Alonso wants more respect between drivers

F1 Fanatic round-up

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In the round-up: Fernando Alonso says F1 drivers should give each other more respect when racing wheel-to-wheel.

Links

Top F1 links from the past 24 hours:

Alonso bemoans lack of respect among drivers (Adam Cooper)

“There was definitely more respect then than there is now between us drivers, partly because they knew that, in those cars, they were risking their lives. I don’t want to say that today things are done incorrectly, but I believe there is not that mutual respect, at least not from everyone, that there was back then. It’s a problem that goes back a long way, to the junior categories and I think the time has come to try and get it back.”

Sir Jackie Stewart tips Paul di Resta for Ferrari (BBC)

“Alonso is almost at his peak and to have a young driver such as Di Resta be an understudy to Alonso is something I’d consider if I was at Ferrari.”

Spanish GP – A Home Race for Alonso (Ferrari)

“There is a small price to pay for racing at home and being popular," he explains. "It does create some stress and it does not allow you to relax properly, as there are always photos to be taken, autographs to sign and extra commitments, inside the paddock for the sponsors and outside the paddock with the fans. You just have to manage to deal with it as best you can.”

Young Drivers Test at Silverstone has ‘potential to overlook talent’ (The National)

Yas Marina Circuit chief executive Richard Cregan: “If you’re a good young driver in the middle of a season, then it’s not ideal to be testing a Formula One car midway through the year.”

Brabeck-Letmathe on F1’s future (F1 Kate Walker)

“In an interview over the weekend, future F1 chairman Peter Brabeck-Letmathe spoke of his plans to serve as a non-executive on the supervisory board.”

Welcome to the European Season (Unibet)

My weekly column for Unibet.

Comment of the day

AdrianMorse’s thoughts on the weekend ahead:

It’ll be interesting to see whether Ferrari have made any significant progress; if so, a good start might propel Alonso forward among the front runners. I see Red Bull as the favourites for the victory. Their race pace has been consistently strong, in Bahrain their qualifying pace seemed sorted again too. Webber is usually fast in qualifying in Barcelona, but his starts have only improved this season from bad to mediocre, so it’s hard to see him leading after the first corner. That leaves the other Red Bull driver, who will be keen to get to his routine of winning from pole.

Lotus can challenge for the victory if they are close enough to the front after the first lap. Their qualifying pace has been a bit off that of front runners, but it looked as though they were working on that during the Mugello test. Overtaking will be more difficult than it was in Bahrain, so getting stuck behind Ferraris and Mercedes in the first stint could be costly.

McLaren and Mercedes are a bit harder to read. McLaren showed good race pace in Australia and cool China, whereas Mercedes have only been really competitive in China. In general, their qualifying pace has been more reliable than their race pace, but they still cannot be discounted on Sundays. Both McLaren and Mercedes have often been quick at the start, which could come in handy on the long run to the first corner.

As for the midfield, that is an ever-surprising delight of close competition.
AdrianMorse

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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94 comments on “Alonso wants more respect between drivers”

  1. I suppose Paul di Resta is the closest thing to having an Italian in the second Ferrari seat at the minute.

    1. Still don’t quite see it happening.

      1. Davide Valsecchi finally looks good in his ………….fifth season of GP2

        1. @d3v0 – I think you’ll find the overall talent pool in GP2 is quite shallow this year. There are a few very promising drivers, like Nasr and Gutierrez and Calado, but popular consensus seems to be that Formula Renault 3.5 has much more talent on offer in 2012.

          1. @prisoner-monkeys Watching this year – those are exactly the three I would pick as F1 drivers of the future. Nasr is a star of the future, I think if he keeps it clean – he is a candidate for a top drive/WDC. That being said; is Valsecchi’s manager the team prinicpal of team? He might have a chance that way :D

            In any event; I dont think GP2 is the only place to watch for the future F1 talent; although its certainly the closest. I cant seem to find WSR coverage; but I DID find Formula 2 coverage – and there is this 15 year old kid Tuscher who is running second in the championship right now. Definitely someone to watch.

          2. A bit early to say with Renault 3.5 – most of the talent wiped itself out by the first corner in round 1! I’m looking forward to Monaco, when they and GP2 are both racing. We’ll see who’s better then, and which cars are faster.

          3. @d3v0 Agreed regarding Tuscher. I saw his first races at Silverstone on the TV and he made plenty of mistakes but still finished well. I was pretty gobsmacked!

          4. I hate to partially agree with @PM who regularly talks tosh.

            His mistake is to suggest that the GP2 pool of talent is poor this year. It is in fact poor every year. They’re a bunch of lucky boys with companies who’ve got more money than sense paying for them to drive rubbish cars around the world.

          5. Tuscher put it on pole in his first race hahaha the kid is lightning quick. His starts arent so good though!

        2. Yeah I’d agree with what @prisoner-monkeys said, I don’t think Ferrari would take a second look at many of the Italians nocking around the lower Formulas at the minute unfortunately.

  2. There was definitely more respect then than there is now between us drivers.

    Is Alonso just copy an pasting Stirling Moss, as I am copy an pasting Alonso`s copy of Moss`s statement.

  3. I also long to see the kind of fight for position that Alonso talks about, he is right about the drivers respect but this year even with respect we will not see any racing of that type because;

    1) The rules wont allow it.

    2) The TYRES wont allow it.

    1. Of the above #2 the tyres are the easiest to fix, simply going back to last years compounds or taking both “prime” and “option” up 1 grade of hardness would be a good start.
      Currently it would seem that Pirelli are supplying tyres made from ” intermediate” and “wet” compounds but in a slick.

    2. @hohum I suspect Alonso’s comments are partly motivated by his dice with Nico Rosberg during the last race, which he clearly wasn’t very impressed about.

      So I don’t see how you can say the tyres are preventing wheel-to-wheel racing. Indeed, I’d say it’s because of them that we’ve seen so much of it recently.

      I wonder what Vettel makes of Alonso’s comments following their encounter in Monza last year? I’m sure someone will ask him about that…

      1. @keithcollantine

        Monza? You think THAT was bad? How about the Hungary practice 2006 and the incident with Doornbos? What a hypocrite that man is.

        1. FA’s comment came from Ferrari’s JV/312T4 event where he was referring to the GV/Arnoux battle after which both drivers couldn’t wait to get into the TV tent and watch what they had done, both standing beside each other having a great laugh over it. And FA says now such a battle would not happen due to the car’s aero dependancy etc. And the cars are so safe there is less of a sense of danger and risk. I think the ironic thing about FA’s comment is that it was due to a lack of respect between driver’s, namely GV’s teammate Pironi who ignored team orders two weeks earlier, that many say lead to GV’s distracted demise.

          I can understand some saying FA is being hypocritical, as he has been no angel, but I think most drivers have done some bonehead moves, and I think it doesn’t mean FA can’t wish it was a more respectful time, nor that he would be a happy participant in a ‘nicer’ atmosphere.

          I draw a comparison to NHL hockey here in North America. Much of the talk in recent years has been about the plethora of head injuries, including career ending concussions or accumulative concussions. The comparisons made to years past is that there is no respect amongst teammates. There is so much pressure and money involved, and the players are so much bigger and faster, that it seems everyone is out there to take their man out of his career, not just take him off the puck. The equipment is better than ever and they all feel safer than they did in the past so they just take runs at each other at full force. The veterans of the sport point to a lack of respect amongst the players. There was a time when they didn’t even wear helmets.

          1. classic out of context taken comment and making crazy theories and speculations from it ..so typical for journalism :)

      2. I wonder what Vettel makes of Alonso’s comments following their encounter in Monza last year? I’m sure someone will ask him about that…

        @keithcollantine According to James Allen, he joked about it in the press conference today:

        https://twitter.com/#!/Jamesallenonf1/status/200577665693007873

        (I hope that shows up on YouTube!)

      3. I believe that in the wheel-to-wheel stuff, Alonso’s one of the fairest and safest drivers out there. You don’t see him getting involved in high-speed collisions. He tripped over a McLaren in Canada last year, but that’s all I can remember and he’s probably finished every race since then.

        I thought it spoke volumes that he moved left when Rosberg chopped across him, compared with Hamilton’s riskier approach. I suspect Webber would’ve thought twice about passing many of the other drivers into Eau Rouge last year.

        Once they’ve all retired, other drivers may say that about Alonso, just as Keke Rosberg and Alan Jones do now about Villeneuve.

        I’d love to find out what’s said in the drivers’ briefings this weekend. Maybe BBC can send Jaime Alguersuari to find out, as the driver of the Pirelli test car…

        1. Agreed. For Webber to pull off that move in Eau Rouge, there had to be comlete trust and respect between the two drivers. Alonso and Webber are definitely two of the best about that, and I like that Alonso is calling for more of it. After the Hamilton and Massa crash course extravaganza of last season, I am inclined to agree with him.

      4. @keithcollantine ,respectfully I wish to disagree about the tyres allowing wheel to wheel racing and particularly the tyres selected for Bahrain, it was quite clear watching that race that the drivers felt constrained by the proclivity of the tyres to drop of the cliff if overheated eg. Kimi giving up after 1 attempt to pass Vettel.

  4. Have to agree with Fernando about the respect (something which I have gained a lot of for him recently, since he joined twitter). We saw a lot of incidents last year, many involving Hamilton, that in my opinion were due to a lack of respect.

    There are ofcourse a few drivers out there who do seem to drive with respect for their competitors and we see great battles between them. For example, Hamilton and Button, particularly the last 2 years at Turkey, Hamilton and Schumacher at Monaco last year, and ofcourse Fernando himself.

    The rest however, seem to have very little respect for their fellow drivers, giving no room at all, turning into corners when another car is there and in some cases being down right dangerous.

    1. I agree with Alonso, but he is not the guy who has the right to say this. He looks like a cheater who has never been caught. Remember 2007 at McLaren. Remember “Singapore Gate” at Renault.

      1. Your username is “Hamilton”, and you criticize Alonso for cheating in 2007…

        If that’s your opinion fair enough, but those for me, would show myself that I have an unbalanced opinion. And I would temper it so.

        1. AJ (@ascar2000us)
          10th May 2012, 5:23

          Says the driver who break-tested DC at the Nurburgring.
          @hamiltonjp you may be a Hamilton fan… But Alonso only talks and whines… The last thing he holds is respect for any driver.
          In this regard Button is a hard but fair racer.

          1. With every driver you’ll be able to find an incident where they did something stupid…

            I think you need to be able to look past that.

          2. Webber vs Alonso @ Spa last year…

          3. @infy yes I forgot webber. Also him and Hamilton at Korea

      2. Oh Lewis, don’t do that :D

      3. Neither of which make his statement less valid.

    2. giving no room at all, turning into corners when another car is there and in some cases being down right dangerous.”
      That’s all the funstuff.

  5. Oh that Sir Jackie. Next up: “you know, I am pretty sure that you will see that Daniel Ricciardo next year in the Mclaren.”

    We never wanted this day to come; but he’s become an oblivious old fart :(

    1. And its a pretty sad day when the “on this day in F1 history” is Nick Heidfeld’s birthday.

      1. Bruce Mclarens last race was 42yrs ago today.

        1. @dane-1 now thats what I am talkin about :D

          1. There’s a racing ledge.

    2. @d3v0 – Stewart was probably asked what he thought of the idea of di Resta in a Ferrari, since so many drivers have been named as potential candidates for Massa’s seat. With Button and Hamilton squared away at McLaren, some bright spark of a journalist probably thought that the only British driver who could race for Ferrari is di Resta, and so lead Jackie Stewart into giving an answer that agreed with it.

      Besides, Paul di Resta is the product of Mercedes’ development programme. He’s driven Mercedes racing cars almost exclusively (the only time he didn’t was in the earliest phase of his career), so they’re probably not going to willingly give him up. Especially if Michael Schumacher retires; with Nico Hulkenberg underperforming, di Resta is the most-obvious candidate for a vacancy at Mercedes, unless Mercedes want to take a chance on Robert Wickens (but I think it is more likely they will take di Resta to fill the spare Mercedes and place Wickens at Force India for a year).

      1. @prisoner-monkeys A reporter goading him into the question is really the only way I could imagine he would say it. I dont think he would say it spontaneously, but if he did; then its quite funny :)

        1. I wouldn’t call it “goading”. More “leading”. To me, goading would be the interviewer constantly asking the same question – or variations on it – until he (or she) gets the answer he wants. But most people would be smart enough to work out what they are doing, and would end the interview before giving the desired answer.

          Leading, on the other hand, is when the reporter phrases a question in such a way that the answer is already in it, and the subject of the interview simply repeats it. In this case, the reporter probably asked Stewart “Do you think Paul di Resta would be a good choice for Ferrari?”, and went from there.

          1. Semantics, my dear prisoner. The effect is the same; whether they force the interviewee to answer or whether they give the person their answer for them :D

          2. Deja Vu I’m afraid @d3v0. It’s either infinitesimal pedantic semantic nit picking or ridiculous assertions such as

            @pm I say “cold war” because a cold war is when two groups are technically at war with one another, but they’re not actually fighting

            Clearly you can’t be technically at war!

          3. @pm @woofie

            Clearly a far better description of the “cold war” (approx. 1945–1991) would be – a continuing state of political and military tension between the powers of the Western world

    3. Why?

      Di Resta would do a great job at Ferrari, if he was given the chance. So that’s what Jackie’s saying, that if he was at Ferrari, he’d consider him for the team. It’s not that realistic (as PM explained), but nothing he said was completely out of this world.

      1. @fer-no65 mostly this statement to me seems strange because he has never once been talked about as a replacement for Massa; and secondly hes pretty well embedded into the Merc drivers program. These are well-known and I think Jackie in his enthusiasm for his fellow scot may have gotten a bit carried away. Would I mind seeing Di Resta in a Ferrari? No that would be absolutely fantastic.

    4. I don’t agree, Stewart was talking about Di Resta as a good target for Ferrari, and I’m not sure that’s a crazy statement.

      He was probably asked about it anyway, we don’t get to see the leading questions.

      1. @mike – I don’t think it’s a crazy statement, either. If Ferrari were absolutely going to replace Massa for 2013, then I think Paul di Resta would certainly be one of the top five drivers worth considering, especially if they wanted someone for a long-term arrangement (the others being Perez, Kobayashi, Grosjean and Hulkenberg). After all, when Massa first joined the sport, he was most often seen spinning. But Ferrari took him, sculpted him, and turned him into a quality racer. Admittedly, they don’t have the luxury of unlimited mid-season testing the way they did when they took Massa on, but I think Ferrari could reasonably take any driver short of Narain Karthikeyan and reinvent them as a faster and more-refined version of themselves.

        I also think di Resta is unfairly depicted as being very full of himself, mostly because he pointed out that he beat Vettel when they were team-mates in the Formula 3 Euroseries and Vettel is now World Champion. It’s not bragging when you can back up your claims, but the tabloids know that scandal sells, and so – in the finest British tabloid tradition – they make him out to be arrogant rather than confident because they know the former will sell more papers.

        1. Excellent discussion here guys, and PM yyou just summed it up nicely. Stewart was just waving the Scottish flag a bit, and while the thought of a Mercedes development driver going to Ferrari seems odd, it’s not odd for Stewart to give support and praise to a promising young Scott who is looking to advance his career.

    5. I think sir Jacky is just trying his little thing to help DiResta. Maybe he got a little scared by mercedes’ threats to pull out and he is the only one able to make such a statement. Paul can’t and his manager also can’t.

      1. But Di Resta sucks? :/

        1. He’s a dour jock who’s resorting to safety first racing tactics. And Force India are going in reverse as their main sponsor Kingfisher is on skid row financially.

          Come on Williams – a proper Brisitsh engineering racing outfit. (With loads of SA oil money Yeah)

    6. d3v0 (@d3v0) said on 10th May 2012, 1:11
      Oh that Sir Jackie. Next up: “you know, I am pretty sure that you will see that Daniel Ricciardo next year in the Mclaren.”

      We never wanted this day to come; but he’s become an oblivious old fart :(

      Couldn’t agree more. Thought his comments in Bahrain demonstrated he is a dinosaur who would be best preserved in a museum.

      Plus he’s Scottish and will probably be found regularly mumbling into a pint of 60 shilling about the great Scott’s victory at Banockburn – whilst conveniently forgetting the other 367 times the English kicked their butts

  6. says the man who expects a fellow racer racing for track position to simply ‘move over’ because Fernando is behind him and he’s trying to win a championship in a ferrari?

  7. Re succession in F1, article by Kate;
    One fact should be obvious to all readers of this Blog, and that fact is;

    “There are more tracks and countries wanting to host a formula 1 race than there are spaces available on the calendar”

    Keeping this fact in mind why do people keep talking about Bernie E. in context of being invaluable. I don’t get it, selling a product for which there is more demand than supply is not a huge challenge, any reasonably competent Board of Directors with a little knowledge of the sport should be able to manage it and do so for far less cost to the teams than B.E.
    As an example, the BRDC team lead by Damon Hill won their battle with B.E. over the British GP at Silverstone without leading the club into bankruptcy, I believe such a team could ensure the future of F1 for a small fraction of the money Bernie Ecclestone siphons out of the sport.

    1. As an example, the BRDC team lead by Damon Hill won their battle with B.E. over the British GP at Silverstone without leading the club into bankruptcy

      You don’t actually believe Hill and the BRDC “won”, do you?

      Before they secured the rigts to the British Grand Prix for seventeen years, Silverstone was in a state of chaos. Its pit facilities in particular were very poor; in fact, they were almost as bad as the pits at Interlagos. It got so bad that there were reports of teams bringing pavers to the circuit to create a temporary floor in their garages. The BRDC had been promising an upgrade to the pits on and off for years, but nothing ever came of it. Bernie finally got sick and tired of it, and instead awarded the British Grand Prix to Donington Park.

      I can’t say for certain whether Bernie actually intended to see the race take place at Donington, but the move had the desired effect. When it became obvious that Donington would not be able to host the race, the BRDC pulled out all the stops to make sure the British Grand Prix remained on the calendar. Instead of promising upgrades to the old pit facilities, they instead promised an entirely new pit lane for 2011. And, as per Bernie’s usual modus operandi, he let them think that this had been their idea all along.

      This is exactly what Bernie had been pushing for for the better part of a decade, and where any other circuit would have quickly recognised that their facilities were in serious need of an upgrade, all the BRDC did was demonstrate that they cared more about the history of the British Grand Prix than they did about the future of it. Their complacency very nearly cost Formula 1 the British Grand Prix came very close to destroying one of the few circuits that could reasonably host the race if Silverstone was ever removed from the calendar.

      So I certainly wouldn’t say they “won the battle with Bernie”.

      1. I would, and I still do, if they had caved in to Bernie he would of danced all over them, rushed them into even more debt paying for work by Bernies associates and then Bernie would have pulled the rug out from under them by demanding a higher fee for the race. By letting Bernie send another track into bankruptcy they were able to negociate a better deal.

        1. By letting Bernie send another track into bankruptcy they were able to negociate a better deal.

          By actually upgrading the pits when they said they would the first time around, the BRDC could have avoided the mess entirely. But, instead, they kept procrastinating, assuming that because the British Grand Prix was at Silverstone, it would alawys be at Silverstone. Like I said, this wasn’t a case of Bernie wanting fancy new buildings for him to entertain corproate guests in. This was a case of a circuit with pit facilities that were so bad, teams literally had to bring their own floors for their garages. You can blame the BRDC for not fixing that sooner.

          If Donington pulled through, then I don’t doubt that it would be hosting the British Grand Prix today. Bernie had every intention of taking the race there if the BRDC didn’t shelve their pride and at least fix the things they had said they would fix years beforehand. They didn’t let Donington slide into bankruptcy to try and get a better deal, because Bernie had long maintained that he didn’t think Silverstone was fit to host the race, and if it came down to a choice between Silverstone or nothing, then there would be no British Grand Prix. When Dontington went bankrupt, the BRDC moved faster than they ever had before, and agreed to a new deal. They didn’t make any demands; they just wanted the British Grand Prix saved. They got the race and Bernie got the pit facilities they had promised for years. The BRDC didn’t win. They didn’t even get a draw. As Captain Edmund Blackadder put it, the whole thing was another gargantuan effort by Field Marshal Haig (in this case, the BRDC) to move his drinks cabinet six inches closer to Berlin.

          1. @PM Balderdash

            bernie got a pile of moulah for the longest contract signed by any circuit. Helping up his valuation for the float.

            The float that Mercedes may yet scupper….Come on Norbert…you can take the crazy dwafr

          2. Silverstone runs without government subsidy, money has to be spent carefully, that the BRDC manages to remain solvent and host a Grand Prix shows good management, certainly sufficient to manage Formula 1, and this from a board elected by the members and I imagine without financial reward, that is my point.

  8. Apparently a proposal has been submitted for circuit changes at Interlagos. Don’t panic, though – the changes are pretty significant, but they won’t change the layout. Rather, they call for doing what Silverstone has done and relocating the pits from their current position to somewhere along the back straight. It appears that the Brazilian Grand Prix and the desire to see the Six Hours of Sao Paulo become a regular fixture on the World Endurance Championship calendar makes the move necessary. If it goes ahead, the project is expected to be completed in time for the 2013 Brazilian Grand Prix.

    1. Does that mean tey will change the start/finish straight too??

      A pit lane not on the start finish straight is fine with me. Something different from the rest of the tracks we have now.

      And does anyone know why the pit lane always seems to be on the start finish straight nowadays?

      1. Does that mean tey will change the start/finish straight too??

        Yes. I’m pretty sure there are rules that state the pit straight and start/finish line must be located on the same section of circuit. The only instance I can find of this not happening was the 1981 United States Grand Prix West, which was run over 80 and a 1/2 laps because the front straight was deemed inappropriate for the pit lane and the back straight was inappropriate for the start line.

      2. That’s because drivers sometimes start from the pitlane, and they need to start close to the rest of the pack, else they may have problems…
        And tradition counts too…

    2. Thanks for that, PM. I think it’s a logical move.

      I also heard they’d be making some pretty major changes to the final corner. I think they’re moving the grandstand back to put in some run-off, that it desperately needs.

      1. They’re also going to add a chicane (where, I don’t know, because there’s no space), but it won’t be used by Formula 1.

        1. Yeah, they’re going to put hectares of concrete run off in that’ll remove the fans to binocular distance in the name of safety

    3. I think pit-entries need to be fixed. That should be the main priority for F1 as far as safety at the moment, because although there’s never been an accident (that I can recall), we don’t need to wait for one.

      Watch this video for an example of the potential danger I’m referring to.

      The best solution, in my opinion, would be to make the start of the pit wall a lot wider, and then have a huge tyre wall. I mean, 10 tyres deep or so. Head-on collisions often result in the car being buried in the tyres, so I think a better idea would be to then have a couple of TecPro barriers in front of the tyres to help absorb the impact and also stop the cars from submarining when they hit the wall.

      I think Interlagos has probably one of the most dangerous pit-entries in the world. The racing line sweeps across the track and very close to the wall, which means there could be a chance of a battle (like in that Indy Car video above) resulting in a car hitting the wall. At over 300km/h, I wouldn’t like to think of the consequences.

      I also think a similar system of many tyres and several layers of TecPro would work perfectly at the Nouvelle chicane.

      1. Watch this video for an example of the potential danger I’m referring to.

        The problem there wasn’t so much the pit wall as it was the driver.

        But I do agree – Interlagos’ pit entry is probably the hairiest on the calendar. It’s right on the racing line on one of the fastest parts of the circuit. Especially when the World Endurance Championship visits in September, which will see at least thirty-seven cars in four different classes racing one another.

        So it might be best to move the pits entirely. Yes, watching the cars filter into the Senna-S and trying to escape unscathed is a highlight. But the new first turn, Descida do Lago, is an equally-good corner – a high-speed double-apex downhill left-hander.

        1. I am glad Damon mentioned Indycar. They just raced in Sao Paulo, and while it was not at Interlagos, the temporary street circuit had a pitlane that was not on the main straight. I do not know if F1 rules can allow such an arrangement for Interlagos when the changes are made to the circuit, but if it worked for Indycar, I think F1 can figure out a similar solution. Not having the start/finish line be at the top of the hill in front of the main grandstand would be a cruel injustice to the wonderful Brazilian fans.

      2. Holy Crap, that video is scary. Seems they could but a little more crash-structure at the end of that thing.

        Wait, what a new and wonderful idea to “Spice Up the Show”…
        They should place Refrigerators on the track at random place and the drivers will be forced to drive around. Now the drivers will have to worry about Tire Break-in, Tire Deg, DRS, KERS, the actual race/car, AND random refrigerators on track. Im telling you folks I am a friggin GENIUS…

        1. @javlinsharp, I’m convinced, you are Bernies successor.

    4. @PM Interlagos is a pile of tin huts in a field – I’ve been. You criticise Silverstone but support Interlagos?

      Brazil should be thrown off the calender until they stop the shotgun alley run everyone has to undertake when leaving the circuit and upgrade the field of corrugated iron huts to at least the standard Silverstone was at 10 years ago.

      Another Bernie inconsistancy

      1. Another PM inconsistency!

  9. That’s a shame, I love the placement of the pit exit where it is now. Maybe not the safest exit as it feeds back in halfway through a tricky off-camber downhill S, but fun though! Certainly more interesting than the majority that just feed into the end of the main straight shortly before turn 1.

    1. (in reply to @prisoner-monkeys above)

      1. Very true, while both pit entry and exit are among the most dangerous on the calendar, they are also the most exciting. Interlagos has more character than most of the other circuits combined, so any changes to it, other than in the name of safety, worry me.

  10. My first COTD! Thanks Keith.

    1. Welcome to the club @adrianmorse !

  11. I think Alonso should be last (ok, second to last after Whinemacher/Mister Schumacher) who speaks about “respect on track”.

    1. why is that?

      1. Because respect is earned and not entititled to.

        1. dosent matter who said it more respect and gentlemen drivers are a positive thing to aim for

        2. and how has he failed to earn your respect?

    2. Maybe Alonso is just growing up and maturing as a driver, a competitor, a man. Comeback era Schumacher has certainly mellowed, perhaps Alonso is doing the same thing.

  12. And, in News That Will Come As No Surprise, the Times of India is reporting that Narain Karthikeyan’s seat at HRT is in jeopardy:

    NK, however, may still need a million euros to ensure participation for the entire duration of the championship and this itself is difficult for him to arrange. Sponsors are happy to give him money but not to the team, as obviously, they do not want to be associated with a struggling outfit. Moreover, the contract is loaded. HRT can bring in a replacement driver should his performance not match his teammate’s.

    I also found this part interesting – it seems that Karthikeyan might not be paying for his seat with Euros, but with gearboxes:

    NK does have a sweet deal currently with HRT as his seat is in exchange for components such as the gearbox that is valued at around 5 million euros. The gearbox is a part of the Williams-Jaguar JV and for HRT it doesn’t matter whether NK brings cash or components equal in value (a little cash is involved too).

    Yes, you read that right: HRT have turned gearboxes into legal tender.

    1. Very strange approach from his sponsor. Either they want him to drive for HRT of they don’t, I would think. Apparently it’s not that simple.

    2. Jack Flash (Aust)
      10th May 2012, 10:59

      No surprise. An underlying bartering economy is pretty traditional in Spain, isn’t it?
      Even more so in India.
      Perhaps all the HRT contracts are not payed via Cash Account escrow, but via ‘Bartercard TM’.
      He He :-) JF

      1. @PM Speculation and bunkum. HRT are secretly supported by an unamed (but I know who) pharmaceutical company who are pitching to middle aged women finding F1 as part of the change of life.

        Sometimes you miss the obvious PM

    3. Yeah, I saw this in the paper I remember now. I thought for a moment they were joking, considering how eager HRT were to take Narain instead of promising young talents. But despite being an Indian, I think he isn’t really F1 material, though he could do really good in Endurance Racing…

  13. I am not sure that Fernando has ‘mellowed’, but his obvious criticism of Nico Rosberg I feel was warranted if not a little bit two faced. After all, most grands prix drivers during their careers have been guilty of such things as what Rosberg did. That is the nature of the beast!
    To claim racing is ‘safer’ now than it was in the past to me is dangerous. It’s only three years ago that we were all waiting to here on Felipe Massa’s condition following his crash in Hungary, an incident that could have easily killed him. F1 has done well to go eighteen years without a driver being killed, but as much of that is down to luck aswell as improvements in track and car safety.
    I had to laugh at Fernando’s comments in light of his past history of brake testing rivals, such as David Coulthard back in 2003 at the Nurburgring. However, the bigger picture here is that F1 is trying to ‘improve’ in terms of a spectacle and that means allowing drivers to race each other without it appearing staged. All that aswell being done without safety being compromised, which is alot easier said than done. We all saw, with disastrous results, what happened in Indycars last year when they tried to ‘spice things up’.
    Its a double edged sword. Ofcourse compared to fifty years ago, F1 is alot safer but then again so was commerciel avaition and crossing the street.

  14. Alonso asking for more respect is like a vegetarian asking for more meat..

    1. disgruntled
      11th May 2012, 0:32

      maybe the request of meat by a vegetarian is for a push in a collective standard and is not for his own consumption?

      1. No, for himself.

        1. Not for himself, certainly not.

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