Since Alonso is going to McLaren after this season, do you think he will be as successful as he was with Renault?

I liked his Renault car, colors were amazing.

Hard to say. Depends what Kimi decides to do, does he leave or stay

Schumacher left his team after winning 2 titles with them and joined ferrari...which everyone said was career suicide.

Alonso is doing the same thing, and i expect it will pay off in the long run, just like it did for Schumacher.

Quote from ATC Quicksilver :

Schumacher left his team after winning 2 titles with them and joined ferrari...which everyone said was career suicide.

Alonso is doing the same thing, and i expect it will pay off in the long run, just like it did for Schumacher.

True, but why leave a team you've won a championship with? Especially at that age..

Quote from Phoon :

True, but why leave a team you've won a championship with? Especially at that age..

$$$$$$$$$$$$$

lol, gunn your so right.

He's moving to Mclaren right? I have always thought that the Mclrens aren't the most advanced cars though. I've seen too many crashes and brakedowns and explosions with them. I would have stuck with reno...





if it weren't for te money.

There always seems to be a dominate team in f1, last year it was renault and still is, ferrari are close but renault are still more dominant IMO.
Whos to say that McLaren wont be the dominant team next year. It seems unlikely going on their past few seasons but who knows.
It is probably for the money but it would be good to see alonso stay at mclaren and them build a team round him like schu and ferrari.

Alonso thought he was invincible and he needed a new challenge... if Mac will suck next season as much as it has sucked this year he wil definately have a new challenge...

Quote from Phoon :

Since Alonso is going to McLaren after this season, do you think he will be as successful as he was with Renault?

I liked his Renault car, colors were amazing.

No doubt.

Cheers,

John

Quote from Rappa Z :

lol, gunn your so right.

He's moving to Mclaren right? I have always thought that the Mclrens aren't the most advanced cars though. I've seen too many crashes and brakedowns and explosions with them. I would have stuck with reno...

if it weren't for te money.

It was not the car. It was the driver. Kimi is thinking he is still racing Karts.

Take a look: in a race were Kimi blew up his motor, his team mate Juan Pablo started THE LAST in the grid and finished THE SECOND. With the same car.

Cheers,

John

Quote from Greboth :

There always seems to be a dominate team in f1, last year it was renault and still is, ferrari are close but renault are still more dominant IMO.
Whos to say that McLaren wont be the dominant team next year. It seems unlikely going on their past few seasons but who knows.
It is probably for the money but it would be good to see alonso stay at mclaren and them build a team round him like schu and ferrari.

It's not so strange Ferrari is the dominant team. They have a private TRUE F1 track near their Maranello : Imola.

And both Bernie Ecclestone and the President of the FIA doesn't care about the fact that Ferrari does A LOT MORE of real testing in track than all other teams.

Something is rotten in Denmark, Shakespeare said. It can be applied to some of the facts in the F1 world.

Cheers,

John

When was that? Why he started from the last place? Engine change maybe?

Quote from deggis :

Alonso thought he was invincible and he needed a new challenge... if Mac will suck next season as much as it has sucked this year he wil definately have a new challenge...

I don't think so. If Kimi worked with his engineers just the 10% that Alonso did, probably he'll never blew off his engines as he did.

Kimi has a problem: he thinks he is a STAR. Look at what he did at Monaco: engine blew off and just 10 minutes later he was at a yatch drinking a glass.

ANY OTHER driver would have ran into his boxes to flame his enginners or to speak with them about what was the problem and how to solve it.

Kimi no. Kimi is far beyond the hard work that is needed from any racer that wants to consider himself as a professional.

Alonso is a professional and a very realistic man. He has his foot well on earth.

Cheers,

John

Quote from Blackout :

When was that? Why he started from the last place? Engine change maybe?

Can't remember right now. I think it was in the past season. But I guess yes, it was due to engine change.

Cheers,

John

I was forgetting to say that McLaren have always been a point of reference in the motor racing world since the times of his foundator: Bruce McLaren.

I was also forgetting to say that if Kimi has ever won anything it has been due to the really hard work that his tester did, and no by his means.

He has wasted the talent of the best ever tester: Pedro Martínez de la Rosa.

You can see him right now in the tracks. Here you go.

Cheers,

John

I really dont think fernando will be successful next year, not by a long shot. Lets look at the problems that he will face.

1) He will be with a new team and new engineers and mechanics which he will have to come to an understanding with, not just in testing but in the races when things start to (and they will) go wrong.

2) It will be the first year for McLaren on the bridgestone tyres and while the new control tyre will be new to all teams there will be others that have more contact with Bridgestone's basic philosophy which will give them at least a slight edge.

3) New and unproved car designer, This is the first post Newy year for Mclaren and while they have had to develop this years car without him it will be the first year that they have had to start from scratch. Another point is that depending on who his teammate actually turns out to be they are likely to get time to start deveoping the new car around themselves as Fernando cant drive the new Mclaren until at least the end of the season for contractual reasons. This brings us to number 4

4) The different philosophy of building cars. Each team has different ways that they like to build the car and it takes a while to get used to a different team's construction ethos. Whereas the Renault has been characterized by medium power with a very felixble and responsive chassis that is kind to the tyres but has a bit of understeer built in the McLaren for '07 will most likely be similar to this years car which seems quite different. This will take some getting used to (not saying he isn't up to it just that it will take time)

For those reasons not to mention the question mark over reliability which has been bullet proof at renault this year bar hungary, i think Fernando is about to come down to earth with a bump next year. Renault while not perfect over the past couple of years has always given Fernando an honest shot at the title. It will take time to make Alonso a consistent winner in the McLaren so it will be interesting to see when/if he is fighting for another title. There is the schumacher precedent with ferrari but there are also many for whom it has gone horribly wrong: Hill, Villeneuve and others who have left their championship winning team and never gone back. I hope for his sake that he does make it work but i dont think it will happen soon and definetly not next year.


PS. Sorry for the monster post

Quote from ElAbad :

Kimi has a problem: he thinks he is a STAR. Look at what he did at Monaco: engine blew off and just 10 minutes later he was at a yatch drinking a glass.

Alonso is a professional and a very realistic man. He has his foot well on earth.

And his head screwed on backwards...
He's waving like he owns the track when he exits the pits... If someone doesn't move quickly enough he tries to annoy the crap out of them by blocking like mad man... And you say Kimi thinks he's a star?

I'm sorry, I used to like Alonso, and I grant him he can drive fast.. I'm just hoping that McLaren next season will get his feet back on the ground, because right now, they're floating at 50000 feet.

No, I don't think Alonso will score over 20 points next season.

The other thing you must consider is that McLaren are looking at getting a 2nd team run by Prodrive. The benefit of that would be immense, and McLaren are in F1 long term. They are not a big manufacturer that will pull out when its no longer profitable for them to be there.

Fernando is looking long term here, which i think is a very smart thing to do because he is still young and needs a fast team for many years to come.


Oh and i like him being a bit hot headed, he is starting to liven up the on track action. So is Schumacher, you can see how much they both want to win, its great! Unlike Mr Iceman who just looks blankly at the road and his McLaren designed brain takes over.

Quote from RockBottomWalsh :

PS. Sorry for the monster post

Don't apologize, it was a good post and you make some excellent points.

Quote from ElAbad :

I don't think so. If Kimi worked with his engineers just the 10% that Alonso did, probably he'll never blew off his engines as he did.

Kimi has a problem: he thinks he is a STAR. Look at what he did at Monaco: engine blew off and just 10 minutes later he was at a yatch drinking a glass.

ANY OTHER driver would have ran into his boxes to flame his enginners or to speak with them about what was the problem and how to solve it.

Kimi no. Kimi is far beyond the hard work that is needed from any racer that wants to consider himself as a professional.

Alonso is a professional and a very realistic man. He has his foot well on earth.

Cheers,

John

I admire Alonso for what he is achieving but really, get your facts right illepall

Kimi is an amazing driver and I for one loved seeing him and Alonso fight it out. You talk of him saying he still drives like he drives in karts, please explain that? Kimi did a season of Formula Renault before entering F1 if I remember correctly, in fact i think he won more than half the races. You can throw karts around a good bit but being smooth is the key to winning and smashing over kerbs to often can result in the chain breaking. Racing a kart which is pretty much the same as the ones following and in front means you the driver have to make the difference.

The engine did not blow up in Monaco neither did Webbers. The heat shields got so hot that the bodywork caught fire. To me Kimi is far more professional about things when it comes to failures. He keeps his head and doesn't start screaming out at whose to blame for what. Last year showed me that Kimi is a champion, fighting back from 10 place drops and not losing his cool. Alonso maybe a good drive but I've seen him crack under pressure more than I've seen Kimi.

How can you say that if Kimi did the extra 10% that Alonso does he'd not have engine blow ups? What is he going to do, head off to Mercedes and help them design the engine. The team has all the data, he can't tell them how to build an engine. His job is to drive the car and give the feedback necessary to set it up. He does that well enough that he can pull the results out of the bag.

McLaren have had a track record for car failures. Coulthard is as smooth as you like and he suffered from the same problems.

I guess your like the Schumacher fan of Alonso, no one can match him Like it or not but Kimi will be up there with Alonso for years to come.

Personally I think Alonso might struggle a bit next season even if the car is up to spec. That Renault has been very much built around him and always has a load of understeer which he seems to like. I think he'll probably find himself having to change his driving style a bit from what he has gotten used to.

Keiran

Thank you Keiran from putting my toughts in to words and in beatifull meaningfull sentences forehand, my thoughts excatly. Well said

I couldn't agree more.

I just wanted to add that Mclaren has been quite unreliable in past years. Wasn't that one of the reasons why Mika Häkkinen quit too? Even if Räikkönen was rough to the car, Häkkinen defenately wasn't and he got his share of engine failures.

No he wont.

Quote :

Since Alonso is going to McLaren after this season, do you think he will be as successful as he was with Renault?

Fernando has been very impressive in previous years, but this year he hasn't exactly dazzled. Is he going to be a Villeneuve?