TBK-Light.com

yes

Newey: "Karthikeyan has been the bane of our life this year" lol!

How many alternator failures Adrian?

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BTCC Pick Em's Champion 2010
Formula Fun Cup Champion 2013
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He sure didn't hold back his displeasure for Renault either lol.

So errmmmm.... care to comment? Lol

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BTCC Pick Em's Champion 2010
Formula Fun Cup Champion 2013
http://www.the-fastlane.co.uk

Well Grosjeans start off the line was as good as the cars he was alongside. He lost his spots in turn 1 by being very very careful. Given they were predicting you'd lose 2 rows worth of spots, it wasn't anywhere near as bad as they said.

I'd say a bad workman always blames his tools, but he's about to win a third world title with RBR lol

_________________
BTCC Pick Em's Champion 2010
Formula Fun Cup Champion 2013
http://www.the-fastlane.co.uk

I have a massive amount of respect for Newey's skills but I think he his quite the perfectionist so his annoyance towards Renault is understandable.

He must have hated his stint at McLaren.

More was made of the slippiness than was necessary but most of that side of the grid did struggle of the line. Hamilton and Grosjean were the notable exceptions.

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BTCC Pick Em's Champion 2010
Formula Fun Cup Champion 2013
http://www.the-fastlane.co.uk

Well, Alonso did get both Hulk and Kimi off the line.

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Dan Wheldon ¦ 1978-2011
Marco Simoncelli ¦ 1987-2011
Jules Bianchi ¦ 1989-2015
Justin Wilson ¦ 1978-2015

Yeah, I know he's mad and I don't care. I do not care. I did not care then. I do not care now. I'm here to race him.

No offence I find this to be ridiculous.

Alonso has put together one of the best seasons since the 00's given his machinery, spent the majority of the year beating Massa sixways till Sunday. Has out-qualified him in every event bar two, one of which his ARB failed on his hotlap when he had a shot at pole position and now he can't be rated as highly as he had one off weekend?

It was just two weeks back he out-qualified him and raced from 6th on the grid to 2nd [admittedly thanks to Lewis's DNF but everyone benefited from that]. He's readily turned 5th or 6th into podiums all season long. Even "recent races" Massa didn't make Q3 in Singapore or Suzuka. Was outqualified by 3 tenths in Korea, a tenth in India and Abu Dhabi. Alonso's qualifying has gone to crap a little lately won't find me arguing that at all.

When Vettel faced adversity earlier on this year he also had a tough time against Webber. Webber was on pole in Monaco whilst Vettel was 9th for example. Nor did he make Q3 in China. It's not as black and white as everyone likes it to be, nor is Massa as crap or Webber as good as everyone thinks.

Vettel has turned it on recently. Particularly since the car has been extremely good, but to rank Alonso "lower" than Lewis or Vettel after the year he has had due to one weekend is barmy. One dodgy weekend doesn't undo Valencia or Hockenheim or Malaysia or Australia e.t.c.

It's not even a title fight. It's basically Alonso hoping that the Red Bull or Vettel screw up, because the performance difference between the two is massive.

I'm shocked the stewards give penalties for every little thing this season, and they even didn't investigate Karthikeyan for blocking Vettel. I'm sure Vettel would have won the race without this. Vettel was so unlucky today.

But happy to see we have a fight for the championship next week.

Brundle predicted one grid spot (8m) disadvantage, and that was verified generally except for those indeed.

Whahaha this one made me laugh so hard haha

Imo Red Bull had a case to argue that Ferrari breached Article 151c today (bringing the sport into disrepute).

Given that the FIA considers saying "shit" and "fucked" on the podium enough to issue out warnings relating to 151c, I think the unsporting behaviour Ferrari shown today was at the very least borderline.

Teams were also explicitly reminded of Article 151c when the Team Orders ban was lifted.

http://www.fia.com/en-GB/mediacentre/pr ... 01210.aspx

"The article forbidding team orders (39.1) is deleted. Teams will be reminded that any actions liable to bring the sport into disrepute are dealt with under Article 151c of the International Sporting".


What irks me most about this is the pure fact that I expected Alonso to be better than this. Ferrari and himself seem to be too desperate to win it. And I honestly think it's something only Ferrari are nowadays capable of doing.

If other teams were apt to resorting to such tactics things would be a lot different. Red Bull could have easily returned the favour with Mark today in fact.

I don't see why this is ridiculous at all. It hasn't just been 1 bad weekend - Alonso hasn't been at his normal level for a while. At Suzuka he took himself out (and blamed Kimi), at Korea he was only a couple of seconds up the road over Massa, and benefited from McLarens issues. India was pretty good. Abu Dhabi Lewis retired and that was his chance to capitalise and he only gapped Vettel by 3 points. You could see how agitated he was after the race about that. His qualifying runs have been terrible, and he's comprising his entire weekends because of it.

I also don't buy this machinery excuse. Massa today raced from 11th to only a couple of seconds behind Alonso. Had he started in his regular position then it's not unrealistic that he'd have been on the podium. That car is no where near as bad as it was in the opening few races, and hasn't been for a while. None of us rate Massa particularly highly, but he's put in some good performances with a car that is supposed to be terrible.

I'm also a bit confused why Alonso gets so much credit for Valencia. It kinda ignores that the fastest car was taken out of the race, and the car challenging him suffered the same fate, as well greatly being helped by the Safety Cars. The same people crediting that drive will happily tell you how Vettels drive from 24th to 3rd wasn't that good because there were SCs involved. Valencia was a good drive, but it wasn't this mind blowing career defining drive that it has been subscribed as.

I really don't buy that the car is as terrible as Alonso makes out. And I don't buy this "We're not fighting Sebastian, we're fighting Adrian" BS that he keeps throwing out there. Using that logic, Vettel isn't fighting Alonso, he's fighting Ferrari, because they're giving Alonso more help. Nobody else on the grid has a team mate that basically has to sacrifice weekends for them, so I'm a bit bored of hearing about how he's overcoming it all. It just sounds like Jason Platos "I'm driving beyond the limits of the car" tripe. If the Ferrari was that bad then Massa wouldn't be up there fighting with drivers who have won world championships. If the Red Bull was that good then Webber would be comfortably second every week. Lets stop pretending that there is a huge performance gap - this isn't 1992.

I don't think Alonso is a bad driver by any stretch of the imagination. But right now, based on current form, ahead of Lewis and Vettel? Nope. They're both getting the job done in race and qualifying. Alonso isn't really doing either. He's benefited a lot from others bad luck, and his team pulling out some extraordinary team moves to give him an advantage and that is what has kept him in the title fight.

Crap.

Seems to me Ferrari and Alonso were at their strongest earlier this year when there was no pressure or expectation put on them - the car was rubbish, everyone was expecting Red Bull to run away with it, Ferrari morale was at a low. In these situations Alonso excelled while the rest of the grid found themselves unable to maintain any positive momentum, and Massa was nowhere. Now Red Bull's back on form and Massa is battling for the same spots as Alonso, and more than anything people expect Ferrari and Fernando to bring the championship home. They've responded to that pressure with caution and consistent results which is better than can be said for Mclaren, but not good enough to beat an on-form Vettel, and the pressure seems to have tightened Alonso up. The car's probably not as competitive as it was in previous races too, but so much credit's been given to Alonso for winning with a rubbish car, he's got to wear the flipside of that assessment.

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Well I would rather what they did here than what they did in Austria 2002.

There seems to be quite alot of idealists on these pages. Yes Alonso hasn't been at his best the last couple of races, but he is the one who has the chance of winning the WDC not Massa. The team would be complete morons if they didn't try to get Alonso ahead of Massa any way possible for him to win the championship. Yes Massa was faster than Alonso here, but he was so utterly shit at the start of the season that he doesn't deserve to take points off Alonso, untill Alsonso is out of the championship. Just ask Will Power and Roger Penske. Also see McLaren in 2007. It got them nothing.