(from other thread)This mistake prone version of Alonso is not one im used to seeing. 2004,5,6,7 and even 2008 (esp 2nd half) he drove very very consistently. 2009 I didnt notice, but thats because the renault was such crap I didnt pay attention much (even then he stuck it on pole at hungary and podiumed at singapore)

But whats happened to him? Italian/Spanish media expectations getting to him? It's not his teammate, he's got Massa comfortably covered. Is it the weight of Ferrari, the fact that they bought/pushed out Kimi for this guy and he's doing arguably no better with a front running car?

Australia- crashed into Button at T1, ended up last. fought back to 4th. (Couldve been much higher, wasn't due to t1 incident)

China- Jumped the start, got a drive through, fought back to 4th (nobodies fault but his own)

Monaco- Put himself out of qualifying by smashing his car in practice, (Nobodies fault but his own)

Turkey- Didnt get thru to q3, lost it all under braking at the end of the back straight, his teammate clearly showing it was in top 8 based on Q pace. (nobodies fault but his own)

Canada- Not once, but TWICE he got passed by McLarens because he got caught napping behind backmarkers. (Nobodies fault but his OWN)

Valencia- Lost focus fuming about other teams when, as his race engineer told him, he shouldve been "calm & wise" & "needed to look towards himself" but instead got passed by Kobayashi at the end. Yes, KK had better tires, But for a driver of Fernandos skill, he had no business being passed by a Sauber on a track that is basically impossible to pass at. Nobodies fault but his own.

Silverstone- Piss poor start (I don't buy the clutch fault problem bs, based on his onboard he got a bad start by putting too much right foot in it) I heard gobs of wheelspin, just like Vettel. Hit his teammate going into the maggots/becketts complex. Passes Kubica off track, Should have the mental acuity to KNOW that he shouldve given the place back straight away and tried again 2+ corners later, but didnt. He was going to pass Kubica anyway! Got a drive through, tried to fight back, went off the road, ended up 15th.

There's a few races where he didnt deliver that were not his fault, for instance Malaysia wasnt his fault, he drove beautifully while having a wicked gearbox problem, and even passed Jenson with an ailing car, but, All in all, This is NOT the Fernando Alonso I've watched over the last few years. Something is different about him now. His inconsistency is abnormal based on previous performance. If he ain't on the podium come Hockenheim in too weeks and the red bulls/McLarens are, He's done for as far as this years WDC is concerned. A real shame if you ask me. There are times when you can't help but be impressed by Fernando, but this year i'm not getting that same vibe. All these mistakes do not add up to winning a championship come years end. Thats for sure.

I could totally understand Seans position on friday, you can't blame the guy for it. I'd feel the same way if the situation was reversed. But man, come Sunday,I know it mustve hurt watching the race as a Ferrari fan. I actually felt bad for Seanspeed this weekend.

Out come the devil horns, I could never feel sorry for a Ferrari fan/driver/team member. Ever! Now even more so that Alonso is there.

Cold-blooded! I like it!

Thats mad!!!

You think McLaren luck will be forever?

It's nice how they screwed up in turns, isn't it

In the Todt - Schumacher - Brawn era that list would the the number of mistakes in a whole season!

It's better to be in a difficult position because of errors and bad luck than on pure pace.

Because luck always changes sooner or later but perfomance is sometimes very hard to gain.

I sure thought ferraris luck would go on forever and a day and that ended. But to me I don't think of mclaren as lucky at all, was it luck that they built a great car and out developed Ferrari? Is it luck that mclaren drivers drive fast enough to put themselves in a position to be fortunate? No. So this isn't luck at all, you just have a case of envy and sour grapes. But you just keep playing your lucky tune gaston foix if that makes you feel better

Yeah, the Mclaren developed a lot from Valencia! Jenson was too fast in Silverstone Q3.

You are spot on mate!

indeed....clearly the car has pace and is probably the second fastest now, especially since McLaren messed up with their new updates and will have to waste time trying to sort it out much like Ferrari had to do with the F-Duct

hopefully, everything else comes together soon and Alonso can challenge for victories.....maybe the championship is out of reach but he can at least try stopping Hamilton from winning it

Ok Ferrari started maybe 3 or 4 tenths up on mclaren yet they had leapfrogged them
On sheer pace by let's say Barcelona cos that was the first indicator. Where is Ferrari in the championship vow mclaren is leading and nearly 100 points infront of you now mate and we didn't get there by hqving a slow car with underperforming drivers like Ferrari. You cannot deny the fact that mclaren simply are the better team this season judging by the facts.

Last 4 races:

1. Turkey: A lucky 1-2 after RedBull crash
2. Canada: A lucky 1-2 tanks to backmarkers- no blue flags. McLaren after the race: Thank you Charlie...
3. Valencia: Lewis front wing nearly gone in the 1st corner. Lewis cheated with the SC and you know...the rest. Button a lucky 3rd thanks to the SC and the 5 sec penalty joke.
4. UK: Lewis front wing again survived, but most important he eliminated from the race his main rival Vettel. Button fro 14th to 4th by overtaking no one.

It doesn't look to you like a shi**y luck?

I wish you guys more rely on McLaren's ''luck'' than finding more speed in car.

if button didnt overtake anyone how did he end up 4th lol what a stupid comment

Sorry man, but according to your posts you seem to be an incredibly sad, sad, sad Massa fanatic. Cancer Alonso, for god's sake, you'r sick...

Best thing you would probably change your mind just having the opportunity to talk to Alonso personally for, say some hours. May be just this suggestion of facing the devil in person will kill you, but anyway... I guess bad driven frustration makes these things happen.

cheers.

Your and some known others wish and need to bash, humiliate, destroy at any cost a driver in this forum for the last years, almost everyday it seems, is beyond reason. This kind of fanatism can't be good for sure.

Cheers.

Honestly, who cares, I remember same thing with MS. If this is true, one it is between Alonso and Ferrari and two it puts much more pressure and spot light on Alonso to perform.

You are missing the point my friend, why were mclaren in the position to gain from all of that? Because they were the second best car, something Ferrari was in Bahrain but debt being out developed they no longer were. If mclaren wasn't on the gearbox in turkey and Canada they wouldn't have gained from others misfortune, you make your own luck. And you are the child here mate, you are writing off Jensen and his brilliant race craft as luck. But get used to it, when Ferrari stops shooting themselves in the foot mayne they will put themselves in a position to gain from others misfortune. But to get there they will need to do a better job than red bull and mclaren, something I don't believe they can or will do.

Actually it does look like that Horner and Vettel are still on junior whinning rankings when compared to you.

you must suffer from selective amnesia if you think mclaren haven't been somewhat lucky in the past couple of races.

yeah whoever thinks mclaren haven't been somewhat lucky is either a blind fanboy or stupid, i am not saying they did not have any badluck because they did, but to say a little luck did not play a part in the races they won is not true.

They have been very very lucky, but what I don't understand, is that some Mclaren posters can't see the obvious...

Ferrari have been making huge strides lately and we haven't seen the best of them as they haven't been allowed to stretch their legs in race trim for whatever reason. I believe that presently the Ferrari is slightly better than the Mclaren. The way I see it, Ferrari have nothing to lose and can just go for it based on the championship tables, the wins will come and championship pressures will engulf the Bulls and the Mclarens with their drivers so close on points. Ferrari kinda have it slightly easier as they should start favouring Alonso now if they have not done so already.

This season is far from over. Write Ferrari off at your peril...

I haven't said that. But hes trying to write off our season as pure dumb luck, which it isn't. Im trying to make the point that, we have worked hard enough to be IN THE POSITION to have that luck. If we were trundling around with a car as fast as Mercedes we would not have been in the position to get this 'luck'. Hes trying to make the point that McLaren haven';t worked hard or harder than Ferrari and writes our lead off as luck. I and many others dont see it that way. I just think hes sour, as most Ferrari fans are when McLaren are doing well.

Im not writing Ferrari off at all, they have a quick car, but, the last 2 races when they had a quicker car than McLaren they failed to capitalise on this for whatever reasons (unlucky whatever) and I believe they have missed the boat to make serious inroads on McLaren. Now IF (Big word) McLaren get this EBD working as they want it to and I believe they will, then I think it will be back to Ferrari being behind McLaren and Red Bull but ahead of Mercedes. And if they keep losing ground they will soon find themselves in the not ideal, but not bad, position McLaren had with Lewis last year. No chance of either championship, go out there drive the wheels off the car and see what comes of it.

I still see them as a huge threat, but from Germany onwards I don't think they will be on the level of the McLaren or the Red Bull. Lewis was one tenth of Alonso's time in Silverstone with the old package that IS slower and struggles on bumps. The Ferrari with all its updates only had 1 tenth on a car that had 14+ new parts taken off the car to be revised for Germany. Now if the tables were turned and Ferrari were 1 tenth off in qualifying, but had double the new parts still to come and were only one tenth off then I'd be VERY worried what will happen with all of them working the way they should. Ferrari are going to have to produce something great to catch the front too, because after Germany I believe they will be a fair whack off McLaren and Red Bull. This is of course my opinion, I am in no way enforcing this so dont take it in that way, and if I have to eat my words I will do it humbly. Thats just my two cents on Ferrari at the moment and in the near future.

Lewis was close to the Ferrari since Alonso did a mistake on his final flying lap.

And Lewis improved further on his last lap, and there you go, how can Ferrari do well if their drivers keep cocking up.

The mistake was probably because he was pushing beyond the limits of the car - making the two cars ultumate pace around the same for now (up and down dependant on the type of track they are on) - just putting that out there it may not be true but makes sence.

Ferrari have a stepped development plan for the EBD. The specification they currently have is nowhere near as complicated as some of the others if media reports are to be believed. They are currently working on a solution to reduce the sensitivity of the diffuser to the throttle for when they introduce their windowed version, so they will continue to make gains in the coming races. So your assumption that Mclaren will leapfrog them when they bolt theirs on doesn't hold much water. Also the qualifying results are slighty skewed as a result of the traffic Alonso encountered on his final lap. I believe he was about 0.2 secs up on his previous time (although I am not to sure, maybe someone here knows more).

All in all Ferrari are not in such a bad position. It is going to be a close fight with the Mclarens.

So you think Ferrari will introduce 14+ parts in Germany as McLaren are? So by that, it holds alot of water. When is the next 'step' in Ferrari's development plan? Its already been proven this season, that bringing updates to each race is better in the long run than holding off and bring a larger update every couple of races. You're disadvantaged while the others bring updates, and by the time you bring hte updates youve caught up to the others, but lost ground to them aswell. We will see ow it pans out anyway, i still hold the opinion from Germany onwards it will be Red Bull/Mclaren then Ferrari THEN Renault/Mercedes.

You got it all wrong. Ferrari are updating their EBD on a race by race basis. They have already caught up if not passed Mclaren with a basic specification and there is more to come.

Anyway, here is the link.
Ferrari EBD multistage development

Ferrari have all the 'tricky' solutions working for the most part. They can now just focus on their regular development plans.

Mclaren, in the meantime, are still trying to get one of those tricky solutions to work, which takes time, and distracts them from other development plans somewhat.

At the very least, its giving us a chance to catch up some, and I believe we're quite close to Mclaren at this point. From there, I dont know what will happen, but we've got a perfectly good shot at doing well. Just need things to go our way a bit for once.

im sure he overtook 6 people in the first few laps, and i can read just fine thankyou!

Amen to the bolded part.

I've been quite impressed with Ferrari since Canada. Bringing effective updates to every race, we just need the bad luck monkey to jump ship now.

Just to end this discussion, JB position gains in the first lap were:

1. Hulkenberg off the line

2. Sutil off the line/through Copse

3. One of the Saubers (sorry, don't remember which) through Becketts (Sauber off line thanks to the fight with the other Sauber and the return of Vettel to the track).

4. Vettel puncture.

5. Other Sauber into Vale (Sauber lost speed/time fighting with Schumacher through Stowe).

6. Massa puncture.

6 places gained, hence 14th to 8th on lap 1. Remaining 4 positions were gained through late pitting strategy/fast laps on options (Kubica, Barrichello, Schumacher) and penalty (Alonso).

Ok now, please can we get back to the topic of the Ferrari?

Ahhh your finally back, you didnt see my post a few pages ago then haha. I agree that without the updates we are close in performance, but as I said earlier, Ferrari haven't capatalised on this opportunity. And I also said earlier, if McLaren strikes gold with this update now that theyve had time to analyze and adjust it, then I think Ferrari will find it hard to bridge the gap to them or Red Bull. Because when you look at it, theres no other 'major' aero secrets to be had, the F Duct and EBD have been applied, the only other I can think of is everyone trying what Red Bull are doing now, and mounting the cameras behind the uprights o the front wing to the it better efficiency or whatever its there to do. For Me it looks like it stiffens the centre and allows more wait to press down on the sides of the front wing gaining downforce, that is the only other thing that someone might find advantageous but we all know if one gets it they will all have it sooner rather than later.

Lots of off topic stuff deleted. Thread is about Ferrari F10, not Silvberstone, Ferrari team management of drivers etc but the F10, it's technicalities and application by the team.

Thank you @Gareth...

Well I disagree. I think Alonso was well set for a 2nd place in Valencia, and possibly a podium in Silverstone(even after his bad start). They're trying to capitalize, but things somewhat out of their control are stopping them from doing so.

You're making it sound like its Ferrari thats messing up, when I think they're doing fine. It happens sometimes in motorsports that the cards simply dont fall your way.

I agree that the WDC is gonna be very difficult, and the WCC is probably out of the question. But as you(I think it was you) said, we can still put on a good show and put in some impressive performances, regardless of what is ultimately acheived in the championship standings. I know a lot of people consider the standings to be the only important thing in F1, but I dont agree. Just showing the ability to bounce back and to finally kick up development is a positive, confidence-inspiring thing, the results of which can be carried over into next season, ya know?

I dont think its a failure if Ferrari dont win any titles this year. Some people have said this year is 'make or break' for them, but I think thats ridiculous. As long as people realize Ferrari is always a force not to be written off, then they're doing their job, as far as I'm concerned.

I might be wrong but I thought Alonso was held up on his last flying lap. I remember seeing him wave his fist at a Williams as he crossed the line and I thought it was in Q3.

I tend to agree with you for the most part..but some things I don't agree on. I think, if Ferrari come away from this season with 1 win, 3rd in Constructors and at best 5th in drivers this will be one hell of a failure and I think heads will roll at seasons end. They switched focus to this car the better part of 6 months before every other team, and a team like Ferrari should have been able to, with that extra time, produce a constant race winning car, now you can argue that Red Bull just pulled out a rabbits foot and just went SO much better, but up until probably Canada the Ferrari was being beaten in races on pure pace by McLaren who developed last years car up until Abu Dahbi.

It was me that said they will put on some impressive showings as Lewis/McLaren did last year when they had nothing to lose everything to gain. So if 4 drivers are battling for the championship and Fernando has the chance to stick it up the inside in a do or die he will do it and he will come off best cos the others will basically drive off the road to avoid contact. So from that perspective its quite a nice position but from the outside its not where Ferrari/Fernando want to be.

Now after this weekend gone, where Stefano said it took some time for them to tell them to give the position back, only for Charlie to come out and say "hang on a minute guys..we told them immediately after it happened" says to me Ferrari tried to make out as if they were hard done by (again) but it also says how poor the management of the team currently is. If they were told to let him back passed, and argued that point, then they can't say its 'unlucky' or things aren't going their way' all they can say is "yep i put my hand up, im stupid i should have listened" because really, if Ferrari continue to do this, Fernando isn't the type to stick around if things don't go his way and the team lets him down. I know he said this will be his last team, but so did Kimi, and he might come back and race for another more likely than it is not.

We do however need something at the German Grand Prix like a Lewis P1 and Alonso P2 or vice versa (Hopefully the first one! ) so we can see the pace of both cars clearly cos as you say, for one reason or another we haven't seen that yet, and mclaren were like that until barcelona cos they were always stuck behind others, or the races were just topsy turvy.

Stefano has to stop playing this card of 'things aren't going our way we DESERVE better points' to me they don't deserve anything more than what they have because for such a historical and top team they're management is on par with a team llike Force India at the moment and they need to start working like a top team again or Niki Lauda's comments about Ferrari returning to the "Spaghetti whatever he said team' will turn out to be correct.

Does anyone have pics of the diffuser Ferrari used at Silverstone?

you wish,...

Is it that closely guarded? I have been searching and I can't seem to find anything.

Here you go, silverstone diffuser, nothing really secret about it, its probably the same as valencia.

Ferrari Diffuser 1

Ferrari Diffuser 2

Ferrari Diffuser 3

Some shots from Silverstone weekend

Ferrari Pit
Ferrari practising pit stops
Chris Dyer (I believe)

I mean the underside of it... right? you mean, 2183?

What updates are Ferrari bringing to the next race?

The same spec Massa ran in Valencia. the upper deck is steeper. So the only visible updates were the front wing and the sliced exhaust pipes. I would of thought more.


Would be good to know. I suppose some changes to the diffuser. They are rumoured to be working on reducing the sensitivity of the EBD to throttle input. So we might see the windowed version of the diffuser.