A.Wayne

LOL , Larry , quite possibly true, but all kidding aside , less not forget we are really still dealing with kids, for the most part , well apart from KImi who's ***** quite possibly dropped when he was 15 . ...

tocho1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKU90BSHqHk

Alonso-Hamilton commercial...hope its not a repost

A.Wayne

Friday 3rd August 2007

Fernando Alonso set the pace as a few rain drops interrupted Friday's second practice session for the Hungarian GP.

The Spaniard, who is chasing his fourth win of the season, posted a best time of 1:20.919, which saw him edge out Renault's Heikki Kovalainen and his own McLaren team-mate Lewis Hamilton.

Hamilton, however, had a few problems which saw him finish the session beached in a gravel trap.

Report: Takuma Sato was the first driver to set a time in Practice Two, clocking a 1:26.355 which was quickly beaten by Renault's Heikki Kovalainen, who in the space of two laps shaved 3.4 seconds off Sato's best.

The Finn's time at the top, though, was short-lived as Fernando Alonso shot to the top of the timesheets on his first timed lap. A 1:22.319 for the McLaren driver.

Sakon Yamamoto joined the list of those spinning at Turn One as his Spyker took him for a ride. The Japanese driver escaped without any damage and continued on his way.

Moments later Lewis Hamilton took the P1 slot off his team-mate and continued lapping, improving his time. However, he lost out to Kovalainen while Tonio Liuzzi took his Toro Rosso for a bit of a rally drive over the grass at the final corner. Adrian Sutil followed suit a few minutes later.

Kimi Raikkonen improved from 16th to third place while his team-mate Felipe Massa seemed to struggle, locking up on a few laps before returning to the pits for his mechanics to try to solve the problem.

Meanwhile Alonso was once again quickest, clocking a 1:20.919, while Kovalainen and Hamilton were both within half a second of the reigning World Champion. With half an hour to go Nico Rosberg was up in fourth place ahead of Nick Heidfeld, Raikkonen, Massa and Giancarlo Fisichella.

At the back of the field, Yamamoto was also two seconds off his team-mate Adrian Sutil's pace, while Sebastian Vettel, who is making his debut for Toro Rosso, was 20th, 2.8s off the pace. The German driver upped his pace to take 19th place off Super Aguri's Anthony Davidson and move to within 0.012s of his team-mate Tonio Liuzzi.

With 20 minutes to go the rain began falling and all the drivers barring three returned to their garages. It didn't last long, though and the drivers were soon back on track.

Vettel and Davidson improved their times but while Davidson moved up from 20th to 15th place, Vettel actually dropped one place to 20th.

There was a bit of late drama as first Lewis Hamilton spun into the gravel at Turn Eight, beaching his McLaren and then Massa spun at the final corner.

The session ended with Alonso fastest followed by Kovalainen and the beached Lewis Hamilton.

Times
01 F. Alonso McLaren 1:20.919 29 laps
02 H. Kovalainen Renault 1:21.283 39 laps
03 L. Hamilton McLaren 1:21.338 32 laps
04 N. Rosberg Williams 1:21.485 40 laps
05 N. Heidfeld BMW 1:21.517 37 laps
06 K. Räikkönen Ferrari 1:21.589 29 laps
07 F. Massa Ferrari 1:21.620 39 laps
08 G. Fisichella Renault 1:21.698 36 laps
09 J. Trulli Toyota 1:21.857 35 laps
10 R. Kubica BMW 1:21.906 37 laps
11 R. Schumacher Toyota 1:21.912 29 laps
12 A. Wurz Williams 1:21.987 35 laps
13 M. Webber Red Bull 1:22.325 28 laps
14 D. Coulthard Red Bull 1:22.483 33 laps
15 A. Davidson Super Aguri 1:22.510 41 laps
16 J. Button Honda 1:22.550 47 laps
17 T. Sato Super Aguri 1:22.556 42 laps
18 R. Barrichello Honda 1:22.727 29 laps
19 V. Liuzzi Scuderia Toro Rosso 1:23.136 42 laps
20 S. Vettel Scuderia Toro Rosso 1:23.148 39 laps
21 A. Sutil Spyker F1 1:23.673 34 laps
22 S. Yamamoto Spyker F1 1:26.307 29 laps

A.Wayne

Fernando Alonso, McLaren (1st, 1m 20.919s):
“Today was good and I am happy with the how the car feels so far. We spent the morning working on the set-up and limited the number of tyres we used. The track here improves as the weekend goes on so we chose to do all the Bridgestone Potenza tyre evaluation in the afternoon session. I think we are in a good position and I am looking forward to the rest of the weekend where we should continue to be strong.”

A.Wayne

Qualifying 3

As the cars stacked at the end of the pitlane it was the McLaren-Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton leading the pack - the Mercedes idling on four cylinders to help reduce heat build-up. Fernando Alonso was behind him with Raikkonen in P3.

As the cars jostled for clear track position it was obvious that Raikkonen wanted to get ahead of Alonso and almost put his Ferrari into the side of the World Champion at one turn and locked his tyres avoiding him.

Unseen by the TV cameras, Raikkonen had got in front of Alonso in the lap before they came in for their first set of tyres and an agitated Alonso looked towards team personnel on the pitwall and was clearly complaining about something. He wagged his finger out of the car and jabbed it at the engineers on the pitwall. His car was then held, even though other drivers were coming in and going out. When he was released, a thread from the tyre blanket caught round the front right and he was delayed even further while it was taken off.

Kimi Raikkonen set the first meaningful pole time of 1:20.930, but that was immediately demoted to P2 by the BMW of Nick Heidfeld with a 1:20.922. Fernando Alonso showed that it was going to be a McLaren pole position with a 1:20.133 however this was blitzed by Hamilton on the softer tyre with a 1:19.781 a massive 1.2 seconds quicker than Raikkonen.

When the drivers took their second quick runs Raikkonen took what was now P3 back off Heidfeld, but all the drama was reserved for the Mclaren garage. Alonso came in for his final set of tyres. They were bolted on and the lollypop raised, but Alonso had caught a glimpse of Lewis Hamilton stacked behind him and didn't leave.

Though he should have left his box for some reason the Spaniard decided not to. The timing of the final lap was critical and he had just seconds before he would be unable to complete an outlap and put in a valid timed lap. He remained where he was for 10 seconds before going on his way.

By the time Lewis Hamilton had got into position and had his tyres put on, there was not enough time to get out and round to start a timed lap. An irate Ron Dennis threw off his headphones and began an intense discussion with Alonso's trainer who was also watching from the pitwall.

Alonso duly eclipsed Hamilton's time using hard tyres. What Lewis could have managed on a second set of softer tyres will never be known. Though the McLaren team might come up with a different explanation afterwards, it looked like Alonso was irate at being delayed by the team in the pits first time round - perhaps losing fuel credit - and decided to block his team-mate.

For the record Nick Heidfeld stole P3 off Kimi Raikkonen at the death, demoting the Ferrari to 4th on the grid..

In the press conference afterwards the FIA interviewer dodged the obvious question to Alonso i.e. "Why did you not leave for ten seconds when the lollypop was raised for your final timed lap?"

Though Alonso may have stolen a temporary advantage, if the team deem his actions to be provocative they can easily give him more fuel than he needs in the race. So although the Spaniard has won a short-term victory, it's difficult to steal a march on the people who put tyres and fuel in the car.

Whatever the outcome, the intra-Mclaren rivalry is proving that domination of a race by one team doesn't have to be boring.

FH

Times
01 F. Alonso McLaren 1:19.674
02 L. Hamilton McLaren 1:19.781
03 N. Heidfeld BMW 1:20.259
04 K. Räikkönen Ferrari 1:20.410
05 N. Rosberg Williams 1:20.632
06 R. Schumacher Toyota 1:20.714
07 R. Kubica BMW 1:20.876
08 G. Fisichella Renault 1:21.079
09 J. Trulli Toyota 1:21.206
10 M. Webber Red Bull 1:21.256
11 D. Coulthard Red Bull 1:20.718
12 H. Kovalainen Renault 1:20.779
13 A. Wurz Williams 1:20.865
14 F. Massa Ferrari 1:21.021
15 A. Davidson Super Aguri 1:21.127
16 V. Liuzzi Scuderia Toro Rosso 1:21.993
17 J. Button Honda 1:21.737
18 R. Barrichello Honda 1:21.877
19 T. Sato Super Aguri 1:22.143
20 S. Vettel Scuderia Toro Rosso 1:22.177
21 A. Sutil Spyker F1 1:22.737
22 S. Yamamoto Spyker F1 1:23.774

A.Wayne

Saturday 4th August 2007

Fernando Alonso insists it was McLaren's fault that Lewis Hamilton wasn't able to launch a counter-attack for pole position in Saturday's Hungarian qualifying.

"The team held me back in this," the Spaniard said in the post-race press conference. We tried to have some space with the Ferrari (Raikkonen) in front of us."

He added: "I am always monitoring the pitstop by the radio. They do the calculations, they find the gaps and I just drive the car. I am always ready to go, as soon as they put on the tyres."

However, that's not how it looked.

Nearing the end of the third and final qualifying segment, Alonso remained stationary in the McLaren pitbox for several seconds while Hamilton queued up behind him - and Alonso did so despite having already been waved out by the team.

The hold-up meant that while Alonso was able to get across the line before the chequered flag fell and start a flying lap, Hamilton was not. And as a result, the McLaren rookie lost out on pole position.

As for his thoughts on the incident, Hamilton said: "There's not really much to say. You saw what happened."

Asked by how much he missed across the line to start his flying lap, the Brit added: "By about as much as I was held up."

Hamilton, though, wasn't the only one keeping his thoughts to himself. His team boss Ron Dennis told ITV: "It is a matter to be discussed within the team, and we will do so later."

cooleyjb

So basically Alonso's engineer, who was keeping track of where all the cars on the track were, just didn't have the ability of keeping track of the other Mclaren at the same time. Sounds like the engineer needs to have a serious boot to the ***.

A.Wayne

Not so , lewis was the one that blew the sequencing , full report on Gp side..
They had to hold Alonso until his time slot , lewis was the odd man out ...

ron's comments:

Explaining further the situation with Hamilton, Dennis said: "They were out of sequence because Lewis should have slowed and let Fernando past. And he didn't. He charged off. That's how we got out of sequence.

cooleyjb

So you believe everything you read? I saw the same report and I don't htink the people in Mclaren are so stupid that they can't overcome the reasons stated.

Ron Dennis was pissed after the situation took place in pit lane. Now he comes up with this reason as to why alonso was held for so long.

Those engineers running and timing stuff are brilliant and aware of everything. The fact that he coudln't/wouldn't/didn't pick up on teh fact that Alonso's actions were affecting Hamilton's is one of the key issues that is being overlooked.

The second Hamilton got out of sequence the brilliant minds at McLaren should have been able to redo a qualifying session in a couple of minutes.

Mclaren is keeping the dirty laundary in house and it's pretty darn obvious

cooleyjb

Looks like FIA agreed that Alonso's incident, whoever in his camp may have been at fault was guilty. Loses pole and relegated 5 spots.

A.Wayne

LOL,
You must be having issues,
You should take this up with ron dennis who said it was the truth , Just because you agree with the FIA , does'nt mean they where correct ,as this is the same body who imposed no fine on mclaren earlier this week ,,,, So please , where was the penaulty when ferrari held barrichello for 5 mins for schumacher to get back into the pits for rain tires in canada 5 years ago , The FIA is as consistent, as the weather ... .....

If Alonso was docked his pole lap then he should have started 2nd, FIA has finally found away to screw up the championship ....

cooleyjb

Ron Dennis is a smart person. He wouldn't come out and tell the public that his team screwed up like that. It's easier to say that Hamilton jumped the gun earlier (which was a mistake but should have been recovered from). I am only talking about what happened today. If you honestly believe that what Ron Dennis told you was exactly what happened then you need to put the Kool-aid down and step back. What I am doing is looking at the facts.

1. Ron Dennis wasn't pissed when LH blew through the beginning of Q3 but was right after the pitlane incident went down?
2. The Mclaren engineers are some of the smartest people in the world who modify their strategy every lap during a race. Why coudln't they do this during qualifying.
3. FIA who had access to all the info quickly ruled that situation was not on the up and up.

You are going by the fact that Ron Dennis was politically astute during a press conference and that FIA is inconsistent in rulings specifically in dealing with MS. This is known as a smoke and mirrors defense. You bring up other issues to dilute the argument.

Also why are you bringing up Schumacher in the case? This has nothing to do with the past. This has everything to do with what happened today. Since you constantly talk about how Schumi should be forgotten why do you always bring him up in conversations. All it does is hurt your case considering everyone knows your public disdain of MS.

A.Wayne

MS and i are Buddies, Who do you think he get his Rodeo shirts from.

Rons and Alonso explanation was plausible , 2 cars out of sequence , Alonso held to create a clear track , , Lewis was told to slow etc... your Anger should be at R. Dennis , .

But if it makes you feel better , I had arranged the fiasco today , it was my masterplan except they held Alonso too long , tipping of Lewis ... now i have th FIA all over my ****...

I'm also getting the impression you won't be sharing any of your cool-aid in the future, shucks , the blue was my favorite

cooleyjb

So now you are saying that Ron Dennis is also at fault here?

Read the facts in the ruling and keep trying this story that Mclaren was screwing around.

You gotta watch out for the FIA, they as you say, work in mysterious ways. Don't drink any of the drinks they are buying for you when you are out with MS.

I'm not angry at Mclaren for keeping their dirty laundary in the house. They know they screwed with the system. They also know that their engineers should be able to overcome a simple issue like Hamilton not letting Alonso pass in the beginning of a session.

I just disagreed with your analysis of the event and then the way you presented your opinion.

A.Wayne

Joe ,
What is more important , can you Bowl a googylee...
Please let's move on ......
There are other things to discuss , what about wing angle , or the fact they shut the engine down to 4 cylinders to reduce heat soak, Hey , how's dat