F1: Alonso proud to have beaten Schumacher

"Mebbe they should all be in A1 then "

But you probably wouldn't see who was the best driver of an F1 car and hence the best driver as F1 cars are the most difficult to drive. Lower motor racing formula are notorious for not showing who the best F1 drivers will be.

Did anybody watch the A1 circus? Was it any good. 80,000 fans at Brands Hatch suggests it must have been.

Ian

 

Alonso has done a good job this year fair play to him.
He is also a nice guy and enjoys his racing.
I do feel sorry for that miserable twat Kimi though he is extremely quick more so than Alonso IMO but has had reliability probs.
Still he is so non descript i'd rather Alonso was Champ.
As for Schumy yes a great driver and you dont do what he has in F1 without being very single minded.
Damon Hill was an average driver in a very good car TBF.
Anyway F1 is in good hands in rgds to drivers with the likes of Schumy, Kimi, Alonso, Button and Montoya.
Schumy and Kimi are still the quickest for me though.

Curt

 

Everyone must remember Schumacher won his 2nd world champ in a inferior car when the points system gave more advantage to the winner of the races. He may be arragant but when your that good it doesn't matter.

 

Kimi didn't loose because he had an unreliable car. Even in the races he finished and had no problems he wasn't consistantly fast. he placed quite low in more than a couple of races. Alonso didn't, (apart from one race he has always been in the top 4 and 9/10 of them in the top 3). THAT is the difference between just a fast driver and a championship winner. Shumacher does the same thing. Even in this years car he is still managing to get in to the top half of the top ten quite often. Want an idea of just how good Alonso is? how about 5 consecutive laps all at exactly the same lap times. That is skill.

Don't forget, Alonso also failed to finish two races, that's only one less than Raikkonnen so that is NOT the reason Alonso beat him.

GTM

 

Cant agree with you there GTM
Some of those races that he completed where from the back of the grid due to engine probs etc.
Also the Renault was a top car from the beginning of the season whereas the MaClaren took a while to get going.
I'm not knocking Alonso at all and i was talking about speed not whos the best driver.

Curt

 

With driver names like Scott Speed (USA) and Will Power (Australia) will anyone take it seriously?

Michael.

 

Well done to Fernando, he won this WDC by playing the percentages say some, Alain Prost did same and was hailed The Professor, so Alonso can be proud.
This year MS has put in some great drives it is just that they can be missed when not at the front, if he were in the Renault this year - no contest, for me anyway - but I'm a fan !
For 2006 I will be very interested to see Rubens against Jenson at BAR, my guess is Rubens will be tops, can't wait to find out.
My view is that next year Montoya will be driving a McLaren more suited to his driving style, as mentioned, hopefully he won't injure himself playing tennis, and hopefully he won't be asked to move out of the way for Kimi - at all.
If Raikkonen is headed to Ferrari for 2007 hopefully this will balance Ron's mind in favour of JPM, whereas this year, certainly at the beginning of the season, he loved his Fin more. Recently Ron seems less openly pro-Kimi and less openly anti-JPM.
Given the above, Montoya will consistently outperform Raikkonen in qualifying and races, if both McLarens have better reliability than this year, JPM will be WDC 2006.
Next Schumi will be WDC 2007 in a McLaren. :JPS:

 

Japanese GP, now that was a RACE, I wish I had recorded it, I could watch that one over and over again, best race I've seen for at least 5 years. There was actually some OVERTAKING, so that proves it can be done. Lost count how many times Alonso OVERTOOK Schumacher, I mean overtaking on the Outside of the 130R at 180Mph is brave stuff! So I think that goes to prove how much better the team are, I think this just nails home just why Alonso IS the World Champ and deservedly so.

 

Twice. You can't count to two?

First time around the outside on 130R, then he dropped behind him after the pitstops and had to overtake him a 2nd time which I think was into turn 1.

Was a great race but IMO Kimi was the star of this one, taking Fisi on the last lap was something special. Raikkonen now has 7 wins to Alonso's 6 this season with every chance he'll win the last one aswell making it 8 wins to 6. That's what you get with a scoring system that rewards reliability (and hence consistency) more than winning.

Michael.

 

Ya probably poor choice of words there

But still put a smile on my face watching him do it, forced Michael into a mistake, you could see Alonso planning his move 3 corners before he made it. He showed just how much more power the Renault had over the Ferrari.

I think it should reward reliability, what's the point of making a fast car if it can't last the race? Mclaran have the speed / pace, but can't keep their cars going (can't keep Montoya out of the walls / other cars), both Alonso and Kimi started from the back of the grid, if the FIA hadn't made the mistake of telling Alonso to let another driver pass him (which he'd already done) I think he'd be up there 2nd, if not 1st. It was a great race, one of the best, everyone going for it, (except Michael).
Kimi raced very well, but only pulled 1 brave move, Alonso pulled several and he really had no need to.

 

Hardly a mistake. He forced Michael to defend at the chicane meaning that he wasn't as well placed coming onto the straight allowing Alonso to be close enough for a tow for a move into turn 1. Michael did what he could to defend but in the end there's only so much you can do with a slower car and Alonso was going to take him eventually.

You're just repeating what James Allen said on the ITV commentary, as you were in the previous post about 130R.

IMO the points system should give a bigger reward for winning that it currently does. I liked the previous 10-6-4-3-2-1 system. I can't be bothered to work out if Alonso would still have won the WDC with that system or not. Clearly reliability is also important but IMO it's somehow not right if the WDC doesn't also win the most races.

Michael.

 

http://forums.atlasf1.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=83085

Paul

 

"My view is that next year Montoya will be driving a McLaren more suited to his driving style, as mentioned, hopefully he won't injure himself playing tennis, and hopefully he won't be asked to move out of the way for Kimi - at all."

On what basis?

"If Raikkonen is headed to Ferrari for 2007 hopefully this will balance Ron's mind in favour of JPM, whereas this year, certainly at the beginning of the season, he loved his Fin more. Recently Ron seems less openly pro-Kimi and less openly anti-JPM."

Kimi doesn't quite fit the perfect sponsor material driver and so loses out to MOY. But he is very fast and has been with Ron for a little while!

To finish first, first you have to be Finnish perhaps?

"Given the above, Montoya will consistently outperform Raikkonen in qualifying and races, if both McLarens have better reliability than this year, JPM will be WDC 2006."

I can't see any justification for that whatsoever. MOY (or JPM as you call him) is incredibly talented. This comes from people who have worked with him. But RAI is even more talented.This also comes from people who have worked with him.

Ian

 

"He showed just how much more power the Renault had over the Ferrari." LHatkins

Power had nothing to do with it.

In fact Renault and Ferrari have similar power outputs from their engines.

Ian

 

"Kimi raced very well, but only pulled 1 brave move, Alonso pulled several and he really had no need to." LHatkins

RAI only needed to do the move once because his team had the strategy well sorted out. Renault clearly didn't in this race as to ask your driver to overtake MSC twice in the race becuase you got the pitstop strategy wrong is poor.

Although in Renault's defense ALO also contributed to not winning the race (or more likely not coming 2nd) when he sat behind the Saubers and then COU after his 1st pitstop (lap 22 to 28, losing 15 secs to RAI) which meant he was too far behind to recover later in the race.

As to not needing to overtake. I would suggest that ALO needed to do that to show that he is worthy of being world champion. Also to ensure that he finished third he needed to overtake.

Ian

 

Thanks Ian, I knew there was one mistake in lhatkins post I'd forgotten to correct

Michael.

 

Is it all change with the engines next year?

 

hehe, seems I hit the Michael Schumacher fan club forum !

So Alonso overtaking Schumacher like he was in a milk float had nothing to do with power output? I beg to differ, ok I don't have the straight line speeds of both cars cos that's not on the data from the f1 site, (that system is so cool when it works).

haha ya one with a big rubber ring maybe a ? :lol:

yep, well I couldn't have put it better myself, so I didn't !

 

Ya they're going for tree hugging V8's

 

Maybe if they started every race like this, have the fast ones at the back, we'd see some better racing, its not much fun seeing all the fast cars disappear into the sunset with very little to do, this was much harder work for them and it was very entertaining (which IS what its all about right ?). So ditch Qaulifing, you start the race in the reverse position of where you finished the last one, 1 > 20, 2 > 19 etc. Sorted.