Originally posted by Suntrek
Yes, I'm sorry, you must have dreamed it up.
I recall ONE article on Alonso in 2005, none in 2006 except for the driving style theories bit.
He wasn't even on the cover when he'd won the WDC for the first time. Instead they had the McLaren of Kimi and headline was "why didn't Kimi win?" He was hardly mentioned inside the mag as well. Same goes for the 2006 WDC, MS retirement was obviously much more important.
Most race reviews (all of which were - and still are - written by PW) mentioned him as little as possible (to ignore him completely would have been difficult though, even for PW)
I especially recall the review of Japan 05 where Alonso's overtaking of MS was referred to as "Alonso overtook Schumacher in 130R". Period. At the same time Kimi's overtaking of Fisi was described in the most poetic way: "Finnish knife cutting through delicate Italian salami" or something like that.
Now, my objective is not to take anything away from either MS nor Kimi, but the Alonso worship you mention at least my issues have been totally devoid of.
I get your point regarding his driving style theories, at least he tries. Problem is that he overdoes it, now he can't even mention a driver without referring to some driving style mumbo-jumbo. A heap of words that sounds impressive, but doesn't really mean much.
I still buy it though. Partly because it's the only F1 magazine available in Sweden unless you go to international press shops. And there can - sometimes - be other articles worth reading.
I was referring to the stuff Windsor wrote in those 2 years, not the overall tone of the magazine. Particularly I remember his race reports which really intimated a lot of affection for Alonso's ability. I really think that Windsor likes to pick favourites, sort of like a benchmark driver, and compare every other driver to them. It seems he has decided that Lewis will be the benchmark going forward and so colours every driver assessment with comparisons to him. That offends most fans of other drivers. But realistically, that is what many fans do themselves, so in that sense he just comes across as the average fan. Some of his analysis is pretty good though, that I think is the saving grace for me, even though he isn't particularly consistent.
It would be nice if he, Brundle, and some F1 engineer had a sit down session and they expanded on and critiqued his conclusions.
Cooper