Makes sense.

Agree. Alonso just qualified poorly. He didn't put in a good lap and then struggled with the changeable conditions. The funny thing is Massa has shown this season to be the more consistent driver, and the use of team orders may yet come back to haunt Ferrari.

Go look at post #4243 where he admits to some of the mistakes he has made.

also read post #4452

I'm not Alonso's biggest fan but it's easy to be consistent when you are slow.

Firstly I don't think Massa is slow. Alonso may be the quicker driver, but that doesn't make Massa slow. And secondly, being consistent is always a virtue in F1. You could be the quickest driver but if you're not consistent then it is unlikely you will have a good points haul come the end of the season. And that is exactly what we are seeing with Alonso. He may show flickers of good speed in some races but then in many others he has made mistakes, shown poor judgment and has crashed. It will be funny to see how close the 'slow' driver is to Alonso come the end of the season. Especially considering all the help Alonso has had from the team and how they have hindered Massa.

Yeah, all those times they did that, so often it's impossible to remember them all. There was Hockenheim and then... my goodness I already struggle, could you please name the other two dozen times they helped Alonso and screwed Massa?

That's silly. Case in point Spa. Massa faster saturday, faster sunday. Kept on the road.

No doubt Massa won the weekend on both performance and result. For what, the 2nd time in 13 races? That was also roughly Barrichellos strike rate against Schumacher. Don't know about the future, but so far that has been nothing more than the exception to prove the rule: Alonso has been generally faster, if erratic, Massa generally slower, but more consistent.

If they are willing to implement team orders as publicly as in Germany, then it doesn't take a genius to work out that they must be favoring him behind the scenes as well.

You missed the point I was trying to make and maybe it's my fault. My point is; Massa is consistent even when faster and Alonso inconsistent even when slower.

Indeed that makes your point more than clear, to highlight Alonso's momentary weaknesses at all costs. Fair game, no better time for that than now, when he's indeed underperforming.

Oh, and BTW Massa is a still no.2 driver even when he's faster and Alonso a no.1 even when he's slower.

I wouldn't call 2/3 of a season momentary but I guess it's just me.



The other way of seeing it is; although he's the clear no.2 he's still able to beat Alonso and the points difference berween them is slim. In fact Massa outscored Alonso in the last 4 or 5 races.
But I'm glad for you. You seem to be happy with Alonso, but is Ferrari happy ?

Massa is now no.2 because he is worse than Alonso this season. They both started with clean sheet of paper.

Remember Massa wasn't no.2 at the beginning.

Considering Massa will have had some upgrades before Alonso, this doesn't hold much weight

Well with very restricted testing, hence way inferior opportunities to validate and verify new developments, one can easily argue in either direction.

Of course it's you, but not just, you have company. Even more than usual these days, which is perfectly normal.



Math is fickle, better stay away from that.

Of course it's nice for Massa to finish in front of Alonso. Just as it was for Rubens when he beat MS... once in a blue moon.



Hm, what makes you think so?

You can't overdrive your car.

Alonso is just having a poor season full of stupid mistakes and erratic drives. Face It. Of course, he still IS a great driver but this is not his year. Why can't you admit it instead of making silly excuses ??

Specially when it contradicts our views.

No, I mean more when one get's it wrong, like you in this case. That tends to be mildly embarassing, but maybe you just don't care.

Last 4 races 43:42, last 5 races 47:42. I'll leave it to you to figure in whose favour.

I'm not making silly excuses. I've admitted Alonso has made mistakes, but I believe he's pushing too hard. I hope he calms down

I think he won't win the WDC this year (Hamilton, Webber or Vettel will win it) , but who really knows what will happen in 2011

Then again I was not clear. I took it for granted that anybody could still count germany as an Alonso 'win'. I should know better since the guy himself counts Singapore as a legit victory. I apologize.

Ye that makes sense; let's advantage Massa by giving him the new upgrades first and advantage Alonso through team orders . Clearly there is another reason why Massa has had some of the upgrades a little earlier and IIRC it was because of the way the gearbox sequence has clashed with the time developments have become ready.

The difference between Massa and Alonso (once the Germany results are switched back) is so little now that punting for Alonso so early is seeming very silly. Alonso IMO is probably the quicker driver out of the two, yet he is much more erratic and (especially this season) makes many more mistakes. Thus Massa's consistency over the course of the season may very well mean that he finishes on almost the same amount of points as Alonso (or even more perhaps) even though he has been hindered by the team.

Yeah, that pesky FIA points table, so stubborn and inflexible.

I wouldn't be so sure of that.

Tell me, which one of the drivers would have been fired if there would have been a big fight between them just before the start of this season? And even if Alonso was the one who started it by doing something really unfair to Massa? And one of them would have to leave. Would Ferrari have told Alonso to leave the team?

My answer to that is an absolute NO. They would have solved such a fight by telling Felipe to go away. Now tell me that that isn't true.

When the situation is like that, there is already a #1 driver and #2 driver situation established in the team and based on no racing performances in the Ferrari F1 team at all between them.

Of course from McLarens perspective it makes a lot of sense to have Ferrari put all their weight behind Massa. Who knows, maybe a few more posts like that will convince Ferrari. Sure it can't hurt to try.

Let's talk about inflexible after next wednesday.

You seem to know alot about the inner workings of the Ferrari team. Are you perhaps a Massa fan? Or are you just an Alonso basher? Or maybe an employee?

Massa was only hindered in the German race, unless you are suggesting that they are deliberately compromising his setups in order to make Alonso look good.

Are you a Ferrari employee ? I hope you understand that there are other ways to benefit one driver in detriment of another other than team orders.

No I simply believe in fair racing. Both the Red Bull and McLaren drivers have been allowed to race fairly up till now. It has meant that the Red Bulls lost points and the McLarens came very close to losing points, yet it meant fair racing. Ferrari cheated by backing Alonso and thus discredited the sport (hence the WMSC hearing). I believe that team orders and team preferences should only be applied when one driver is mathematically or near mathematically unable to compete for the title. Massa at Germany was potentially still in it. So what Ferrari are doing is in fact unfair to all fans as it artificially effects the race results.

Yeah, why not. If the outcome gives Massa more points than Alonso, I promise to buy you a calculator and send it to wherever you live on the globe.

Already answered to this: http://forums.autosport.com/index.php?show...t&p=4567687 .

You'll have to go very far down the ranks of competitive racing to satisfy such needs. F1 is about the worst series you could follow.



Yeah, I just about imagine your embarassment those last two years, watching all that fair racing between Hamilton and Kovalainnen at McLaren.

Sort of. Easy to overlook if one looks for more than just unproven fantasies.

indeed. It's a pitty it had to end with this mildly ofensive remark.

If that's what you think, don't reply, use the Report button!

Oh... That explains why Schumacher is being beaten by Rosberg and Button by Hamilton. Damn, lets have the FIA instate people to make sure that Alonso is beating Massa fair and square. While we at it lets investigate Rosberg and Hamilton too.

You are confused. Team orders are against the rules. Favoring one driver over the other in general is not. My point was if you say somebody has to be an emplyee to know Ferrari is favoring Alonso over Massa it also implies you have to be an employee to know it's not. You said Ferrari was not favoring hence my question. Got it ?

Don't be pedantic; I clearly meant fair with relation to the boundaries of integrity within F1.


The difference between Hamilton and Kova isn't even comparable to that between Massa and Alonso. Massa has beaten Alonso a reasonable amount this season and (switching the Germany results) has a similar points haul to Alonso. On the other hand Hamilton was vastly greater than Kova and consistently beat him hands down. It was very obvious from the beginning that Kova wasn't in Hamilton's league, whereas Massa and Alonso are similar enough to compete. Not that I needed to explain that, I'm sure you could have worked it out for yourself .

I wonder which is more of a fantasy: believing that Alonso is favored in Ferrari or thinking all is fair and square, hmmm.

Never did that in 8 years here. I'm a big boy, I can dish it out and I can take it. Besides your offer for a calculator made me smile. It was like saying that's all I have left to add to this exchange and frankly that's not much.

Try to figure why Massa has been able to finish in front of Alonso sometimes, in Australia, for example. Despite obviously inferior speed on the day. Precisely because Ferrari didn't do there what was common between Ham and Kova at McLaren.

What you're in fact propagating is a predetermined 1-2 situation in which there wouldn't ever be the need for race specific teamorders on the radio, because it would have been made clear to all participants before the race how to behave.

Fair racing, yeah right...

It's all I wanted to add, not becoming dead serious. As an alternative, I could have just called you on talking plain bollocks about the points score, but at the time I didn't see any need for that. Yet if you insist, there we go.

And if you said that I could have said that if you think germany was legit you are as morally repugnant as your boy. Good thing we are not going this route.

How should I know about the 2nd option as I never claimed such? All I can tell you is that the first, i.e. deducting from a single documented case of team orders that Massa is constantly screwed by the team, is not bolstered by any further facts we know of.

Actually the very issue of Massa needing to be ordered aside over the radio indicates that it was the first time this season any favouritism took place.

You not understanding me... It's obvious that Ferrari are favouring Alonso in the sense that should Massa find himself ahead of Alonso he should move over. That's pretty evident if we go by Germany. What the other guy is saying is that Ferrari are hindering Massa, and I've only seen it happening once and that was Germany... So he must be implying that they are compromising his setups because I haven't seen evidence of them hindering Massa except that one instance. Can you mention another or can he?

Don't try to introduce further qualifications to your plain wrong claim in an attempt to make it true. You said Massa has outscored Alonso in the last 4 or 5 races. The only real-world scoring table proves otherwise. So you were wrong, no wiggly-twisty will change that.

The only mistake I made was to assume I was having a decent conversation about their relative performances. On my calculations I inverted the results from germany and didn't even mentioned it because I thought it was so obvious that it wasn't worth mentioning. And I admit, I was wrong for thinking we were having a decent and honest conversation. That was my mistake.

I personally belive that before germany no, Massa had the same opportunities. But that is what I believe but you can never be sure either way.

Oh nice, a dummy mistake introduced as a cover-up for the true one. How original...