Reply to: How they messed up F1

[Bagpuss]

Jenson has been a little unlucky, he's hit the big teams when they haven't had the best car, In a MacClaren or Ferrari he would have been challenging for the title. Mansel had a go at him recently for wasting his talent, he wouldn't even bother if he were no good.

[lilelvis2000]

8 points for second is far too much. I want to see the best win not the driver with the most reliable car.

Re Jenson Button, very talented guy but likes the good life a little too much, he's not focused, but Honda will be back, fortunes chance very quickly in F1

Agreed, the gap from first to secon should be more. I can't recall exactly the points but is 10,8,6,5,4,3,2,1 ? right? second should get only 7 I figure.

Jenson just like to party I think now. He's essentially thrown away his best years now. He's got little chance of a better ride now.

Maybe Honda is too busy focusing on getting into NASCAR?

[gingerjedi]

No, it was before the start of the season... but don't let that get in the way of a good story.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/moto...ne/7055633.stm

Ferrari are famous for having a team huddle at Madonna di Campiglio ski resort before the season starts so I guess its no big deal to them.

[Bagpuss]

I saw on the BBC website Raikonnen entered a snomobile race a couple of days before the Brazilian grand prix under the name of james hunt

[gingerjedi]

Re Jenson Button, very talented guy but likes the good life a little too much, he's not focused, but Honda will be back, fortunes chance very quickly in F1

I don't blame him but he's hardly in James Hunt's league.

The last few seasons have been a bit of an embarrassment for Honda especially as they pride themselves so much on engineering innovation, like you said they'll come good sooner or later.

[Bagpuss]

8 points for second is far too much. I want to see the best win not the driver with the most reliable car.

Re Jenson Button, very talented guy but likes the good life a little too much, he's not focused, but Honda will be back, fortunes chance very quickly in F1

[VectraMan]

Bigger points gap between first and second places. Return to the old system where you took the best 14 of your results.

Making F1 more complicated is the last thing it needs.

One benefit to the more even spread of points is it makes it more likely the championship goes down to the last race, which everybody wants to see. The days of Schumacher winning by the 10th race make for a pretty dull year. This year literally couldn't have been closer.

[TheFaQQer]

I think you've got the quotes in the wrong place. You meant: Team orders are "not allowed".

McLaren were perfectly fair on their drivers IMO. If anything you have to say that Alonso lost it by crashing in Japan, and Hamilton lost it by crashing in the pit lane entrance in China. Two unforced driver errors that were nothing to do with the team.

As for the point system, what are you going to do? Only reward points to the winner? I think there's an argument for allocating points all the way down to last place as the current system tends to be a bit unfair on the people that regularly finish 9th (thereby beating 12 other cars) and get nothing.

Bigger points gap between first and second places. Return to the old system where you took the best 14 of your results.

[VectraMan]

"Team orders" are not allowed.

I think you've got the quotes in the wrong place. You meant: Team orders are "not allowed".

McLaren were perfectly fair on their drivers IMO. If anything you have to say that Alonso lost it by crashing in Japan, and Hamilton lost it by crashing in the pit lane entrance in China. Two unforced driver errors that were nothing to do with the team.

As for the point system, what are you going to do? Only reward points to the winner? I think there's an argument for allocating points all the way down to last place as the current system tends to be a bit unfair on the people that regularly finish 9th (thereby beating 12 other cars) and get nothing.

[TheFaQQer]

There was an interesting interview with David Coulthard earlier this season, when he was talking about the press coverage that the British drivers get at home. Lewis Hamilton said to him at one stage how hard it was, writing his autobiography. Coulthard responded "Surely it's easy - you've only got to cover one year?"

The way that the British media circus has moved on this year is impressive - last year they were talking about Button being sports personality of the year because he'd won his first race in about 100. Now - Jenson who??

[AtW]

Yes team orders are not allowed but if Alonso was any decent person he'd "crash" or something - it did not matter to him.

[lilelvis2000]

Alonso could have pulled over but how? "Team orders" are not allowed. And Hamilton was one lap down. Alonso would have had to come to complete stop on the penultimate lap.

Sorry but Maclaren buggered it with their nonsensical three stop race.

'course ITV (aka the Lewis Hamilton Racing fan club channel) couldn't understand that.


What makes my head shake is that Jenson Button has constantly made the wrong moves in his career. Two years ago he should have gone with Williams, now look where he is. A Passat could outrun the car he's in.

[AtW]

Alonso is the right ***t - he should have let Hamilton ahead in the last race since he was losing it anyway.

[lilelvis2000]

IMHO - Maclaren should have selected at the half way point one driver to win the championship and gone with it. Perhaps they did and it wasn't Alonso and he was about to spill the beans on the "spying" data...who knows.

Now the question is, where wil Alonso go? BMW? back to Renault (big mistake I figure), Williams?

[gingerjedi]

I think it's him recognizing that the guy who wins the most races probably deserves to be champion, rather than the one who is more consistent and driving a car that has been ripped off from the leading competitor.

And Hamilton started the argument in Hungary by refusing to allow Alonso the clear run in qualifying, which is where the retaliation started.

So why bother giving points for 2nd, 3rd 4th etc etc? All credit to Raikkonen but I really do think Alonso has a bit of 'Dick Dastardly' about him and he has been the main protagonist when using dirty tactics be it holding Hamilton up during qualifying or blackmailing his own boss!