Fernando Alonso

[QuebecGold 0]

A great driver or the greatest driver?

[HandyNZL 1]

Certainly not the greatest. People like Jim Clark, Fangio, Moss, et al, are head and shoulders above him. Those guys raced everything and anything and more often than not, won. And they didn't whinge. Nor did they use caterpillars for eyebrows.

[Quiet One 15]

Not the greatest, obviously, but one of the great ones, obviously as well.

[Rainmaster 7]

A great driver, no doubt. Whether he's one of the greatest among greats I'm not sure. If he wins this historic title it would help his case a lot, though.

[Quiet One 15]

A great driver, no doubt. Whether he's one of the greatest among greats I'm not sure. If he wins this historic title it would help his case a lot, though.

That depends on how long is your greatest among greats list

If it is just a top 5, definitely not yet. If it is a top 10, I'd say yes but I guess it would be debatable. In a top 15, he is definitely there.

[Argento Reloaded 1]

He is at the door of the 3 WC club (a club with only 5 members: Piquet, Stewart, Lauda, Brabham and Senna) he raced against MSC one of the best of all times and won...so he is TOP 10 -imo

[blackpebel 0]

Great driver? Hands down. Hes proved it time and time again.

One of the greatest? Absolutely.. He's got that persistent controlled aggression in him which separates him from the rest of the grid.

The greatest? Well, lets just say that he still has someway to go before he gets there, but he surely is on the right track...

[Rainmaster 7]

That depends on how long is your greatest among greats list

If it is just a top 5, definitely not yet. If it is a top 10, I'd say yes but I guess it would be debatable. In a top 15, he is definitely there.

I'd say he's probably top 10 too but as usual it's hard to say with any real certainty, although definitely top 15 imo, yeah.

[cavallino 2]

Oh great, so a couple of good races and now we can forget about his dismal error prone first half of the season and go back to the myth of him making no mistakes and resort to hyperbole.

He is a good driver, probably the third best on the grid right now, and also probably the biggest cheat in the history of the sport, confessed to industrial espionage and was involved in fixing races.

[BradSpeedMan 6]

Oh great, so a couple of good races and now we can forget about his dismal error prone first half of the season and go back to the myth of him making no mistakes and resort to hyperbole.

I read the comments in this thread and can't believe how quickly people forgot his first half...People have short memories indeed. He should have had something like 300 points with the car he has had this year. Was'nt it the best car came practise this year, even won the first race....

In the top 7 of the current crop racing today.

[Delta 0]

Amongst the best of the current generation, but not the greatest of all time by any stretch

[Hector Troyano 0]

yeah, he had a "killer" car... come on, it started well it went downhill after the first race, while

all the other teams improved their cars quite a bit.

Now is back to be a very decent car but not the best one.

[HandyNZL 1]

Oh great, so a couple of good races and now we can forget about his dismal error prone first half of the season and go back to the myth of him making no mistakes and resort to hyperbole.

He is a good driver, probably the third best on the grid right now, and also probably the biggest cheat in the history of the sport, confessed to industrial espionage and was involved in fixing races.

I heard Quebec Gold was Fernando Alonso....

[BradSpeedMan 6]

yeah, he had a "killer" car... come on, it started well it went downhill after the first race, while

all the other teams improved their cars quite a bit.

Now is back to be a very decent car but not the best one.

was'nt or is'nt he the so-called best development driver. How could they go from having the best car come practise 1 to where they are now, after hard months of toil from the engineering team. Suddenly he performs, like he should btw, and you guys rate him amongts the greatest.

You guys are not serious, you make me laugh.

[Max Mosley 2]

Haha this thread makes me laugh - lots of funny comments from all. My view: Nando is a very good driver. Probably one of the greats.

But enough of that. I'll use this thread as a soapbox for my ongoing obsession with spec cars. As Mr Cav points out, we can't even say whether Nando is the best around at the present moment, compared to the people he's raced against for years in front of our eyes. We can't say what his strengths and weaknesses are, beyond a few debatable and vague opinions. We don't know which races he was the best and which he wasn't. We don't know what he ate for dinner last night.

And more than that, I don't agree with the idea that we always have to wait and see what results someone gets before saying these things. Although you get it in other sports as well, it's especially true in F1 where your team plays such a huge role in how many titles you win.

But what really gets my goat is how this thread is in the wrong subforum. The Cafe is a place for writing bad poetry, comparing mine and Jessica Alba's legs, or making pedantic posts about nothing. Until me, this thread was far too interesting to be here. You can thank me later for correcting that.

[Quiet One 15]

Haha this thread makes me laugh - lots of funny comments from all. My view: Nando is a very good driver. Probably one of the greats.

But enough of that. I'll use this thread as a soapbox for my ongoing obsession with spec cars. As Mr Cav points out, we can't even say whether Nando is the best around at the present moment, compared to the people he's raced against for years in front of our eyes. We can't say what his strengths and weaknesses are, beyond a few debatable and vague opinions. We don't know which races he was the best and which he wasn't. We don't know what he ate for dinner last night.

And more than that, I don't agree with the idea that we always have to wait and see what results someone gets before saying these things. Although you get it in other sports as well, it's especially true in F1 where your team plays such a huge role in how many titles you win.

But what really gets my goat is how this thread is in the wrong subforum. The Cafe is a place for writing bad poetry, comparing mine and Jessica Alba's legs, or making pedantic posts about nothing. Until me, this thread was far too interesting to be here. You can thank me later for correcting that.

I wasn't too keen to stay around this thread as it is obvious that he is not the greatest of all times, and it is also obvious that he is among the great ones. There is not much else to add except for the few jibes and sneering remarks, and even those were done only half heartedly. Geez, Brad and Cav are out of touch, we have been doing a much better work at this in the Kimi thread, and lets face it: Kimi is so much harder to be mocked

Now, to the matters in hand: except you, nobody seem too troubled to establish who is unarguably the best of the best. If any, this season is helping us understand how intimately interconnected are all variables in a succesful career. Schumi is a walking proof as he is now probably one of the worst drivers on the grid, compared to his teammate. Actually, any defense we can think of him would be the same that was used with Barrichello in their glory days and dismissed as well. For example, that the car suit his team mate better. Remember when we used to say that to explain RB's performance differences with MSC? And the reply usually was "A great driver should also know how to make the team work for you" or "A great driver should perform even if the car is not the ideal for him". A case of Karma, perhaps? In any case, nobody can deny MSC's talents. But we can more accurately realize how much of his invencibility came from a killer combination of his own skills, his team skills, his car, and the whole interaction between all these variables.

F1 is a collective sport. We need to accept it.

Oh...about Nando? Oh well, I cannot dismiss this opportunity to highlight something that has been highlighted everywhere else but here: first Grand Chelem in 6 years. For those who don't read other resources: a Grand Chelem is F1's version of a Grand Slam: pole, fastest lap and win without losing the lead the whole race. If you never heard about it is because the last one was achieved by MSC in the massively superior F2004...not that easy to sustain such superiority during a whole weekend, even in a track and with rules that do not encourage overtaking. We've had those for quite a few years now and cars with a more obvious superiority in the field (Brawn, RBR) and yet none of them could pull a Grand Chelem. Not that it matters that much, anyways, but it still is a hint that you are in front fo a great team/driver combination, at least for the weekend.

One final word: Alonso is also considered the best driver in the current field by most of the commentators, whether they like him or hate him and (as seen in a survey not too long ago) also by current and former F1 drivers. Nominations of Di Grassi for that same honor were suspiciously low so I tend to believe that there is more than my own bias speaking when I consider Alonso one of the greatest of all times (Top 10)

PS: Muzza, this one's for you: have you seen the Ron Dennis interview on the BBC? From what I could read, it seems to have risen some controversy on the fact that he was rather dismissive of Jenson in favor of Lewis (a light version of "We were racing Nando"). But I could not find any transcript of it, only reactions. Coulthard also said that he is not surprised because it was the same in his time. What did he say to rise such controversy?

[cavallino 2]

The Grand chillum (weird name, chillum is a kind of smoke) is because of no refuelling rather than any miracle performed by Senor Alonso, his followers remind me of the followers in Monty Python's the Life of Brian.

[Quiet One 15]

The Grand chillum (weird name, chillum is a kind of smoke) is because of no refuelling rather than any miracle performed by Senor Alonso, his followers remind me of the followers in Monty Python's the Life of Brian.

That's one of my favorite movies. Mostly for the scene where he says "we are all different" and they all chant "we are all different", except for a single voice that says "I'm not"

And the crucifixion scene must be one of the most hillarious movie scenes of all times. Always look on the bright side of life...

[Hector Troyano 0]

[quote name='BradSpeedMan' timestamp='1285836613' post='324021']
was'nt or is'nt he the so-called best development driver. How could they go from having the best car come practise 1 to where they are now, after hard months of toil from the engineering team. Suddenly he performs, [b]like he should btw[/b], and you guys rate him amongts the greatest.

You guys are not serious, you make me laugh.
[/quote]

I thought we were questioning his driving skills not his car developing skills, and obviously the car wasn't that great at the start of the season. He is rated among the greatest not just
for this season, it's because of his trajectory as a driver.

[Hector Troyano 0]

The Grand chillum (weird name, chillum is a kind of smoke) is because of no refuelling rather than any miracle performed by Senor Alonso, his followers remind me of the followers in Monty Python's the Life of Brian.

You're wrong. Is not for the no refuelling, I've seen plenty of races with refueling where the driver that won the GP from pole and didn't managed to achieve the the grand chilum.

[BradSpeedMan 6]

I thought we were questioning his driving skills not his car developing skills, and obviously the car wasn't that great at the start of the season. He is rated among the greatest not just for this season, it's because of his trajectory as a driver.

Let's not even go there... so much for a driver claimed to make no mistakes, this year has put a big dent in that reputation. Shows how easy he had it with a dominant car with illegal mass dampers

[HandyNZL 1]

But he doesn't even have to develop a car, Brad.....he just brings his 0.6-secs with him in his lunch box

[BradSpeedMan 6]

But he doesn't even have to develop a car, Brad.....he just brings his 0.6-secs with him in his lunch box

Sh#t, how can I forget that!

[blackpebel 0]

Shows how easy he had it with a dominant car with illegal mass dampers

Hmm... I wonder how the knowledgeable stewards missed out on calling the mass dampers illegal.

If i remember the proceedings correctly, which i think i do, the stewards did agree after their review (Twice), to call the mass dampers legal. And it was only after Ferrari protested against the use of mass dampers, were they disallowed by FIA... who had overturned the initial decision given by their own stewards. And even after the season was over, the stewards never backed off on what they had observed.

As far as winning in a dominant car goes, cummon, we have all slept while our television sets were switched on when Michael was winning with one hand on the steering wheel or While Button drove an F1 car for the whole season as if he was playing beginner mode in a PS2 version of F1 ...

Those too were superior cars, but that does not mean that they won the championship purely because they had a superior car.... who am i kidding, They did

The ones who win championships are the ones who have a competitive package, A-L-W-A-Y-S.

[BradSpeedMan 6]

The ones who win championships are the ones who have a competitive package, A-L-W-A-Y-S.

True. Not that I like it, I mean, we would LOVE to see the field square up equal. In a fantasy world I presume....