International Racing Driver Of The Year

[Kopite Girl 0]

Oh, stop all the Steph-love you big fat Irish crooner. I could beat it with my hands tied behind my back but I know Steph' would hunt me down and kick my testicles. That's the only reason I will not attempt to trump her.

You are my hero.

Lewis Hamilton M.B.E

SIR Chris Hoy.

[Fed up 0]

SIR Chris Hoy.

[Autumnpuma 0]

Firstly I think it's ridiculous you can argue a quarter of the field were the best. Secondly, I'm yet to see any evidence that Alonso was the one responsible for improving the car, as Gazetto dello Doubt claims. The Italian journos must be mystified why Ferrari turned down the greatest engineer in F1 for a second time in favour of someone whose main achievement in 2008 is keeping Findlandia in business through difficult times. Couldn't we equally give it to Vettel on the basis of improving a car anyway?

Renault know the kind of car Fernando needs to truly drive fast and Fernando is very good at giving his engineers specific directions. Basically, Fernando knows what he wants in a car, he communicates that to his team and they actually listen to him. Simple, really.

Yes and no.

I agree with the first part as well. I'm sober so I *think* you're disagreeing with the second part...and so do I. Hunt, from what I've read (I started F1 in the early '80s...a smidge too late to be a first-hand witness), had fantastic skill behind the wheel. Lauda, good friends with Hunt, constantly praised him as being the better driver.

EDIT: As to the award, I believe it should go to the WDC every time. Formula 1 is the most advanced and difficult formula on the planet to succeed in and any driver that plays all the variables of each testing session, qualifying and race, throughout the whole season, and amasses the most points, is a clear International Racing Driver of the Year.

[mikathegreat2 2]

Oh, stop all the Steph-love you big fat Irish crooner. I could beat it with my hands tied behind my back but I know Steph' would hunt me down and kick my testicles. That's the only reason I will not attempt to trump her.

Mammy !

[Kopite Girl 0]

Awwwww... whats the matter? Can't handle a bit of banter?

[The Rumble Strip 0]

There is no doubt that Nando is a decent driver.

Minardi picked him up and he impressed enough for Renault to win him a title.

He returns to Renault and they start winning again.

Not a coincidence

[Rainmaster 7]

It is like the Puma said. Alonso gives good feedback, he knows what he wants from a car, and is surely very good at describing problems with the car in detail. A good engineer (which Renault obviously have plenty of) will know how to make the right changes to the car, which will make the car behave the way Alonso wants.

So when Alonso said 'I brought them six tenths', he was half right.

Sorry, I just wanted to write something for you all.

[Max Mosley 2]

It's an interesting theory, no doubt. But I'm pretty sceptical about how much difference he makes through set up. Obviously he works harder than eg Kimi and that will show up in the set up, but I'd imagine Lewis or Felipe and their respective engineers know what they want from a car too and how to get it. I very much doubt Alonso would have had a set up 6 tenths faster than Felipe at Ferrari this year.

[dribbler 6]

So when Alonso said 'I brought them six tenths', he was half right.

So he only really brought three tenths? Who has the other three tenths? Are they in a warehouse with Kimi's mojo?

[Rainmaster 7]

So he only really brought three tenths? Who has the other three tenths? Are they in a warehouse with Kimi's mojo?

[Autumnpuma 0]

EDIT: Bah. My first attempt at a response was badly writting. I'll re-do it later.

[monza gorilla 1]

I agree with the first part as well. I'm sober so I *think* you're disagreeing with the second part...and so do I. Hunt, from what I've read (I started F1 in the early '80s...a smidge too late to be a first-hand witness), had fantastic skill behind the wheel. Lauda, good friends with Hunt, constantly praised him as being the better driver.

That's exactly what I meant.

[Autumnpuma 0]

Excellent! My cognitive powers when sober are improving!

[Autumnpuma 0]

Sorry, Murray, for breaking up your post...

It's an interesting theory, no doubt. But I'm pretty sceptical about how much difference he makes through set up.

It's difficult to imagine this if you've never driven anything at truly fast speeds. Even a kart, driven hard, will be faster or slower by more than a mere tenth of a second just by adjusting the tyre pressures. Have you thought just how small an increment a tenth of a second is? One missed entry into a corner and you've lost a handful of 'tenths'. I've driven cars in semi-racing conditions where a simple suspension adjustment allows you to take a corner faster. How much faster? Well, that depends on a whole bunch of other variables, but I felt more at ease throwing the car into the corner...and I was faster because of it.

Why is it so hard to envision that a few well-placed changes to a car's set-up by a driver could produce a few tenths?

Obviously he works harder than eg Kimi and that will show up in the set up...

It also shows up in the lap times.

...but I'd imagine Lewis or Felipe and their respective engineers know what they want from a car too and how to get it.

True, but then you're comparing different cars with different inherent behaviours. Think of the cars as the 'baseline' and the driver's set-up suggestions as something that modifies that baseline (either to the good or to the bad). The engineers may know what works in computer models, but real life is messy and the true test is what the all-too-human driver can do with the car. Insisting a driver adapt to the perfect findings of the computer is always going to be slower than listening to the driver and modifying the car through testing of the driver's input.

I very much doubt Alonso would have had a set up 6 tenths faster than Felipe at Ferrari this year.

Ah yes, the '6 tenths' quote. This is brought up as a way of saying 'see, it wasn't 6 tenths so the whole argument must be thrown out'. Wrong. Some tracks it may have been more than 6 tenths, some less, and other times he flubbed it and lost time. Debunk the quote, but not the truth of the concept behind it.

EDIT: As to comparing him and Fillipe in the same Ferrari: How well each of them did in modifying the 'baseline' of the car would depend on if that 'baseline' suited their respective driving styles. A car with more inherent understeer and the weight displaced to the rear would respond better to Alonso than Fillipe's set-ups. The further the car is from a driver's natural style, the more work the driver must do to alter that car. Considering Ferrari have had a few seasons with Fillipe's input, the car would have evolved to better suit Fillipe than, perhaps, an incoming Alonso.

[Max Mosley 2]

Hi Mike. Thanks for the great reply. It's rare for me to see someone else thinking hard about something.

Your karting/racing experiences do ring true, and I can well imagine that anyone of us would find our lap times varying by many seconds every time we went round the track, from driver error and set up changes etc. Nevertheless I suspect things are a little different in F1 because of the expertise and effort involved in getting the perfect lap time. When you or I set up a kart we just try things based on guesswork and see what happens, whereas F1 teams will have mountains of data and personal experience for each track before they arrive. You're right that computer simulations and past experience aren't going to do all the set up work, but they provide a great starting point and so the remaining fine tuning done at the track isn't going to have the same effect that it would if you or I turned up at a kart track and had to guess tyre pressures, for example. Another difference is that it's not just the driver doing the fine-tuning but also a team of engineers, who have access to sophisticated telemetry, as well as the driver's feedback. One driver's feedback might be more detailed and useful than another's but the question is: how much more useful in practice.

Basically I agree with you all that Alonso is better at setting up and developing a car than almost any other driver around today. I just disagree, I think, on the overall importance of this ability in a driver. I can imagine Alonso would be able to develop an extra tenth out of a Ferrari compared to an on form Kimi or a Felipe, whereas Kimi might be half a tenth a lap faster in a typical, given car. But to me this begs the most interesting question of all: why do McLaren, Ferrari, and perhaps BMW too, consistently turn Alonso down?

[Jean Todt 4]

why do McLaren, Ferrari, and perhaps BMW too, consistently turn Alonso down?

Mclaren = Because of what happened last year, and they have Lewis Hamilton and they belive he is the best for them and he can win titles after titles for them as long as they provide him the best car.

Ferrari = Kimi is still the fastest and the coolest driver in F1, even though hes is the Laziest driver too, Massa has shown he is amongst the best and he gets along fine with Kimi. Both these drivers are prepared to be number two when they have to, its difficult to tell if Alonso would do the same.

BMW= They have Kubica and Nick and they are the kind of team who wants someone like Alonso bitching when things go wrong.

I don't mean Alonso is not one of the best driver, I agree Alonso is good at developing the car, but I still don't agree it was because of him Mclaren improved so much during last season because Mclaren have shown rocket performance even before Alonso came, and it was such performance that Impressed Alonso and tempted him to sign for Mclaren even without the knowledge of Flavio.

Alonso is still in top three.

[Autumnpuma 0]

Hi Mike. Thanks for the great reply. It's rare for me to see someone else thinking hard about something.

Your karting/racing experiences do ring true, and I can well imagine that anyone of us would find our lap times varying by many seconds every time we went round the track, from driver error and set up changes etc. Nevertheless I suspect things are a little different in F1 because of the expertise and effort involved in getting the perfect lap time.

Correct, and that's why for me the varying lap times are measured in seconds and for F1 drivers it's in fractions of a second. The increments used don't matter as much as the principles behind what I'm saying.

When you or I set up a kart we just try things based on guesswork and see what happens, whereas F1 teams will have mountains of data and personal experience for each track before they arrive. You're right that computer simulations and past experience aren't going to do all the set up work, but they provide a great starting point and so the remaining fine tuning done at the track isn't going to have the same effect that it would if you or I turned up at a kart track and had to guess tyre pressures, for example. Another difference is that it's not just the driver doing the fine-tuning but also a team of engineers, who have access to sophisticated telemetry, as well as the driver's feedback. One driver's feedback might be more detailed and useful than another's but the question is: how much more useful in practice.

I agree. Remember that most of the cars on today's grid are separated by a few tenths of a second anyway, over one lap. If you have a driver giving specific feedback to the engineers, and they listen and provide a car based on that feedback, that is worth a few tenths...and that is enough to, possibly, jump one or two places up the grid. It's not all down to the driver, as you say, but it starts with the driver.

Which (very basic) example would get you a faster car?

1) A driver that gives concise feedback about a car's handling and is specific in communicating how he wants the car set-up...

or

2) A driver that says nothing about the car understeering into turns 2 and 4 and simply slows down to compensate for the lack of grip?

Basically I agree with you all that Alonso is better at setting up and developing a car than almost any other driver around today. I just disagree, I think, on the overall importance of this ability in a driver. I can imagine Alonso would be able to develop an extra tenth out of a Ferrari compared to an on form Kimi or a Felipe, whereas Kimi might be half a tenth a lap faster in a typical, given car.

Developing an extra tenth per lap is monumental in today's F1 where often the difference between the winning car and second place is a tenth per lap. After saying this, how then do you imagine Kimi to be a hundredth of a second per lap faster in a typical, given car? Has he shown this magical ability compared to a more technical Fellipe? That's assuming Kimi is giving no technical input...which is absurd to say. No, Kimi is struggling to come to grips with a Formula 1 car without TC (but that's a separate argument).

But to me this begs the most interesting question of all: why do McLaren, Ferrari, and perhaps BMW too, consistently turn Alonso down?

The reasons are as varied as there are personalities in the sport. Reality is messy and often the best driver choice is overlooked for very illogical reasons.

[Max Mosley 2]

Both [Ferrari] drivers are prepared to be number two when they have to, its difficult to tell if Alonso would do the same.

Well, I think we know just how willing he'd be to do that, really! Good post - I agree with what you say.

Which (very basic) example would get you a faster car?

1) A driver that gives concise feedback about a car's handling and is specific in communicating how he wants the car set-up...

or

2) A driver that says nothing about the car understeering into turns 2 and 4 and simply slows down to compensate for the lack of grip?

Yeah so we basically agree that Alonso brings something to a team, in terms of development and set up work, that few drivers can match and I think the question is simply how much of a difference it makes in practice. I'm just taking issue with the kinds of exaggerated statements people make about him. For example, the man himself claims he brings 6 tenths, which is obviously not true. And other people on this forum (not you) claim that the main factor in McLaren and Renault's shifting fortunes in recent years has been Alonso, whereas I doubt that very much, which is not to say that he didn't contribute some small improvement to the teams.

In your example I agree that driver number 1 would be much better. I'm pretty sure any driver in F1 would fall into that category though - which is probably what you meant by the example being 'very basic'. Still, this seems like an important point to me, because all F1 drivers probably give quite good technical feedback. As I understand it, the driver only has to be able to identify precisely what it is that bothers him. He doesn't have to be a technical expert himself, he just has to know what he's feeling in the car, and the engineers can probably do a good job from there. And even apart from that, with all the telemetry, engineers could probably often tell when a driver is suffering understeer, or poor traction or brake balance etc without him saying it, if they had to.

My example wasn't very clear. I meant Kimi probably has more raw speed than Alonso in a typical F1 car, so for example if you got the engineers to set up a Ferrari for both of them, and the drivers had no input into the set up, I think Kimi would be able to drive it slightly faster. I agree with you that in real life, Alonso would fine tune his set up better, and that this advantage would be slightly greater than Kimi's speed advantage. So Alonso would be the better driver overall, which is why I wonder why the top teams don't snap him up.

The thing I said about 0.1s/lap was just a guess really. That's one of the weaknesses of this whole argument imho because no one seems able to put a precise figure on how much a driver can contribute in lap time through set up work. I could imagine it being up to a tenth but who knows? Anyway, I agree that 0.1s/lap is a handy contribution but it's not as much as is usually claimed for Alonso, which is what I'm really trying to say. 0.1s/lap isn't going to turn winners into mid-field runners and vice-versa. It might make the difference between 1st and 2nd sometimes, and I agree that drivers can make that difference, some of the time. Hopefully that's clearer!

[monza gorilla 1]

It's rare for me to see someone else thinking hard about something.

That's because you're not looking.............

[Fed up 0]

Yeah so we basically agree that Alonso brings something to a team, in terms of development and set up work, that few drivers can match and I think the question is simply how much of a difference it makes in practice. I'm just taking issue with the kinds of exaggerated statements people make about him. For example, the man himself claims he brings 6 tenths, which is obviously not true. And other people on this forum (not you) claim that the main factor in McLaren and Renault's shifting fortunes in recent years has been Alonso, whereas I doubt that very much, which is not to say that he didn't contribute some small improvement to the teams.

That Alonso brings something extra to a team cannot be refuted, as he does. One could call the upturn in Mclaren's performce in 2007 and 2008 as chance, but the turnaround at Renault, in just one season, is proof IMHO. Of course, I'd like to say he cheats and carry's a wad of secret information on his laptop, but it is not proven so he must get the credit.

[Rainmaster 7]

Correct, and that's why for me the varying lap times are measured in seconds

Developing an extra tenth per lap is monumental in today's F1 where often the difference between the winning car and second place is a tenth per lap. After saying this, how then do you imagine Kimi to be a hundredth of a second per lap faster in a typical, given car? Has he shown this magical ability compared to a more technical Fellipe? That's assuming Kimi is giving no technical input...which is absurd to say. No, Kimi is struggling to come to grips with a Formula 1 car without TC (but that's a separate argument).

The reasons are as varied as there are personalities in the sport. Reality is messy and often the best driver choice is overlooked for very illogical reasons.

I would like to have this argument with you sometime, a lot of journo's believe it is the problem with an understeering car iirc, because the Ferrari is easier on it's tyres and doesn't heat them very well over a lap (this theory fits with Kimi's fast laps in the race, but 'poor' qualies).

That Alonso brings something extra to a team cannot be refuted, as he does. One could call the upturn in Mclaren's performce in 2007 and 2008 as chance, but the turnaround at Renault, in just one season, is proof IMHO. Of course, I'd like to say he cheats and carry's a wad of secret information on his laptop, but it is not proven so he must get the credit.

I agree, Alonso has proven his effect, although it isn't just about technical feedback, it's about motivating the engineers and designers, which Alonso must do quite well (they know they have a driver getting the best out of the car, so work harder).

[The Rumble Strip 0]

Indeed Alonso is top three probably. The alleged turn downs are more than likely stem from the fact that two top drivers in a team just plain doesn't work, rather than an indication of him.

Prost and Senna anybody.

[dribbler 6]

Prost and Senna anybody.

What about them? Have them in my team and deal with the bitching? Yes please.

1988.

[The Rumble Strip 0]

And 1989.

There's also a cost implication that I think would put teams off hiring two top drivers.

[dribbler 6]

And 1989.

There's also a cost implication that I think would put teams off hiring two top drivers.

I disagree. there is still a strong case for having the top two pilots of the moment. The problem was started by Michael Schumacher and his manipulations for preferrential treatment and the subsequent pre-Madonna actions of Alonso. Two real men who don't give a tuppeny f*ck about anything other than beating each other is dream ticket time.