Alonso and Vettel

[Lotus49]

However he was proven wrong immediately the next season.

Hindsight again, though?

Well James Allison told him that the car would be so much better in 2015 but he couldn't convince him.

Well, it was better, but still miles off, and then the next year it was too. Not exactly "yay"-worthy, not exactly the kind of performance Alonso would stay for.

And let's admit that Ferrari being that good in 2017 was rather unexpected by most.

I think you still have to put it on Alonso for making poor decisions, Ferrari were so dire that Vettel signed for them.

He's made a good number of decisions that backfired, some that looked bad at the time he made them even. But his decision on leaving Ferrari was fully understandable at the time and only with hindsight can you make that a bad decision.

They still turned the corner in 2015 and it was the second best car and won 3 races, with Alonso on board it might have won more races than that, look what he achieved in 2012, it certainly would have stabalised his situation at Ferrari.

I think the hindsight reasoning is a bit weak when Vettel decided to join Ferrari, I think we have to question poor foresight.

Hindsight reasoning is weak but pretending Seb and Alonso were in comparable situations in their career isn't?

[Lotus49]

It's a fact that McLaren were loading the car with downforce so they could say look how good our car is in the corners and making the straight line speed of the Honda engine appear worse than it was, as soon as Honda put the engine in the STR the straight line speed improved dramatically.

So nothing to do with any work Honda put in over the winter, then? It's purely Honda taking the engine out of the McLaren and putting it into the STR that made the difference? Were they so confident they had a winner that they ended up playing golf all winter, not needing to do any development?

I'd be curious to see just how factual this fact is. Do you have a source?

So far we've had Honda admitting they didn't know that a larger exhaust would give them a power boost, and now you're claiming that they wouldn't have been able to identify that their power was being compromised by a chassis which crippled them? Better let Red Bull know just what clueless cowboys they are considering to take onboard pretty damn quick. They appear to be navigating by the best guess method if you are correct

The proof is in the pudding, 3 months into the season and the engine that McLaren ditched is going to be taken onboard by Red Bull whilst McLaren have sacked one of their designers, the failure was not a one way street.

You have a strange concept of proof. I note you didn't answer the question of whether the improvements were solely down to switching chassis, or whether winter development work may have had something to do with it? Honda have been trying to get it right for years and it stands to reason they would eventually make progress.

When the deal between Honda and TR was originally announced, it was pointed out that this would likely be a stepping stone towards a RB deal, where the junior team would do the development and the senior team would reap the rewards. So if it does happen then it's not proof of anything except that everyone could see it coming. As to McLaren sacking one of their designers, they've clearly not done a good job adapting the car, so it could be that. You have a tendency to read into things but it's best to wait for proof - proper proof - before jumping to conclusions

Honda had already improved the engine in the second half of the 2017 season but the McLaren was still slow on the straights, the Honda engine that started this season was still down on performance to the Renault engine so it's hard to see that they made a massive gain yet the STR was still appreciable quicker than the McLaren on the straights, even now the McLaren is the slowest of the Renault powered cars on the straight, this lack of straight line speed was as much to do with the car itself then the engine and towards the end of the partnership they exaggerated it even more to show how good the car was and how bad the Honda engines was, I think it was Lotus49 that mentioned it, he's a bit of an ace when it comes to these kind of things.

No that's a Honda apologist line, not mine. McLaren just optimised the car for best overall lap time, not strength on the straight. Just in Canada we had Hartley complaining about the low d/f of the STR again, just like Australia where they didn't run enough wing and killed their tyres.

They did improve in the second half last year but it's still 20kw + less than what STR started this year with which is significant.

McLaren's drag issue this year is directly linked to the suspension change they had to make to switch to Renault. The suspension doesn't work so they have to run more rear d/f which is causing excess drag, finally confirmed by EB in Canada though speculated a lot in recent months and called perfectly by a Mercedes source talking to AMuS in winter testing who said McLaren's unique rear suspension offered an aero benefit but would sacrifice too much mechanical grip and it did.

[Lotus49]

They've had to compromise the car for the Renault engine in comparison to the Honda engine, Red Bull don't seem to have any problems with the installation of the Renault engine in terms of chassis performance.

The Renault is a larger unit than the Honda, which has a lower profile thanks to its split turbo design. So it makes sense that McLaren need to make changes, whereas TR don't. Even small changes may have a large impact as they have to move other things around to accommodate it.

Think about it. The claim is that the TR gives Honda more space. How would it do that if the Honda PU were bigger than the Renault one?

The larger Renault engine doesn't seem to compromise the Red Bull chassis performance, neither did it in 2014, if the problem for McLaren was insufficient time to design the car then why sack the chief designer if it was not his fault?

Is this a serious comment? Red Bull have had years working together with Renault so it would look extremely odd if they suddenly couldn't fit the engine. McLaren made the decision to move to Renault quite late and so had to make compromises, which Red Bull would not have had to do. This is surely basic?

What experience of the engine did they have in 2014 when they probably had the best chassis?

Both Williams amd Mercedes had better chassis's than Red Bull in 2014. Only in the wet and Monaco did it look better than Williams and it never looked better than Mercedes.

[Lotus49]

No evidence it was good either, being almost 2 seconds slower using the same engine as redbull in a year no major regulation changes were made tells a lot.

only if you don't understand the changes they had to make to accommodate the larger Renault PU, which by all accounts were substantial. Lotus49 has already listed them but they include the rear suspension, bargeboards, sidepods, floor etc. One account I read on another forum states they even had to move the front suspension forward, too. All that affects the centre of gravity, aero and handling of the car and is pretty major.

We'll never know how good last year's car was. But this year's car is quite different

I don't understand what you are saying here, they knew all this before the end of last season, let's use Brawn as an example they could not even cool the engine properly after they had to last minute switch to Mercedes after Honda pulled out but they weren't as bad as Mclaren.

They dominated the first few races, also Mclaren with the Mercedes engine was slower than a Williams who got beat by Redbull.

What don't you understand? They had to make significant changes to the car which compromised aero, suspension, balance and handling. So why is it hard to understand that this year's car is not comparable to last year's, with all those changes?

Whilst STR had it nice and easy?

Easier than McLaren sure. They had excess room to deal with because the Honda was better packaged which allowed Honda to make good changes.

They've also switched engines in the winter 3 times in a row now.

[Blake]

To be fair to Alonso...

Most of the arguments being put forth in this thread are based on the advantageous of hind-sight. When Alonso made the decision to leave Ferrari there were many forumites anticipating great things from the new McLaren/Honda partnership,Some even predicting an imminent WDC for Nando. There was a lot of hype about the Honda might and recollections of previous Honda F1 success. Can there be any doubt that Alonso had those same visions? The disaster that was coming in the McLaren/Honda pairing was seen by few, if any, and certainly not by Nando.

As an avid Ferrari fan, I was sorry to see them lose the best driver in F1, but given the political turmoil in the team and quality of cars, it is easy to see how confidence in the immediate prospects of Ferrari would fail to inspire confidence. It is hard to condemn Alonso for testing other waters as he had no way of expecting McLarens' troubles nor the Ferrari turnaround. If only be could have known what do many of us do!

[mds]

Ok so he decided a backmarker was the best option, anyone could clearly see Mclaren was going nowhere fast especially with the brain drain going on there.

Repeating my previous reply:
Because never before in F1 history have we seen a team come to the fore after a few lesser years?
I mean what have we witnessed Ferrari doing from 2014/15/16 to 2017?

Allison left Ferrari halfway through 2016. They were being overtaken by RBR. Nobody gave a penny for their chances at that point.

It was his, Allison's design that sent Ferrari backwards in '16 as confirmed by the '15 car Resta re designed and the '17 and current car.

It's easy for one to see that, also one can see how he's getting on at Mercedes this year.

That's hindsight again though, towards the end of 2016 nobody thought Ferrari would be there at the beginning of 2017.

It's not hindsight, I have maintained on here that Allison is an overrated designer and he's no Newey the commentators keep lauding him for other peoples work.

It is hindsight. Maybe you found him overrated but that surely wasn't the general opinion around the paddock, amongst pundits, amongst an overwhelming majority of the fans. Most thought, ESPECIALLY after Allison left, that Ferrari would continue the decline they were in and 2017 wouldn't be good for them.

Now you might have got another opinion on it than just about everybody in the business, but then are you blaming Alonso for not consulting Rockie at PF1 forum?

So yes, hindsight.

[mds]

Renault clearly stated they were not ready for a driver of Alonso's calibre

They stated that in mid-2017 and I have this distinct feeling that Abiteboul basically got spooked by Alonso's perceived negativity at various times during the McHonda period and that he feared the same kind of "PR".

He was less negative at Ferrari, used much less scathing and sarcastig language. Abiteboul's opinion on getting him might have been different if he had stayed at Ferrrari and won a few more races instead of looking like a fool at the back of the field.

even for 2018 Alonso could have presumable gone to Renault

? no he couldn't because Abiteboul said he didn't want Alonso at that point - you referred to it yourself so I don't understand you saying this now?

so Alonso would have gone from Ferrari the 2nd/3rd best team and joined the Renault start up team in 2017 despite the fact that a year later he had no interest in joining Renault, and even for 2019 he seemingly has no interest.

I don't know if he has interest or not, I think his interest for new multi-year projects has disappeared altogether after the McHonda fiasco. I suggested the possibility because if he hadn't endured McHonda, then maybe he would have still had some appetite for a new up and coming works effort.

[Rockie]

It is hindsight. Maybe you found him overrated but that surely wasn't the general opinion around the paddock, amongst pundits, amongst an overwhelming majority of the fans. Most thought, ESPECIALLY after Allison left, that Ferrari would continue the decline they were in and 2017 wouldn't be good for them.

Now you might have got another opinion on it than just about everybody in the business, but then are you blaming Alonso for not consulting Rockie at PF1 forum?

So yes, hindsight.

If I as a fan can see it and people in it can't then there is a problem, especially for a driver, leaving out commentators who are biased.

If Alonso could not look at the track record of an engineer and the base of his information is the biased English media then no wonder he has found himself in his current predicament.

I repeat Allison is overrated asides riding the coat tail of others he has not led a championship winning design team.

So talking about hindsight is when you come off analysing a situation without logic in the first place.

[KingVoid]

When asked in Montreal how he feels about having fewer race wins and titles than some of F1's other great drivers, Alonso said: "In a way it's better this way.

"I will not be happy if I have many trophies at home and people think that I don't deserve them. That would be even harder.

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/13670 ... d-trophies


Looks like a dig at Vettel, but maybe I'm reading too much into it.

[Rockie]

When asked in Montreal how he feels about having fewer race wins and titles than some of F1's other great drivers, Alonso said: "In a way it's better this way.

"I will not be happy if I have many trophies at home and people think that I don't deserve them. That would be even harder.

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/13670 ... d-trophies


Looks like a dig at Vettel, but maybe I'm reading too much into it.

Bitter to the very end, it's laughable I'm sure Vettel cries himself to sleep whilst he is in a club only 5 men are members.

What a jealous and bitter human being.

[Lotus49]

When asked in Montreal how he feels about having fewer race wins and titles than some of F1's other great drivers, Alonso said: "In a way it's better this way.

"I will not be happy if I have many trophies at home and people think that I don't deserve them. That would be even harder.

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/13670 ... d-trophies


Looks like a dig at Vettel, but maybe I'm reading too much into it.

No I don't think you are. Question obviously put his back up a bit so he gave a bit back.

Female doggy question gets female doggy response type of thing.

[Blake]

When asked in Montreal how he feels about having fewer race wins and titles than some of F1's other great drivers, Alonso said: "In a way it's better this way.

"I will not be happy if I have many trophies at home and people think that I don't deserve them. That would be even harder.

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/13670 ... d-trophies


Looks like a dig at Vettel, but maybe I'm reading too much into it.

It does indeed look like a dig at someone... Perhaps even two someones.... Vettel and Hamilton. If his complaint is that championships were won by drivers in dominate cars. Probably not the wisest thing Nando could have said.

[Lotus49]

When asked in Montreal how he feels about having fewer race wins and titles than some of F1's other great drivers, Alonso said: "In a way it's better this way.

"I will not be happy if I have many trophies at home and people think that I don't deserve them. That would be even harder.

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/13670 ... d-trophies


Looks like a dig at Vettel, but maybe I'm reading too much into it.

It does indeed look like a dig at someone... Perhaps even two someones.... Vettel and Hamilton. If his complaint is that championships were won by drivers in dominate cars. Probably not the wisest thing Nando could have said.

Especially not considering his own situation coming up this weekend. Opened the door to some awkward questions afterwards.

This is definitely one area Seb knocks him out the park on. Ask Seb a similar question or one likely to needle Seb himself and you'll get some variant of "I don't care" or "It's for others to say"..etc. Alonso just bites every time.

[mds]

It is hindsight. Maybe you found him overrated but that surely wasn't the general opinion around the paddock, amongst pundits, amongst an overwhelming majority of the fans. Most thought, ESPECIALLY after Allison left, that Ferrari would continue the decline they were in and 2017 wouldn't be good for them.

Now you might have got another opinion on it than just about everybody in the business, but then are you blaming Alonso for not consulting Rockie at PF1 forum?

So yes, hindsight.

If I as a fan can see it and people in it can't then there is a problem, especially for a driver, leaving out commentators who are biased.

If Alonso could not look at the track record of an engineer and the base of his information is the biased English media then no wonder he has found himself in his current predicament.

I repeat Allison is overrated asides riding the coat tail of others he has not led a championship winning design team.

So talking about hindsight is when you come off analysing a situation without logic in the first place.

Sorry mate, but this is all some serious BS. Ferrari wanted him, and they know loads more than you. It's that simple.

[Blake]

Rockie, that is a mighty thin branch yiu have crawled out on there.

[pokerman]

What don't you understand? They had to make significant changes to the car which compromised aero, suspension, balance and handling. So why is it hard to understand that this year's car is not comparable to last year's, with all those changes?

Whilst STR had it nice and easy?

I'd explained it to you earlier. Why do you insist on going over old ground? Renault engine bigger, compromises had to be made. Honda engine smaller, more room to play with.

But let's go down the road again, do you think that McLaren did not have sufficient time to design the car?

If you agree they had to redesign the car, then clearly it's a different one to last year's. so that draws a line under the discussion, no?

Every car is different to the one they had last year.

[pokerman]

You have a strange concept of proof. I note you didn't answer the question of whether the improvements were solely down to switching chassis, or whether winter development work may have had something to do with it? Honda have been trying to get it right for years and it stands to reason they would eventually make progress.

When the deal between Honda and TR was originally announced, it was pointed out that this would likely be a stepping stone towards a RB deal, where the junior team would do the development and the senior team would reap the rewards. So if it does happen then it's not proof of anything except that everyone could see it coming. As to McLaren sacking one of their designers, they've clearly not done a good job adapting the car, so it could be that. You have a tendency to read into things but it's best to wait for proof - proper proof - before jumping to conclusions

Honda had already improved the engine in the second half of the 2017 season but the McLaren was still slow on the straights, the Honda engine that started this season was still down on performance to the Renault engine so it's hard to see that they made a massive gain yet the STR was still appreciable quicker than the McLaren on the straights, even now the McLaren is the slowest of the Renault powered cars on the straight, this lack of straight line speed was as much to do with the car itself then the engine and towards the end of the partnership they exaggerated it even more to show how good the car was and how bad the Honda engines was, I think it was Lotus49 that mentioned it, he's a bit of an ace when it comes to these kind of things.

This doesn't look like proof to me. You stated it as a fact but it's looking like another one of those facts which are actually opinion

Honda did show some improvement towards the end of last year, although they were still well off the other manufacturers. I was one who continually argued that McLaren should continue with them until they got it right, as they would at some point. But they'd clearly run out of patience with it all and felt enough was enough. Now if you're arguing that they jumped ship too soon I'd agree with you, but if you're stating that Honda came good because of the split and this somehow proves that the McLaren chassis was bad and the Honda PU was a little gem, then you're making connections that simply aren't there.

It's obvious that the Honda engine was not good, but this premise that it was holding back a race winning car seems to be wide of the mark, also it's looking like the split is going to benefit Honda more than McLaren, make of that as you will.

we cannot tell whether it was wide of the mark. You cannot judge last year's car on this one's, when so many compromises have had to be made.

Maybe McLaren themselves can

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/43904342

[pokerman]

To Alonso's defense, you can only maintain morale and belief for a limited time. Alonso has been there for 5 full seasons, some years were better than others but 2014 was a proper disaster. 4-5 years into the cooperation, that's a long time to find you're nowhere again.
Even then, it would have taken until 2017 to be competitive, so he would have had to uphold faith in Ferrari for 8 seasons. I think a lot of drivers would have lost faith.

Actually if he had stayed but 1 more year, 2015 wasn't a bad year.

You can't blame Alonso for not being willing to wait 8 years for a car on equal terms with the best. Neither Vettel or Hamilton would wait that long either.

I repeat again though in respect to Vettel he replaced Alonso and walked into that situation.

Different situation based on different recent history. Added to what I said in a previous post Seb was in his mid 20's and coming off of 4 recent WDC's so he obviously had more scope to absorb some waiting for competitiveness. Alonso was in his early 30's and without a WDC in 8 years.

Apples and Oranges in just about every respect.

I see your point but McLaren themselves had not won a race since 2012 and the last title was in 2008 and would have a totally unproven engine, if he couldn't see Ferrari turning things around anytime soon why were Mclaren going to do any better?

[pokerman]

Alonso falling out with McLaren in 2007 was probably a bigger mistake than him leaving Ferrari. If Alonso had just stayed one more year at McLaren he would have had a great shot at the 2008 WDC. Hamilton made more mistakes in 2008 than he did in 2007, as did the two Ferrari drivers.

Yep but Alonso wasn't given preferential treatment so he left.

He left after Monaco or Hungary?

I could've sworn he left because he felt his car was getting messed with and he was at war with his team.

Actually I worded it wrong he didn't actually leave he got pushed, Alonso was getting preferential treatment up until Monaco and then Hamilton complained to the British press that he was just the #2 driver.

Hungary was an argument over who should get the advantage of the fuel burn in qualifying, Hamilton had the advantage at the previous race but his car failed in qualifying so he never got the advantage, therefore he argued it was still his advantage in Hungary and basically he wouldn't back down.

Overall it would have been such a better match up if there had been no race fuelled qualifying and just a straight forward match up like we have today.

[pokerman]

It's a fact that the Honda engine was bad, as admitted by Honda themselves. No evidence that the chassis was deficient.

It's a fact that McLaren were loading the car with downforce so they could say look how good our car is in the corners and making the straight line speed of the Honda engine appear worse than it was, as soon as Honda put the engine in the STR the straight line speed improved dramatically.

So nothing to do with any work Honda put in over the winter, then? It's purely Honda taking the engine out of the McLaren and putting it into the STR that made the difference? Were they so confident they had a winner that they ended up playing golf all winter, not needing to do any development?

I'd be curious to see just how factual this fact is. Do you have a source?

So far we've had Honda admitting they didn't know that a larger exhaust would give them a power boost, and now you're claiming that they wouldn't have been able to identify that their power was being compromised by a chassis which crippled them? Better let Red Bull know just what clueless cowboys they are considering to take onboard pretty damn quick. They appear to be navigating by the best guess method if you are correct

The proof is in the pudding, 3 months into the season and the engine that McLaren ditched is going to be taken onboard by Red Bull whilst McLaren have sacked one of their designers, the failure was not a one way street.

Red Bull haven't been hurt by Honda performance for 3 years already, they actually gained Esso and Tag Heur because of those failings and they'll only take them once they've had mountains of data from their sister team. More apples and oranges.

And the designer fired is the one responsible for something else which is completely new to this years McLaren, the suspension. Which also happens to be what is responsible for the slow speed corner dismal performance this year, with McLaren having to run more d/f at the rear to get the tyres to work which in turn is causing a drag problem.

Might be a link there but that would be an inconvenient truth for those trying to say all McLaren chassis's lately have been bad.

Why sack a designer that has worked at McLaren since 1990 for one bad car when the previous one was so good, unless.....

[pokerman]

only if you don't understand the changes they had to make to accommodate the larger Renault PU, which by all accounts were substantial. Lotus49 has already listed them but they include the rear suspension, bargeboards, sidepods, floor etc. One account I read on another forum states they even had to move the front suspension forward, too. All that affects the centre of gravity, aero and handling of the car and is pretty major.

We'll never know how good last year's car was. But this year's car is quite different

But this just swings back to the fact of how the McLaren was not allowed to be compromised by the Honda engine, the car came first, the engine second.

How does it swing back to that? They had to make changes for the Renault, that's all it points to.

They've had to compromise the car for the Renault engine in comparison to the Honda engine, Red Bull don't seem to have any problems with the installation of the Renault engine in terms of chassis performance.

How many years have Red Bull been running Renault power now? Were they great in 2015 and the beginning of 2017?

Can we stop pretending only McLaren's chassis performance has fluctuated.

In this instance the fitting of the Renault engine has been specifically blamed.

[pokerman]

So nothing to do with any work Honda put in over the winter, then? It's purely Honda taking the engine out of the McLaren and putting it into the STR that made the difference? Were they so confident they had a winner that they ended up playing golf all winter, not needing to do any development?

I'd be curious to see just how factual this fact is. Do you have a source?

So far we've had Honda admitting they didn't know that a larger exhaust would give them a power boost, and now you're claiming that they wouldn't have been able to identify that their power was being compromised by a chassis which crippled them? Better let Red Bull know just what clueless cowboys they are considering to take onboard pretty damn quick. They appear to be navigating by the best guess method if you are correct

The proof is in the pudding, 3 months into the season and the engine that McLaren ditched is going to be taken onboard by Red Bull whilst McLaren have sacked one of their designers, the failure was not a one way street.

You have a strange concept of proof. I note you didn't answer the question of whether the improvements were solely down to switching chassis, or whether winter development work may have had something to do with it? Honda have been trying to get it right for years and it stands to reason they would eventually make progress.

When the deal between Honda and TR was originally announced, it was pointed out that this would likely be a stepping stone towards a RB deal, where the junior team would do the development and the senior team would reap the rewards. So if it does happen then it's not proof of anything except that everyone could see it coming. As to McLaren sacking one of their designers, they've clearly not done a good job adapting the car, so it could be that. You have a tendency to read into things but it's best to wait for proof - proper proof - before jumping to conclusions

Honda had already improved the engine in the second half of the 2017 season but the McLaren was still slow on the straights, the Honda engine that started this season was still down on performance to the Renault engine so it's hard to see that they made a massive gain yet the STR was still appreciable quicker than the McLaren on the straights, even now the McLaren is the slowest of the Renault powered cars on the straight, this lack of straight line speed was as much to do with the car itself then the engine and towards the end of the partnership they exaggerated it even more to show how good the car was and how bad the Honda engines was, I think it was Lotus49 that mentioned it, he's a bit of an ace when it comes to these kind of things.

No that's a Honda apologist line, not mine. McLaren just optimised the car for best overall lap time, not strength on the straight. Just in Canada we had Hartley complaining about the low d/f of the STR again, just like Australia where they didn't run enough wing and killed their tyres.

They did improve in the second half last year but it's still 20kw + less than what STR started this year with which is significant.

McLaren's drag issue this year is directly linked to the suspension change they had to make to switch to Renault. The suspension doesn't work so they have to run more rear d/f which is causing excess drag, finally confirmed by EB in Canada though speculated a lot in recent months and called perfectly by a Mercedes source talking to AMuS in winter testing who said McLaren's unique rear suspension offered an aero benefit but would sacrifice too much mechanical grip and it did.

The optimisation of the car though made it even slower on the straight, Red Bull on the other hand tend to take down force off to make their car more competitive on the straight.

[pokerman]

The Renault is a larger unit than the Honda, which has a lower profile thanks to its split turbo design. So it makes sense that McLaren need to make changes, whereas TR don't. Even small changes may have a large impact as they have to move other things around to accommodate it.

Think about it. The claim is that the TR gives Honda more space. How would it do that if the Honda PU were bigger than the Renault one?

The larger Renault engine doesn't seem to compromise the Red Bull chassis performance, neither did it in 2014, if the problem for McLaren was insufficient time to design the car then why sack the chief designer if it was not his fault?

Is this a serious comment? Red Bull have had years working together with Renault so it would look extremely odd if they suddenly couldn't fit the engine. McLaren made the decision to move to Renault quite late and so had to make compromises, which Red Bull would not have had to do. This is surely basic?

What experience of the engine did they have in 2014 when they probably had the best chassis?

Both Williams amd Mercedes had better chassis's than Red Bull in 2014. Only in the wet and Monaco did it look better than Williams and it never looked better than Mercedes.

I would dispute that in the case of Williams given the superiority of the Mercedes engine.

[pokerman]

only if you don't understand the changes they had to make to accommodate the larger Renault PU, which by all accounts were substantial. Lotus49 has already listed them but they include the rear suspension, bargeboards, sidepods, floor etc. One account I read on another forum states they even had to move the front suspension forward, too. All that affects the centre of gravity, aero and handling of the car and is pretty major.

We'll never know how good last year's car was. But this year's car is quite different

I don't understand what you are saying here, they knew all this before the end of last season, let's use Brawn as an example they could not even cool the engine properly after they had to last minute switch to Mercedes after Honda pulled out but they weren't as bad as Mclaren.

They dominated the first few races, also Mclaren with the Mercedes engine was slower than a Williams who got beat by Redbull.

What don't you understand? They had to make significant changes to the car which compromised aero, suspension, balance and handling. So why is it hard to understand that this year's car is not comparable to last year's, with all those changes?

Whilst STR had it nice and easy?

Easier than McLaren sure. They had excess room to deal with because the Honda was better packaged which allowed Honda to make good changes.

They've also switched engines in the winter 3 times in a row now.

Which allowed Honda to make good changes, which presumably they would never have been able to make had they stayed with McLaren?

[pokerman]

Renault clearly stated they were not ready for a driver of Alonso's calibre

They stated that in mid-2017 and I have this distinct feeling that Abiteboul basically got spooked by Alonso's perceived negativity at various times during the McHonda period and that he feared the same kind of "PR".

He was less negative at Ferrari, used much less scathing and sarcastig language. Abiteboul's opinion on getting him might have been different if he had stayed at Ferrrari and won a few more races instead of looking like a fool at the back of the field.

even for 2018 Alonso could have presumable gone to Renault

? no he couldn't because Abiteboul said he didn't want Alonso at that point - you referred to it yourself so I don't understand you saying this now?

so Alonso would have gone from Ferrari the 2nd/3rd best team and joined the Renault start up team in 2017 despite the fact that a year later he had no interest in joining Renault, and even for 2019 he seemingly has no interest.

I don't know if he has interest or not, I think his interest for new multi-year projects has disappeared altogether after the McHonda fiasco. I suggested the possibility because if he hadn't endured McHonda, then maybe he would have still had some appetite for a new up and coming works effort.

So you are basically agreeing that Renault was never on the cards for Alonso.

[pokerman]

When asked in Montreal how he feels about having fewer race wins and titles than some of F1's other great drivers, Alonso said: "In a way it's better this way.

"I will not be happy if I have many trophies at home and people think that I don't deserve them. That would be even harder.

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/13670 ... d-trophies


Looks like a dig at Vettel, but maybe I'm reading too much into it.

He seems to be quite happy with the winners trophy from Singapore 2008.

[Blake]

Alonso falling out with McLaren in 2007 was probably a bigger mistake than him leaving Ferrari. If Alonso had just stayed one more year at McLaren he would have had a great shot at the 2008 WDC. Hamilton made more mistakes in 2008 than he did in 2007, as did the two Ferrari drivers.

Yep but Alonso wasn't given preferential treatment so he left.

He left after Monaco or Hungary?

I could've sworn he left because he felt his car was getting messed with and he was at war with his team.

Actually I worded it wrong he didn't actually leave he got pushed, Alonso was getting preferential treatment up until Monaco and then Hamilton complained to the British press that he was just the #2 driver.

Hungary was an argument over who should get the advantage of the fuel burn in qualifying, Hamilton had the advantage at the previous race but his car failed in qualifying so he never got the advantage, therefore he argued it was still his advantage in Hungary and basically he wouldn't back down.

Overall it would have been such a better match up if there had been no race fuelled qualifying and just a straight forward match up like we have today.

Lewis screwed Alonso at Hungary, which is why Alonso retaliated as he did. That weekend marked the beginning of the end for Alonso at McLaren. Neither played "fair" and neither of them covered themselves in glory.

[Lotus49]

Actually if he had stayed but 1 more year, 2015 wasn't a bad year.

You can't blame Alonso for not being willing to wait 8 years for a car on equal terms with the best. Neither Vettel or Hamilton would wait that long either.

I repeat again though in respect to Vettel he replaced Alonso and walked into that situation.

Different situation based on different recent history. Added to what I said in a previous post Seb was in his mid 20's and coming off of 4 recent WDC's so he obviously had more scope to absorb some waiting for competitiveness. Alonso was in his early 30's and without a WDC in 8 years.

Apples and Oranges in just about every respect.

I see your point but McLaren themselves had not won a race since 2012 and the last title was in 2008 and would have a totally unproven engine, if he couldn't see Ferrari turning things around anytime soon why were Mclaren going to do any better?

I think they just offered two bites at a cherry he knew he wasn't going to get at Ferrari. I think he was right that Ferrari would take longer than the duration left on his contract before they could challenge Mercedes and Honda at least offered the chance of hitting the ground running like Mercedes. There was a lot of fuss at the time about the split turbo being key for Mercedes and Honda had it as well,and in general a lot of hype.

That and the disillusionment at Ferrari might have been enough to think it was worth a shot. Lewis's gamble being such a success might have had an influence as well. I think there was a lot of things floating around in that time including the death of Botin and LdM getting ousted.

There was probably dozens of factors.

[Lotus49]

Alonso falling out with McLaren in 2007 was probably a bigger mistake than him leaving Ferrari. If Alonso had just stayed one more year at McLaren he would have had a great shot at the 2008 WDC. Hamilton made more mistakes in 2008 than he did in 2007, as did the two Ferrari drivers.

Yep but Alonso wasn't given preferential treatment so he left.

He left after Monaco or Hungary?

I could've sworn he left because he felt his car was getting messed with and he was at war with his team.

Actually I worded it wrong he didn't actually leave he got pushed, Alonso was getting preferential treatment up until Monaco and then Hamilton complained to the British press that he was just the #2 driver.

Hungary was an argument over who should get the advantage of the fuel burn in qualifying, Hamilton had the advantage at the previous race but his car failed in qualifying so he never got the advantage, therefore he argued it was still his advantage in Hungary and basically he wouldn't back down.

Overall it would have been such a better match up if there had been no race fuelled qualifying and just a straight forward match up like we have today.

Not sure he needed much pushing after having to get someone in to give him peace of mind his tyre blankets weren't getting fiddled with after China and Japan. Total breakdown in trust from both sides so why would you want to stay? Made sense for everyone to part ways at that point.

Totally agree about fuel burn qualifying. Rotten waste of time that left many a slanted view on performances.

[Lotus49]

It's a fact that McLaren were loading the car with downforce so they could say look how good our car is in the corners and making the straight line speed of the Honda engine appear worse than it was, as soon as Honda put the engine in the STR the straight line speed improved dramatically.

So nothing to do with any work Honda put in over the winter, then? It's purely Honda taking the engine out of the McLaren and putting it into the STR that made the difference? Were they so confident they had a winner that they ended up playing golf all winter, not needing to do any development?

I'd be curious to see just how factual this fact is. Do you have a source?

So far we've had Honda admitting they didn't know that a larger exhaust would give them a power boost, and now you're claiming that they wouldn't have been able to identify that their power was being compromised by a chassis which crippled them? Better let Red Bull know just what clueless cowboys they are considering to take onboard pretty damn quick. They appear to be navigating by the best guess method if you are correct

The proof is in the pudding, 3 months into the season and the engine that McLaren ditched is going to be taken onboard by Red Bull whilst McLaren have sacked one of their designers, the failure was not a one way street.

Red Bull haven't been hurt by Honda performance for 3 years already, they actually gained Esso and Tag Heur because of those failings and they'll only take them once they've had mountains of data from their sister team. More apples and oranges.

And the designer fired is the one responsible for something else which is completely new to this years McLaren, the suspension. Which also happens to be what is responsible for the slow speed corner dismal performance this year, with McLaren having to run more d/f at the rear to get the tyres to work which in turn is causing a drag problem.

Might be a link there but that would be an inconvenient truth for those trying to say all McLaren chassis's lately have been bad.

Why sack a designer that has worked at McLaren since 1990 for one bad car when the previous one was so good, unless.....

..he had some other suspension nightmares on his recent record and who knows what else.

No-one's saying McLaren nailed their suspension or chassis every year. They've had ups (last year)and downs(Butterfly) in this turbo era alone for example.

He could've been moved on for more than just the suspension of course.

[Lotus49]

But this just swings back to the fact of how the McLaren was not allowed to be compromised by the Honda engine, the car came first, the engine second.

How does it swing back to that? They had to make changes for the Renault, that's all it points to.

They've had to compromise the car for the Renault engine in comparison to the Honda engine, Red Bull don't seem to have any problems with the installation of the Renault engine in terms of chassis performance.

How many years have Red Bull been running Renault power now? Were they great in 2015 and the beginning of 2017?

Can we stop pretending only McLaren's chassis performance has fluctuated.

In this instance the fitting of the Renault engine has been specifically blamed.

Yes and you mentioned Red Bull who's chassis last year was designed for the Renault so obviously they didn't have the same problem as McLaren had with installation as the McLaren chassis was designed for a different one. One had to adapt theirs and the other didn't.

And can we stop with the constant peddling of McLaren unwilling to compromise on their chassis with regards to Honda and their engine. Do you seriously think they're going to refuse Honda changes that will compromise the car but then go and compromise it themselves by switching to Renault?

It wasn't plug 'n' play, they had to change the entire rear of the car and extend the wheelbase so why on earth would they deny Honda the same possibility of compromise?

[Lotus49]

The proof is in the pudding, 3 months into the season and the engine that McLaren ditched is going to be taken onboard by Red Bull whilst McLaren have sacked one of their designers, the failure was not a one way street.

You have a strange concept of proof. I note you didn't answer the question of whether the improvements were solely down to switching chassis, or whether winter development work may have had something to do with it? Honda have been trying to get it right for years and it stands to reason they would eventually make progress.

When the deal between Honda and TR was originally announced, it was pointed out that this would likely be a stepping stone towards a RB deal, where the junior team would do the development and the senior team would reap the rewards. So if it does happen then it's not proof of anything except that everyone could see it coming. As to McLaren sacking one of their designers, they've clearly not done a good job adapting the car, so it could be that. You have a tendency to read into things but it's best to wait for proof - proper proof - before jumping to conclusions

Honda had already improved the engine in the second half of the 2017 season but the McLaren was still slow on the straights, the Honda engine that started this season was still down on performance to the Renault engine so it's hard to see that they made a massive gain yet the STR was still appreciable quicker than the McLaren on the straights, even now the McLaren is the slowest of the Renault powered cars on the straight, this lack of straight line speed was as much to do with the car itself then the engine and towards the end of the partnership they exaggerated it even more to show how good the car was and how bad the Honda engines was, I think it was Lotus49 that mentioned it, he's a bit of an ace when it comes to these kind of things.

No that's a Honda apologist line, not mine. McLaren just optimised the car for best overall lap time, not strength on the straight. Just in Canada we had Hartley complaining about the low d/f of the STR again, just like Australia where they didn't run enough wing and killed their tyres.

They did improve in the second half last year but it's still 20kw + less than what STR started this year with which is significant.

McLaren's drag issue this year is directly linked to the suspension change they had to make to switch to Renault. The suspension doesn't work so they have to run more rear d/f which is causing excess drag, finally confirmed by EB in Canada though speculated a lot in recent months and called perfectly by a Mercedes source talking to AMuS in winter testing who said McLaren's unique rear suspension offered an aero benefit but would sacrifice too much mechanical grip and it did.

The optimisation of the car though made it even slower on the straight, Red Bull on the other hand tend to take down force off to make their car more competitive on the straight.

Doesn't matter if it's slower on the straight as long as it's faster overall, it's not a drag race. Red Bull have a better chassis which produces more d/f everywhere I'd imagine, they can do things McLaren can't you'll get no argument from me on that front.

[Lotus49]

The larger Renault engine doesn't seem to compromise the Red Bull chassis performance, neither did it in 2014, if the problem for McLaren was insufficient time to design the car then why sack the chief designer if it was not his fault?

Is this a serious comment? Red Bull have had years working together with Renault so it would look extremely odd if they suddenly couldn't fit the engine. McLaren made the decision to move to Renault quite late and so had to make compromises, which Red Bull would not have had to do. This is surely basic?

What experience of the engine did they have in 2014 when they probably had the best chassis?

Both Williams amd Mercedes had better chassis's than Red Bull in 2014. Only in the wet and Monaco did it look better than Williams and it never looked better than Mercedes.

I would dispute that in the case of Williams given the superiority of the Mercedes engine.

Some in Mercedes felt it was the best chassis on a few tracks but fair enough, it's hard to argue when the engine was so dominant to be fair.

[Lotus49]

I don't understand what you are saying here, they knew all this before the end of last season, let's use Brawn as an example they could not even cool the engine properly after they had to last minute switch to Mercedes after Honda pulled out but they weren't as bad as Mclaren.

They dominated the first few races, also Mclaren with the Mercedes engine was slower than a Williams who got beat by Redbull.

What don't you understand? They had to make significant changes to the car which compromised aero, suspension, balance and handling. So why is it hard to understand that this year's car is not comparable to last year's, with all those changes?

Whilst STR had it nice and easy?

Easier than McLaren sure. They had excess room to deal with because the Honda was better packaged which allowed Honda to make good changes.

They've also switched engines in the winter 3 times in a row now.

Which allowed Honda to make good changes, which presumably they would never have been able to make had they stayed with McLaren?

Depends what they put forward to the chassis department I'd imagine. It was a works partnership, no one side works alone. McLaren chassis department allowed changes every winter, a big redesign in their last winter and then another to fit the Renault in.

This idea they wouldn't compromise doesn't tally with what we know they did at all so as long as the proposed changes gave them better performance then why say no?

[mds]

Renault clearly stated they were not ready for a driver of Alonso's calibre

They stated that in mid-2017 and I have this distinct feeling that Abiteboul basically got spooked by Alonso's perceived negativity at various times during the McHonda period and that he feared the same kind of "PR".

He was less negative at Ferrari, used much less scathing and sarcastig language. Abiteboul's opinion on getting him might have been different if he had stayed at Ferrrari and won a few more races instead of looking like a fool at the back of the field.

even for 2018 Alonso could have presumable gone to Renault

? no he couldn't because Abiteboul said he didn't want Alonso at that point - you referred to it yourself so I don't understand you saying this now?

so Alonso would have gone from Ferrari the 2nd/3rd best team and joined the Renault start up team in 2017 despite the fact that a year later he had no interest in joining Renault, and even for 2019 he seemingly has no interest.

I don't know if he has interest or not, I think his interest for new multi-year projects has disappeared altogether after the McHonda fiasco. I suggested the possibility because if he hadn't endured McHonda, then maybe he would have still had some appetite for a new up and coming works effort.

So you are basically agreeing that Renault was never on the cards for Alonso.

Can you explain to me how that follows from what I said?

What I'm actually saying is that even if he had not left Ferrari after 2014, he would have been well fed up mid 2016 and Renault might have been a possibility given the renewed factory effort.

[Zoue]

Honda had already improved the engine in the second half of the 2017 season but the McLaren was still slow on the straights, the Honda engine that started this season was still down on performance to the Renault engine so it's hard to see that they made a massive gain yet the STR was still appreciable quicker than the McLaren on the straights, even now the McLaren is the slowest of the Renault powered cars on the straight, this lack of straight line speed was as much to do with the car itself then the engine and towards the end of the partnership they exaggerated it even more to show how good the car was and how bad the Honda engines was, I think it was Lotus49 that mentioned it, he's a bit of an ace when it comes to these kind of things.

This doesn't look like proof to me. You stated it as a fact but it's looking like another one of those facts which are actually opinion

Honda did show some improvement towards the end of last year, although they were still well off the other manufacturers. I was one who continually argued that McLaren should continue with them until they got it right, as they would at some point. But they'd clearly run out of patience with it all and felt enough was enough. Now if you're arguing that they jumped ship too soon I'd agree with you, but if you're stating that Honda came good because of the split and this somehow proves that the McLaren chassis was bad and the Honda PU was a little gem, then you're making connections that simply aren't there.

It's obvious that the Honda engine was not good, but this premise that it was holding back a race winning car seems to be wide of the mark, also it's looking like the split is going to benefit Honda more than McLaren, make of that as you will.

we cannot tell whether it was wide of the mark. You cannot judge last year's car on this one's, when so many compromises have had to be made.

Maybe McLaren themselves can

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/43904342

Didn't see anything in that article where McLaren talked about last year's chassis?

[Zoue]

Whilst STR had it nice and easy?

I'd explained it to you earlier. Why do you insist on going over old ground? Renault engine bigger, compromises had to be made. Honda engine smaller, more room to play with.

But let's go down the road again, do you think that McLaren did not have sufficient time to design the car?

If you agree they had to redesign the car, then clearly it's a different one to last year's. so that draws a line under the discussion, no?

Every car is different to the one they had last year.

then why are you still peddling the myth that this year's troubles proved last year's car was terrible?

[Siao7]

To be fair to Alonso...

Most of the arguments being put forth in this thread are based on the advantageous of hind-sight. When Alonso made the decision to leave Ferrari there were many forumites anticipating great things from the new McLaren/Honda partnership,Some even predicting an imminent WDC for Nando. There was a lot of hype about the Honda might and recollections of previous Honda F1 success. Can there be any doubt that Alonso had those same visions? The disaster that was coming in the McLaren/Honda pairing was seen by few, if any, and certainly not by Nando.

As an avid Ferrari fan, I was sorry to see them lose the best driver in F1, but given the political turmoil in the team and quality of cars, it is easy to see how confidence in the immediate prospects of Ferrari would fail to inspire confidence. It is hard to condemn Alonso for testing other waters as he had no way of expecting McLarens' troubles nor the Ferrari turnaround. If only be could have known what do many of us do!

Agreed with all Blake

[Rockie]

It is hindsight. Maybe you found him overrated but that surely wasn't the general opinion around the paddock, amongst pundits, amongst an overwhelming majority of the fans. Most thought, ESPECIALLY after Allison left, that Ferrari would continue the decline they were in and 2017 wouldn't be good for them.

Now you might have got another opinion on it than just about everybody in the business, but then are you blaming Alonso for not consulting Rockie at PF1 forum?

So yes, hindsight.

If I as a fan can see it and people in it can't then there is a problem, especially for a driver, leaving out commentators who are biased.

If Alonso could not look at the track record of an engineer and the base of his information is the biased English media then no wonder he has found himself in his current predicament.

I repeat Allison is overrated asides riding the coat tail of others he has not led a championship winning design team.

So talking about hindsight is when you come off analysing a situation without logic in the first place.

Sorry mate, but this is all some serious BS. Ferrari wanted him, and they know loads more than you. It's that simple.

Keep telling yourself that.

When Redbull wanted Max they caved in to his demands.

[pokerman]

Alonso falling out with McLaren in 2007 was probably a bigger mistake than him leaving Ferrari. If Alonso had just stayed one more year at McLaren he would have had a great shot at the 2008 WDC. Hamilton made more mistakes in 2008 than he did in 2007, as did the two Ferrari drivers.

Yep but Alonso wasn't given preferential treatment so he left.

He left after Monaco or Hungary?

I could've sworn he left because he felt his car was getting messed with and he was at war with his team.

Actually I worded it wrong he didn't actually leave he got pushed, Alonso was getting preferential treatment up until Monaco and then Hamilton complained to the British press that he was just the #2 driver.

Hungary was an argument over who should get the advantage of the fuel burn in qualifying, Hamilton had the advantage at the previous race but his car failed in qualifying so he never got the advantage, therefore he argued it was still his advantage in Hungary and basically he wouldn't back down.

Overall it would have been such a better match up if there had been no race fuelled qualifying and just a straight forward match up like we have today.

Lewis screwed Alonso at Hungary, which is why Alonso retaliated as he did. That weekend marked the beginning of the end for Alonso at McLaren. Neither played "fair" and neither of them covered themselves in glory.

Well Alonso was campaigning in the back ground for the team to back him against the Ferrari drivers even though Hamilton was leading the WDC, sure Hamilton got paranoid and believed he was being disadvantaged unfairly 3 qualifying sessions in a row but that was the result of Alonso's politics.