A.Wayne

I'm calling him the best currently ,based on his most recent performances plus 2 WC..... a full house beat a Pr all the time

A.Wayne

Reasonable assumption larry , but Alonso can also hang it out if he needs to, but only when he needs to , Kimi still has to prove he is faster than Massa, Hamilton is the most talented of them all.....

Flying Finn

You drank that Vodka already?!

Geo

I don't quite buy this assessment, but it's not bad. I think Senna was a better development driver than Kimi. I also think while Prost was by far the master at bringing home bum cars to a podium or a win, Senna was probably easier on a car than Kimi.

I think Kimi is tremendously fast. But, I also think if you want to be a WC, you need to be a good development driver and have to be able to really rally a team. I'm not sure Kimi can do either.

Much as I never have cared much for M. Schumacher, I think he was the best combination of develpment driver/rallying a team/bringing home a car to a win or podium. Gotta give credit where it is due, even if I don't like him.

Flying Finn

With Massa's car, yes but with Kimi's car, no.

Geo

I think this is going to be a great season. I just wish that Renault or Red Bull was firmly in the mix. I thought that Renault wouldn't have fallen off so much, so I wonder just how much was Alonso. I suspect quite a bit actually - more than I initially thought. I also expected much more from Red Bull given Adrien Newy's brilliance. Coulthard is old, but I thought he might have one last Cinderlla seaon in him. Not a chance. I hope this is his last year. I'm not convinced Weber can lead the team.

Sadly, I don't think there are THAT many brilliant drivers in F1. Immensely talented yes, but once again, not like the 80s and early 90s. FWIW, I think Massa may have what it takes, but he has to stop checking for pollyps during a race.

MPD47

Agreed completely. I'm a bit Red Bull fan, love the way they dive in head first into motorsport. However, I do not agree with your assement that most of Renault was Alonso. They went from 2nd or 3rd in budget to LAST. They literally are on a shoestring (for F1) budget and are doing damn well for the amount they are spending. Remember, they were going to pull out of the sport, but decided to just creap along on a substantially smaller cash flow.

As to the original poster, do I think alonso is the real deal? Yes, certainly, one hell of a driver. Unfortunately, I cannot stand him, or his crybaby attitude. I hate him, I hope he never wins another WDC. Lewis Hamilton on the other hand

A.Wayne

Geo,
I do not think Larry was comparing Kimi to senna , but in his analogy he was comparing the era's with the strenght and weakness's of the different drivers.

Finn , In order to be champion one has to Practice BURP !

Mike: Not to worry i will share the spoils

multi21

I said it pained me to agree with you... I wasn't asking for a date. I'm still hoping for either Ferrari driver to win the title over whiny McLaren and Ron Dennis and have Finn enjoy his national drink .

I guess no one is mentioning Ron Dennis' whine of the week calling out BMW implying that they're only out there for a one lap TV spot. Ironic that it was only Dennis throwing out assumptions and none of the other teams. Funny how BMW ran longer than both McLaren and Ferrari.

924RACR

With all this talk of luck, I have to point out Roger Penkse's (IIRC) stance on the issue, with which I happen to agree 100%:
Luck is preparation meeting opportunity.

Flying Finn

People without talent need to practice!

Oh Ron... He's the biggest sorry *** whiner in F1 baddock and has been like that as long as I remeber! That "one lap TV spot" was one of the best so far. He should let Haug handle the talks after Bahrain since he can admit when they get beaten and can take it like a man. I know that won't happen so I'm looking forward to hearing what Ron comes up in Bahrain.

mitch236

There's no way Hamilton will be allowed to win the WC this year unless something disasterous happens to Alonso but I think the future is very bright for Lewis. He appears to be the real deal with true superstar potential.

I still have the hopes of this being the year of the Kimi. I think he has shown that he can control his driving and bring the faltering pony home.

Alonso seems to be a real talent too but he needs to stop "saluting" drivers he thinks are holding him up. But in the interview room, he is a class act. In fact that is the only part of Kimi I can't stand, he needs some communication skills (at least with the media).


This is shaping up to be the most exciting season yet. I was jumping out of my chair last weekend for the first few laps. It's been a long time since F1 has been this good!

Flying Finn

I completely agree, Alonso is way too quick to "salute". Those others in slower cars are there to race too, they can't just disapper up in the air!

You won't get better interviews, they don't serve proper drinks in media room...
Seriously, to defend him a bit, that's just the nature of his (and many other Finn's). We're very poor at bull**** (often referred as "small talk"), we don't chat and ask "how are you" to every people we meet and usually we only talk when we have something to say.
That's not because we are rude or not have manner, that's just the nature of most of us. Then there's of course guys like Kovalainen who is very talkative but he is more of an exception.

But if you meet Kimi personally (when walking on the paddock, steer etc.), he is a very friendly person. For example, in Australia, bunch of Spanish Alonso fans made the long trip to Australia and obviously wanted to meet him, in the end, he was "too busy" to meet them (someone from McLaren met them and they had lunch with Hamilton), then they had fairly long discussion with Kimi and told even though they're still big Alonso fans, they enjoyed tremendously talking to him.

Sorry for a long post, like I said, some of us can get a little talkative at times...

M758

Well if you look at the race Alonso did what was expected.

Alonso had solid car...

Massa was faster, but early on mad 1 mistake after another first allowing Alonso through in turn 1 then also Hamilton. Then he threw it away after being sucked in by Hamilton. So by this time Alsono had it easy.
1) Solid fast car
2) Team mate playing blocker
3) Fasted competition in 5th ( Massa)
4) Next fastest competition (Kimi) in 4th with a "weak" engine also being held at bay by your team mate.

Given that situation I would EXPECT and 2 time WDC to win the race with ease. It may not be cake walk, but it is what Alonso needed to do given the situation. Remember the sign of a good driver is not only to be spectaular, but also get the job done sometimes. We really don't know what kind of shape Kimi's engine was in, but come the end of the season this race for Kimi may have infact be of the the Key races. Sure Alonso won and Kimi only got 3rd, but that 6 points when maybe last year it would have been zero with a blown engine or 5th/6th after stating 10 or 11th.

I personally was most impressed with Hamilton's race craft early on. Very smart racer. There has been trend in F1 torward guys who are really fast "time trialers" rather than experts a race craft. Time will tell where Hamilton falls in this, but to show that degree of race craft so early in F1 is impressive.

As for the championship... well way to early to tell. Clear favorites are Alonso and Kimi, but anything can still happen. Biggest dissappointments this year are Renault and Honda.

mitch236

I don't mind the content of what Kimi says, it's the way he says it.

(all in monotone)
"Ihadasolidracebuttheenginewasweakandmassaletthemaclarensgosoisettledint oacomfortablepaceuntiltheendwhenithoughimightbeabletoovertakehamiltonbut iamhappywiththeresult"