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Well, there's quite a lot to respond to here, and not all of it strictly relevant to my post. And hey, wait a minute! Andres you just did that thing where you simplified what I said so it seemed ridiculous tongue.png

Nah. You don't need my help to look that way.

(Damn you, I hate it when you are right! :P)

To be clear: I have no issue with team orders in any team and this isn't even actually about the fact that Ferrari's are slightly worse than other teams (Ferrari's have to be, they design slower cars wink.png..); I never said he was hard done by (I mentioned his earnings); I have never disputed Ferrari's irrational support for him (of course, that doesn't mean they don't support Alonso more, to his detriment, but that really isn't the point either); and if it's true like I think that he has been mentally absolutely nowhere for a long time then I don't see any way that could be construed as an argument in his favour(!)

I agree but the Hockenheim argument is usually used to justify his failure. That is where the whole misunderstanding came from, although I already suspected that it was not the point in your case ;)

I am merely looking at the connection between Ferrari's choices and Massa's form. I cited Hockenheim because I thought that was such a clear example. What's it an example of? Massa's mental destruction (orchestrated by the evil Fernando Alonso and super evil Ferrari team tongue.png).

The problem with that argument is that Massa has to be at the same time one of the mentally weakest and mentally strongest drivers of all times. Let's not forget that this weakling has also raced along with Michael and Kimi. There's some fundamental flaw there, a guy that raced along 3 of the top 4 drivers of our generation yet he crumbles over a single radio message without a fight.

In other words, that Alonso's speed and more importantly to Massa (after being the darling of the team) Ferrari's choice of Alonso over him (after them supporting him over Kimi no less!), had a big impact on him mentally - that's almost such an obvious point I feel stupid saying it. Or do people still believe Massa's head injury was the issue and he only recovered in the first part of 2010, then deteriorated again, then got better again now? Again, this is not in favour of him, it just shows how mentally fragile he was and is. He basically admitted how much his confidence and motivation had been an issue after the Japanese GP. It's all there.

I don't know how much of his 2008 quasi championship he thought it was down to his super skills (IMHO, it was more a case of the tendencies from both Kimi to suddenly fade out and Lewis to make unforced errors). And I think (and here I might be oversimplifying, but can't shake the feeling) that Rob Smedley is actually what/who we are talking about when we talk about Felipe's mentality. Not sure if that has any impact, merely stating my feelings.

Also, I do not claim to know whether that mental impact was something Massa has/had a certain control of (i.e. has he just been not really trying these past years? Or not trying to improve? His improvement in form during a contract negotiation strongly suggests that) or has he actually been grappling with his driving these last years? Trying to regain some confidence? (IF you think in these black and white ways you could come to different conclusions about Massa, e.g. in the extreme "oh he was so hard done by (a Massa fan)" or "my God! What a terrible guy just collecting a pay cheque and wasting a seat (a Massa hater)"). Actually, being human, it's probably a mixture of both of those issues. Once he lost confidence, he just kept digging himself deeper and deeper and results got worse and worse (in truth, he was probably overdriving trying to match Alonso, if anything).

I agree.

My only real point therefore would be that whatever Massa is today, good or bad and rightly or wrongly, Ferrari made him that way. They can never ever be critical of his performances, because they are in large part responsible for it. If you knock a "number one" driver down (as he was for them), you cannot complain if he takes a hell of a long time to get back up. I think the truth of this can be seen by the fact that Ferrari haven't criticised Massa, and they've kept supporting him, because they know the reality of the situation on some level wink.png In fact, I can't really see another rational reason why they've continually supported him, other than out of sheer guilt laugh.png

I thought at some point that guilt played a big part as well, but that doesn't make too much sense either. The main issue for me (and that is why I keep bringing it on) is that Massa cost millions. And as much as we tend to think about these guys as the only characters in a (comic) book, I cannot forget that they are all part of big corporations and those usually tend to have little concern for emotional values. At some point it must be hard to defend wasting 20M on a guy because he is nice and he might be hurt because for a semester he thought he was number one (something only he could have believed, he simply is no number one material and never was, that much is clear). At some point the board of directors or whatever might question the wisdom oon wasting millions and millions as much on a mediocre driver when other guys are delivering the same or better results for a fraction of his cost and most pay drivers were doing a better job and bringing money to their teams on top of that!

Please refrain from interpreting this post as anti Alonso/Ferrari/Obama/Felix Baumgartner or Pro Alonso/Massa/Kimi/Obama/genocide.

FELIX Baumgartner? Y thought he was ZSOLT Baumgartner! It seemed suspicious that Zsolt would break any speed record, considering his F1 career...

Oh, and FYI you are as of now blocked on my ICQ! Revenge never tasted so sweet...

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Oh, and FYI you are as of now blocked on my ICQ! Revenge never tasted so sweet...

ICQ?? ICQ??? Would it not have been more soul destroying if you had banned him from your BBS?? Or even worse, not tell him the password to your Princess DIary with voice activated password??

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ICQ?? ICQ??? Would it not have been more soul destroying if you had banned him from your BBS?? Or even worse, not tell him the password to your Princess DIary with voice activated password??

Oh, you think you are soooo funny!

Get out of my MySpace. Now.

And send me back that tamagotchi you stole from me, don't think I didn't notice.

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Oh, you think you are soooo funny!

Get out of my MySpace. Now.

And send me back that tamagotchi you stole from me, don't think I didn't notice.

Was that the Barbie tamagotchi ??

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Apparently, Massa raced with a RBR-copy exhaust in South Korea, which may explain why he was faster than Nando. The latter too will get it now, and it's still a close fight for the WDC.

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Apparently, Massa raced with a RBR-copy exhaust in South Korea, which may explain why he was faster than Nando. The latter too will get it now, and it's still a close fight for the WDC.

Ooooh! So Felipinho gets the new upgrades!!!! They are sabotaging Alonso, I tell ya!!

Whitmarsh must go!!!

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:lol:

I think it says a ton about Ferrari that they are so under-confident in their own abilities they give the upgrades to the number two on the assumption it will just be a disaster. I almost like the Scuderia now because they're just bumbling along on legacy making all sorts of cute little gaffes.

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laugh.png

I think it says a ton about Ferrari that they are so under-confident in their own abilities they give the upgrades to the number two on the assumption it will just be a disaster. I almost like the Scuderia now because they're just bumbling along on legacy making all sorts of cute little gaffes.

It's like they on tip-toe to scared to scupper up Alonso's chances, while still using Massa as a g-pig

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Looking at rival strategies and live timing data, I am convinced, as Martin Brundle was that Felipe could have at worst, caught and passed Webber and at best, may have got Vettel in a lather and induced severe tyre destruction or better upon him. We did not know Felipe was running a very rare artifice - a Ferrari upgrade that actually worked! Irrespective of that anomaly, the Scuderia chose to run a face-saving scenario for the blessed St. Fernando Alonso Diaz of Oviedo rather than take points away from Vettel. Clearly, their star driver is greater than the team which is both bizarre and obtuse.

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A Google search tells me that this Massa upgrade story came from Yallaf1 (that old reliable news source), and according to its own report, originated in a Spanish newspaper (surely an unbiased news source). I guess the only way a Spanish newspaper could explain Massa being faster than Alonso is that Massa had a better car :P I suspect this story is nonsense not only because it makes absolutely no sense (the only way Massa would get an upgrade over Alonso is if both of them ran it and Alonso didn't like it but Massa did, highly unlikely for Alonso to make such an error), but also because I haven't read about this anywhere else.

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Oh Kimi..

The first time I saw it I thought WTF, maybe because I thought it would be concerning Lotus.....the 2nd time however I got it, great promotion by/for Makia...absolute Classic!!!

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A Google search tells me that this Massa upgrade story came from Yallaf1 (that old reliable news source), and according to its own report, originated in a Spanish newspaper (surely an unbiased news source). I guess the only way a Spanish newspaper could explain Massa being faster than Alonso is that Massa had a better car tongue.png I suspect this story is nonsense not only because it makes absolutely no sense (the only way Massa would get an upgrade over Alonso is if both of them ran it and Alonso didn't like it but Massa did, highly unlikely for Alonso to make such an error), but also because I haven't read about this anywhere else.

You are probably right. Either way, they had their chance to close the gap and didn't take it.

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Massa's is an X-file. Remember that story about Smedley telling him that he had to maintain/open a gap with Alonso before the "Alonso is faster than you" sentence at Hockenheim? A few minutes earlier Alonso said " hey guys, this is ridiculous" and there was a moment Massa was driving like mad when Alonso nearly alongside him and both of them could have finished the race right there. Ferrari have been protecting a less than mediocre driver for more than TWO years. Why? Now after a decent race rumours say it was because some experimental parts in his car, it could be because of the lack of proper on track tests that Ferrari have to do that? Is Massa delivering again when he knows it is contract tine?

Ok, you have already commented on all that.

/* BREAK */

Vettel, is he going to leave the best team of the decade for the Ferrari glory? Past glory I mean. Is he going to leave a comfortable position alongside Webber for a gloves off battle with Alonso? Is he going to say bye-bye to a WDC/WCC producing machine for an adventurous life? No. No. No.

/* BREAK /*

Does RBR/Mateschitz respect the budget cap? Why Newey didn't success at McLaren? What happens when you're full of good ideas but you can't test them all because of the budget cap, wind tunnel time restriction, etc.? Then you go to a new team where they don't care about money, budget and time restrictions. At least their wind tunnel works fine of course but there's more than just Newey. Money, resources a plenty, the best technicians.... Remember when Ferrari could test their new pieces at home in the backyard, they had a great driver and a great group of people together? Very soon they dominated the sport and a lot of rules changed to stop such dominance, remember? Mateschitz came to F1 as a hobby a passion and a business as a promotion for the drinks.

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Rumors from Italy say Alonso got furious with Ferrari during the Indian GP weekend due to some comments by Pat Fry (which apparently implied that Alonso had not been perfect during the quali), and threatened to reveal on twitter how they have not made any kind of progress with certain parts since the Spanish GP. Apparently it took Domenicali until 1am in the morning to calm him down and stop him from tweeting something like that. Allegedly all had started already on Thursday when Alonso allegedly complained about "lots of talk, not much progress". Dunno if these rumors are credible, but they do come from Italy, so who knows.

http://www.lastampa.it/2012/10/29/sport/formula-1/2012/il-tweet-di-alonso-non-parte-in-ferrari-la-notte-piu-lunga-8OF5DyoNh2UAyc0h3cne0L/pagina.html

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Rumors from Italy say Alonso got furious with Ferrari during the Indian GP weekend due to some comments by Pat Fry (which apparently implied that Alonso had not been perfect during the quali), and threatened to reveal on twitter how they have not made any kind of progress with certain parts since the Spanish GP. Apparently it took Domenicali until 1am in the morning to calm him down and stop him from tweeting something like that. Allegedly all had started already on Thursday when Alonso allegedly complained about "lots of talk, not much progress". Dunno if these rumors are credible, but they do come from Italy, so who knows.

http://www.lastampa....e0L/pagina.html

hhehehehehehehehehehehehehe, oh excuse me, but I would'nt be suprise if it was true

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Rumors from Italy say Alonso got furious with Ferrari during the Indian GP weekend due to some comments by Pat Fry (which apparently implied that Alonso had not been perfect during the quali), and threatened to reveal on twitter how they have not made any kind of progress with certain parts since the Spanish GP. Apparently it took Domenicali until 1am in the morning to calm him down and stop him from tweeting something like that. Allegedly all had started already on Thursday when Alonso allegedly complained about "lots of talk, not much progress". Dunno if these rumors are credible, but they do come from Italy, so who knows.

http://www.lastampa.it/2012/10/29/sport/formula-1/2012/il-tweet-di-alonso-non-parte-in-ferrari-la-notte-piu-lunga-8OF5DyoNh2UAyc0h3cne0L/pagina.html

Dispute was actually about pasta sauce that Alonso wasn't pleased with.

Alonso threatened to leave Ferrari if they don't fix damn ' red thing ' (tomato sauce)!

Apparently since june cook ( or was it fry ) can't make it taste good for Fernando!

He threatened to tweet it and hold his finger on ' submit ' button of his mobile

phone till 1,00 am, while negotiator from Indian SWAT team calmed him down.

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Dispute was actually about pasta sauce that Alonso wasn't pleased with.

Alonso threatened to leave Ferrari if they don't fix damn ' red thing ' (tomato sauce)!

Apparently since june cook ( or was it fry ) can't make it taste good for Fernando!

He threatened to tweet it and hold his finger on ' submit ' button of his mobile

phone till 1,00 am, while negotiator from Indian SWAT team calmed him down.

sounds like a similiar dispute he had with Ron Dennis at Mclaren '07, only Ferrari here did'nt fall for it here, which is probably the best thing they ever did since he arrived there....whistling.gif

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