83 replies to this topic

[Massa]

I can't see Alonso losing the title.  In a way, it's underwhelming, in another way, it's absolutely incredible he's held on this long, let alone if he can do it for another six races.

My dream scenario:

Vettel wins the next four races and the others do enough to not factor into the title at all (not out of personal preference, just out of a personal dislike for championship battles featuring more than two drivers ).  Alonso third in one, second in the others.  Vettel has a 2 point lead going into the penultimate round...but then he retires and Alonso wins, giving Alonso a 23 point lead for Brazil.  Vettel must win, and Alonso must be ninth or worse.  Alonso retires on the first lap while Vettel leads narrowly over Felipe Massa.  It is all on Massa to win the final Grand Prix of his career and win the WDC for his teammate and he makes a beautiful overtake with two to go and valiantly defends from Vettel to win the race, giving Alonso the title by 5 points and retiring a hero in the eyes of everyone at Ferrari.

My predicted scenario:

Hamilton and Vettel split the next few races while Alonso does enough damage control to prevent any real drama in the standings.

My other prediction:

Ferrari's reliability (so far, very good) determines everything.

If Hamilton wins the next six races from Vettel, Alonso, and Räikkönen, the points look like:

Hamilton 292
Alonso 284
Vettel 273
Räikkönen 221

My point being?  If Alonso can average out to a third place driver for the rest of the year, Hamilton either wins 5-6 races or he doesn't win the title, end of story.  Räikkönen would be in a similar spot given that he, like Hamilton, has to make up a ton of ground on both Alonso and Vettel; making it up on one, obviously, is not enough.

Now, that depends on Alonso averaging 15 points per race.  Thus far, he's averaged ~13.85; take out the retirement and it's ~14.92.  But that's with his three wins in there; I don't really think anyone is expecting Alonso to win again this season.  So it's not totally over but let's say he averages 12 per race...Vettel would need to average ~16.83 to beat him, and Hamilton would need to average exactly 25 (meaning win all six races) to beat Alonso, and ~20.66 per race to beat Vettel if Vettel is on a pace of ~16.83.

Can Alonso average 12 per race?  Yeah, he can; that'd be a 13.36% reduction in points per race from the rest of the season.  Can he do it with a retirement?  He'd need 14.4 points per the five races he finished.  That's a 3.49% reduction in points per race finished from the rest of the season.  Keep in mind, though, that was back when he won races.

SparkNotes: A lot of numbers are going to happen and I think Alonso will end up with a high one.

[Massa]

Oh, and, yeah, Massa/Senna was awesome.

[JHS18]

An alright race I guess. Happy to see Vettel take his second win of the year - deserved after what happened at Valencia with the alternator. Cool to see him dedicate the win to Sid Watkins too. Kid's got class. Still a long way to go, but looks like it'll boil down to a title fight between Alonso and Vettel, something I'd be happy to see.

Few things though.

Driving standards once again pretty shoddy. Senna's clumsy defence on Massa was the one that was right on the edge, but Perez bumping into Hulkenberg, and then that chaos between Webber, the two Saubers and Hulkenberg stand out as the worse ones. Not sure what there really is to say on the Schumacher/Vergne incident either, apart from to quote his race engineer himself: what happened there?

A few SC grievances though.

Whilst I do think that it is great to get the lapped cars out the way on a restart, surely there's a better way. Karthikeyan's car didn't take ages to clear up, but the SC was out for what felt like forever. Can't the lapped cars just drop to the back instead of overtaking the safety car? Also, why do they have to wait so long for the back markers to catch up? I understand it when it is the front cars...but come on, de la Rosa or whoever it was everyone was waiting for wasn't going to be challenging for points was he? Pretty meaningless to wait so long - just let the slow cars unlap themselves and then go green the very next lap. Saves a lot of waiting around, particularly on a track as long as this one.

Second point was following the second accident. Soon as it happened I said that it'd be another safety car. So why on earth did they only deploy the safety car after the field had just passed the pit lane? It wasn't as if they didn't have time to deploy in time - talk about wasting unnecessary laps. Poor show from the race directors today.

So yeah, other than that, enjoyable if not a classic. Looking forwards to Suzuka, it is an awesome track and tends to produce some fantastic action. I'll forever think of it as the race that decides the championship, which always used to do, and equally I'll always remember races like '05. Now that was a classic race.

Think Red Bull will be strong there again, and from what I've read, Sauber could be pretty good as well.

[Quiet One]

Funny race. Not fun, but funny. Typical attrition race which means lots of tension and no action. I liked it. This is how this year's Monaco should have been.

All it missed was the rain and the Rainiers (see what I did there? har har har) to be the true Montecarlo 2.0

Gutted for Hamilton, malgé moi.

Massa showing how he could sometimes be sublime in all his clumsiness. What a save!

Schumi...the less said, the better. Unless it actually was some freakish glitch making his car suddenly accelerate and then brake locking his four wheels, I very much suspect that the "freaking glitch" was Schumi himself...

Special mention everybody's favorite socket Puppet Mr.Glock.

Paul Di Resta finally doing something worth of note outside UK.

Amazingly, a little gutted for Madlonado as well, although I loved the way Alonso drove the kid insane without getting too close to the suicidal Venezuelan guy.

Button again showing he is no Hamiltono which is both good and bad. This time in a bad sense. He was second only because everybody behind him was too slow. Lewis in that same car was blowing the whole field away. Either Jense is too slow or he and his crew can't properly setup the car to extract more out of it.

And congratulations to Vettel for a damn fine piece of driving are in order. You earned the right to pierce our ears again, kiddo.

[Insider]

Quiet One, on 23 September 2012 - 07:20 PM, said:

Button again showing he is no Hamiltono which is both good and bad. This time in a bad sense. He was second only because everybody behind him was too slow. Lewis in that same car was blowing the whole field away. Either Jense is too slow or he and his crew can't properly setup the car to extract more out of it.

I think you can tell when JB and the car are as one. Just check the speed trap times. He was quick on Friday and his long run pace was decent until some debris got into his front wing flaps. Whatever transpired after that put him a clear second of Lewis's pace. Personally, I feel he messes too much with the car on some weekends. That's the problem with setting your own car up. Lewis basically just drives what he's given more or less and thereby hangs a tale. It's clear to me that the gearbox was flagging up problems after P3 and the team took a risk. With Lewis pace on Saturday, I would have swallowed the 5 grid places and let him race his way to the top step. The result however was nada. McLaren really need to up their game as far as decision making is concerned if they want this WCC.

[Quiet One]

Hehehe:

Quote

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner said he believed all the drivers in the top six in the championship were still in contention.
"The championship is wide open. It's just annoying Fernando keeps popping up on the podium at the end of the grand prix," he said.

[AleHop]

Quiet One, on 24 September 2012 - 12:18 PM, said:

Hehehe:

I read he implied after the race that Alonso was lucky in Singapore. Claro, amigüito Horner. Poor Vettel, he was so unfortunate with Hamilton mechanical failure...

If Red Bull solve the problems they had in the last fast tracks then the title could be Vettel's. Horner should stop popping up crying on the media at the end of every GP.

[Rainmaster]

AleHop, on 24 September 2012 - 05:11 PM, said:

I read he implied after the race that Alonso was lucky in Singapore. Claro, amigüito Horner. Poor Vettel, he was so unfortunate with Hamilton mechanical failure...

If Red Bull solve the problems they had in the last fast tracks then the title could be Vettel's. Horner should stop popping up crying on the media at the end of every GP.

He did say that during a BBC interview just after the podium ceremony, although it seemed less of a "prepared statement" and more of a conversational thing. I don't think he'd really thought about it, or he actually thinks Alonso is/was lucky, is what I mean. In any case, Eddie Jordan quickly made the same point as you

[BradSpeedMan]

Insider, on 24 September 2012 - 08:14 AM, said:

Lewis basically just drives what he's given more or less and thereby hangs a tale.

U really think so?

[BradSpeedMan]

AleHop, on 24 September 2012 - 05:11 PM, said:

I read he implied after the race that Alonso was lucky in Singapore. Claro, amigüito Horner. Poor Vettel, he was so unfortunate with Hamilton mechanical failure...

If Red Bull solve the problems they had in the last fast tracks then the title could be Vettel's. Horner should stop popping up crying on the media at the end of every GP.

I understand what you're saying, the thing is... Vettel could have won the race from where he was behind Lewis, whether by pitstop or another blinding overtake which he seems to be doing quite regularly this year and must be a shock to the system for the regular Vettel bashers... they've gone quite "quiet" on him

Edited by BradSpeedMan, 25 September 2012 - 01:33 AM.

[AleHop]

Rainmaster, on 25 September 2012 - 12:24 AM, said:

He did say that during a BBC interview just after the podium ceremony, although it seemed less of a "prepared statement" and more of a conversational thing. I don't think he'd really thought about it, or he actually thinks Alonso is/was lucky, is what I mean. In any case, Eddie Jordan quickly made the same point as you.

Which point? Vettel being luckier or Horner crying too often? Maybe I'm a twin soul with EJ.

Everybody criticizes EJ but I agree with him quite often. I don't think he's that bad.

BradSpeedMan, on 25 September 2012 - 01:32 AM, said:

I understand what you're saying, the thing is... Vettel could have won the race from where he was behind Lewis, whether by pitstop or another blinding overtake which he seems to be doing quite regularly this year and must be a shock to the system for the regular Vettel bashers... they've gone quite "quiet" on him.

Brad, I'm not saying he was lucky. I'm saying Horner is absolutely biased and whining. In my opinion Vettel could never have won the race vs. Hamilton in "normal" citcumstances but that's just my opinion. I don't think he was lucky, he did what he had to do and he did it right. The word 'luck' rarely applies in motorsport and I'm not a Vettel basher.

Curiously my sentiment is that Alonso's been driving amazingly and his bashers have gone quiet.

[BradSpeedMan]

AleHop, on 25 September 2012 - 02:55 AM, said:

Which point? Vettel being luckier or Horner crying too often? Maybe I'm a twin soul with EJ.

Everybody criticizes EJ but I agree with him quite often. I don't think he's that bad.


Brad, I'm not saying he was lucky. I'm saying Horner is absolutely biased and whining. In my opinion Vettel could never have won the race vs. Hamilton in "normal" citcumstances but that's just my opinion. I don't think he was lucky, he did what he had to do and he did it right. The word 'luck' rarely applies in motorsport and I'm not a Vettel basher.

Curiously my sentiment is that Alonso's been driving amazingly and his bashers have gone quiet.

I didn't mean to indicate that I consider you a Vettel basher... I meant in general. and hey, everyone's been praising Alonso's driving, including me...

[AleHop]

BradSpeedMan, on 25 September 2012 - 03:06 AM, said:

I didn't mean to indicate that I consider you a Vettel basher... I meant in general. and hey, everyone's been praising Alonso's driving, including me...

No, not everyone. See turbokick.

[Quiet One]

You should have noticed, dear Brad, that the fact that I keep calling myself a Vettel hater or a Hamilton hater is more a mockery of my own bias (and bias in  general) than actual truth. Ditto for my exagerated love for Alonso. I don't believe Alonso can resurrect the dead, nor I think Vettel/Hamilton eat children. In fact, "the finger" does not bother me at all. I just play with the stereotype (no, not when it comes to his slow down laps after the races...I DO hate those yahooos, sorry)

And if you paid more attention to the actual things I said besides "I hate Vettel" you would have noticed that I always gave him credit and I still consider him a top three driver, perhaps with more potential than Hamilton, not because of natural talent, but because he takes this seriously and learns and puts a lot of effort. As for his personality, I also already metioned that I have little insight on any driver because I only see them during the races and what little they show up until the podium ceremony. From there, anything else is what the media feed us via websites. I rarely seen them in more relaxed situations being interviewed.
But from what little I seen Seb seemed a lot nicer and authentica than the tense character he (and all drivers) show at the post race press conference, or during race weekend.

The last big criticism I made of him is the simple fact that he was unproven under many circumstances despite being 2 times WDC. In fact, this year was a better display case of Vettel's capabilities and shortcomings than his previous 2 years.

Anyways, I would not consider myself a Vettel hater, nor am I sure why do you consider me so.

[LabradoRacer]

Vettel too benefited from Lewis's retirement. He gained 10 points instead of 6 over Alonso.

[LabradoRacer]

BradSpeedMan, on 25 September 2012 - 01:32 AM, said:

I understand what you're saying, the thing is... Vettel could have won the race from where he was behind Lewis, whether by pitstop or another blinding overtake which he seems to be doing quite regularly this year and must be a shock to the system for the regular Vettel bashers... they've gone quite "quiet" on him

Unlikely. Lewis was driving the wheels off his car. He'd a nice lead to disallow pitstop overtake as well. If Macca has a reliable car for the remaining races, it'll make it harder for Vettel to reel in Alonso.

[BradSpeedMan]

Quiet One, on 25 September 2012 - 11:59 AM, said:

You should have noticed, dear Brad, that the fact that I keep calling myself a Vettel hater or a Hamilton hater is more a mockery of my own bias (and bias in  general) than actual truth. Ditto for my exagerated love for Alonso. I don't believe Alonso can resurrect the dead, nor I think Vettel/Hamilton eat children. In fact, "the finger" does not bother me at all. I just play with the stereotype (no, not when it comes to his slow down laps after the races...I DO hate those yahooos, sorry)

And if you paid more attention to the actual things I said besides "I hate Vettel" you would have noticed that I always gave him credit and I still consider him a top three driver, perhaps with more potential than Hamilton, not because of natural talent, but because he takes this seriously and learns and puts a lot of effort. As for his personality, I also already metioned that I have little insight on any driver because I only see them during the races and what little they show up until the podium ceremony. From there, anything else is what the media feed us via websites. I rarely seen them in more relaxed situations being interviewed.
But from what little I seen Seb seemed a lot nicer and authentica than the tense character he (and all drivers) show at the post race press conference, or during race weekend.

The last big criticism I made of him is the simple fact that he was unproven under many circumstances despite being 2 times WDC. In fact, this year was a better display case of Vettel's capabilities and shortcomings than his previous 2 years.

Anyways, I would not consider myself a Vettel hater, nor am I sure why do you consider me so.

Whhaaaa????? Oh come on Andres...U a Vettel hater???

[BradSpeedMan]

Oh, it was the quiet word wasn't it!!!
LOL!!!!!

Edit: Sorry for the misunderstanding folks, I've been very busy and scrambling a reply on here, which my dear friends think was directed at them...EISH, the power of the internet!!

Edited by BradSpeedMan, 25 September 2012 - 02:24 PM.

[Quiet One]

BradSpeedMan, on 25 September 2012 - 02:19 PM, said:

Oh, it was the quiet word wasn't it!!!
LOL!!!!!

Edit: Sorry for the misunderstanding folks, I've been very busy and scrambling a reply on here, which my dear friends think was directed at them...EISH, the power of the internet!!

Well, the word was between quotation marks, I though "wow, that was subtle!"

I took no offense, in any way, I was just surprised you thought of me as a Vettel hater. The fact that I think he is a crybaby, cheating, wrongdoer, Sabbath breaking, sour loser SOB does not mean I think bad of him!

Seriously, I don't know where do you get those ideas...tsk tsk.

[BradSpeedMan]

Quiet One, on 25 September 2012 - 02:52 PM, said:

Well, the word was between quotation marks, I though "wow, that was subtle!"

I took no offense, in any way, I was just surprised you thought of me as a Vettel hater. The fact that I think he is a crybaby, cheating, wrongdoer, Sabbath breaking, sour loser SOB does not mean I think bad of him!

Seriously, I don't know where do you get those ideas...tsk tsk.

seriously, it wasn't intentional...so much that I couldnt/would'nt have remember if u ever said anything deragatory about Vettel, and I'm to lazy to check past threads lol

Edited by BradSpeedMan, 25 September 2012 - 03:40 PM.

[BradSpeedMan]

Actually Andres, this could be quite a marketing case study. I've always been fascinated by how brands own certain words, in your case, the word quiet triggers familiarity with your presence on here.

We might be onto something worth million bucks on here, we just need to connect the dots

[Rainmaster]

AleHop, on 25 September 2012 - 02:55 AM, said:

Which point? Vettel being luckier or Horner crying too often? Maybe I'm a twin soul with EJ.

Everybody criticizes EJ but I agree with him quite often. I don't think he's that bad.


Brad, I'm not saying he was lucky. I'm saying Horner is absolutely biased and whining. In my opinion Vettel could never have won the race vs. Hamilton in "normal" citcumstances but that's just my opinion. I don't think he was lucky, he did what he had to do and he did it right. The word 'luck' rarely applies in motorsport and I'm not a Vettel basher.

Curiously my sentiment is that Alonso's been driving amazingly and his bashers have gone quiet.

EJ just said that if you want to talk about Alonso being lucky then let's talk about Vettel! Pretty logically consistent for EJ, and I think it shut Horner up on that one

[AleHop]

Rainmaster, on 25 September 2012 - 05:28 PM, said:

EJ just said that if you want to talk about Alonso being lucky then let's talk about Vettel! Pretty logically consistent for EJ, and I think it shut Horner up on that one

He's my Hero!

[AleHop]

LabradoRacer, on 25 September 2012 - 12:27 PM, said:

Vettel too benefited from Lewis's retirement. He gained 10 points instead of 6 over Alonso.

Benefited is a better word than lucky. Vettel had to do a good start, overtake a few cars and make his strategy work to capitalize on Hamilton's retirement. Besides that, reliability is an important variable in motorsport.

Unlucky Alonso when sitting duck Grosjean crashed into him. :-(