate motivates a driver much more to deliver and beat him than a lousy slow joke like for example a guy like Ericsson or Guitterrez. I'm 100% sure ANY driver would be more excited and confident about their potential to beat Perez over Guiterrez. Raikkonen over Giovanazzi. etc etc. If a driver then is able to even be 'on par' perhaps even 'beat him', that's much better.
In remarks to 'poor Ocon', why? Ocon is no rookie by any means. He's had Perez to race against, he's had Daniel to race against, he's shown his craft.
From all drivers, I think both Grosjean and Vandoorne were treated quite very patiently by their respective employers and had enough chance.
As for Piquet Jr, i don't really know, but let's be fair, it's not like he ever was in F1 for his brute potential, definately not like his daddy.
Offcourse i don't have the 'insights' the teams themselves have, but If i look at the stories about guys like Verstappen, Alonso, Schumacher, Hamilton,
then I read a whole lot about how extreme they go to get the best out of themselves in every detail. I don't read the same stuff from guys like Bottas, Albon,
Giovanazzi, Grosjean, etc. Instead I read much more about people like that how they need 'more guidance', 'help from former competitors', etc etc.
I'm not saying Bottas isn't investing in his F1 career, but as far as I read it, these 'Star drivers' tend to dive into the deepest details much, much deeper than all those guys,
and that includes guys like VanDoorne and Albon.
Also, VanDoorne didn't really perform great against Alonso, whom seemingly was having his biggest slump and was most dissatisfied with Honda and as such far from on his 'best'.
Imagine then how hard VanDoorne would have been slaughtered if the Mclaren was good, the Honda engine was good, and Alonso could have been fighting for the podium.
I think - personally - the only reason VanDoorne was ever 'kept' @ Mclaren's seat because there wasn't much to 'happen' anyway.
Also, look how fantastic Norris is doing. I believe Lando would wipe the floor clean with VanDoorne. Hell, I'd concider VanDoorne even as low as Palmer material.
Look how fantastic Russell indeed is doing. Perhaps his teammates aren't the best to think of, but with that trash Williams car it's hard to distinguish anyway.
Still, he's flying. I am confident Russell would rock alongside a guy like Alonso, and it would boost his craft much more.
If we were solely talking about which TEAM a rookie ends up starting their respective F1 careers in, i think that would be a totally different story.
Yes, teams like Ferrari, Mclaren, RedBull, Mercedes are heavyweights and I do belive it's unwise for rookies to start there.
Teams currently like Williams, Alfa Romeo, Haas, are much better environments to start a F1 career as pressure is simply vastly different,
no matter whether you have an experienced or inexperienced driver alongside you at said team.
You can take LeClerc as an example, on how amazingly well he did @ Alfa/Sauber and then went straight to Ferrari alongside Vettel.
Max is another great example, whom went to RedBull pretty fast after being @ Toro Rosso first. Max kept his head cool and fast alongside Daniel,
when guys like Gasly, Albon and Kvyat fell through, especially in comparison. Speaking of, Daniel himself went down very well alongside Vettel,
when you might still argue he was a 'rookie' of sorts.
I believe Alonso - Ocon is an interesting pairing. But perhaps not going to turn out much different in the end than Hamilton - Kovalainen.
We will see. Alonso didn't have the best of results at his former end of his F1 career, nor did he have "massive" success @ Dakar/Indy etc.
I also rather doubt Ocon would do better or worse compared to Bottas. And to be frank, I don't think that's a compliment.
"Explain the ending to F1 in football terms"
"Hamilton was beating Verstappen 7-0, then the ref decided F%$& rules, next goal wins
while also sending off 4 Hamilton players to make it more interesting"
...the cream rises to the top. Of the 20 drivers we have now, I would only count Ham and Max as greats (Max for sure...this coming from a "Max-hater"). Ric is very good. Vet and Kimi are/or at least were quite good. The rest are simply average (albeit average in a field of 20-elite athletes). Sometimes, circumstances occur that make these average drivers seem good/very good, but in truth, they would all be bested by today's greats. The only wildcard I see from the average drivers is Rus...who has yet to be tested/proven.
...the cream rises to the top. Of the 20 drivers we have now, I would only count Ham and Max as greats (Max for sure...this coming from a "Max-hater"). Ric is very good. Vet and Kimi are/or at least were quite good. The rest are simply average (albeit average in a field of 20-elite athletes). Sometimes, circumstances occur that make these average drivers seem good/very good, but in truth, they would all be bested by today's greats. The only wildcard I see from the average drivers is Rus...who has yet to be tested/proven.
Leclerc in the average bracket?
I'm 99% sure you just forgot him though.
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...the cream rises to the top. Of the 20 drivers we have now, I would only count Ham and Max as greats (Max for sure...this coming from a "Max-hater"). Ric is very good. Vet and Kimi are/or at least were quite good. The rest are simply average (albeit average in a field of 20-elite athletes). Sometimes, circumstances occur that make these average drivers seem good/very good, but in truth, they would all be bested by today's greats. The only wildcard I see from the average drivers is Rus...who has yet to be tested/proven.
Leclerc in the average bracket?
I'm 99% sure you just forgot him though.
For me, Hamilton and Verstappen stand out because they are both blistering fast over one lap and can manage car and tires. Leclerc has this same ability on a single lap, but (not yet) has this ability to manage a race.
...the cream rises to the top. Of the 20 drivers we have now, I would only count Ham and Max as greats (Max for sure...this coming from a "Max-hater"). Ric is very good. Vet and Kimi are/or at least were quite good. The rest are simply average (albeit average in a field of 20-elite athletes). Sometimes, circumstances occur that make these average drivers seem good/very good, but in truth, they would all be bested by today's greats. The only wildcard I see from the average drivers is Rus...who has yet to be tested/proven.
Leclerc in the average bracket?
I'm 99% sure you just forgot him though.
For me, Hamilton and Verstappen stand out because they are both blistering fast over one lap and can manage car and tires. Leclerc has this same ability on a single lap, but (not yet) has this ability to manage a race.
Yeah I'd agree, I would put Leclerc with Ricciardo in the 2nd tier.
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Lewis v2.0
King George has arrived.
New found love for GT racing with Assetto Corsa Competizione on PS5 & PC
