so we can conclude Irvine bought 6 tenths to Ferrari out of this?

No, we might conclude that MS was nothing special in testing. That meant he was nothing special in car developing too. At least in the end of 90-s.

How can't he be special in testing when he can exactly point out what is wrong with the car etc according to bernard Dudot and others?

I think you are confused by the fact that Irvine said: "he could drive around problems so that nobody would notice it". That doesnt mean he didnt tell it to the engineers, it just means he could overcome a problem on the car and still be fast.

Maybe that dream is reality in a different life and planet someday, great drivers, respect.

Firstly Dudot quote was not about the problem MS pointed out. And I am talking not about problems.

MS could reject the part worth 0,5 sec a lap. That is hilaruous. When Eddie properly tested it and found the gains, it was mounted on MS car and MS went 0,5 sec quicker either.

And it was not just a separate case. Irvine put more cases for clearance but obviously he did not put all.

You know Eddie had been working 4 years close to MS, he brought examples and relevant conclusion for those years.

How MS was good in testing and developing in particularly tyres we could have seen in 2005. It started miserable amd finished even more miserable.

And before that MS offered either "strong proposals" for Brigestones for 2005 or Ross Brawn did it again as he was complete mentor for MS as somebody here mentioned.

While another guy won the champioship comfortably in 2005 with heavily revised but still 1997-spec Renault RS9 engine.

May be he put stroger proposals for this let alone Michelin tyres development.

Or the bargain bucket.

Like many of the comparisons between the two, it's impossible (and tediously pointless) to try and quantify the claims.

It could be said that Senna worked to produce the cars that took him to his WDC's. Schumacher spent near enough double the time racing in F1 than Senna did. There's already a "What if?" thread on here but this is yet another what if. What if Senna had claimed 7 or even 8 WDC's before retiring, then perhaps we wouldn't be subject to yet more comparisons from people who frankly should know better (Dudot).

Sebastien Bourdais has a Mechanical Engineering Degree. That said, I doubt he gets to have any say in that piece of shit Ferrari customer engine.

you mean that piece of shit Ferrari engine that is sitting in the leading Ferrari's? The one that has won 23 races and should have been 24?

The piece of shit engine in the STR that a Red Bull driver drove? The piece of shit engine that prompted the unnamed Red Bull driver to exclaim, "Bloody Hell!" after his test drive?

Yep, that one.

MS never wanted another top flight driver in the team with him simply because he felt the energy in the team would be split, and they would therefore not be as effective. He felt they would achieve greater success if the entire team concentrated on him, and while this could be seen as selfish, it was exactly right. He was sure there wasn´t anyone around that had the ability to extract any more from the car in terms of ability, so he couldn´t see the point in having another strong driver in the team. It had nothing to do with running away from a fight, and Roebuck simply didn´t understand that.
Far from being a "major weakness", it was in fact one of his major strengths. Seven WDC´s attest to this.

Spot on.

you mean like alonso this year?

you could be on to something. i read somewhere that in front of michelin's headquarters they will have a statue of some guy fernando, the greatest driver that ever gave them feedback on tyres

also, your reports about the engine are not complete. the last i've seen is that the 2005 renault engine was (as incredibly as it may sound) pretty much the 1876 Otto engine with a little bit of tuning provided after a few laps from alonso
really, really unbe-f*king-livable.

Spot off.

The car has got much better sicne Australia and followed 2 runaway races. We will see how it will evolove further this season.

Unfortunately nothing can done with major performance source - tyres, and engine-/ electronics wise too.

really? that's funny because he started the season with a 4th place in Australia and he had a 4th place in Hungary last time around too

I hope you know perfectly the story 2001-2003 regarding Renault engine operations that time and followed ones.

What is really ubelievable st that it was true what I had quoted of the engine whch won both titles in 2005.

It started with actual 12th place on the grid for Alonso and no chance to be in points in the first 3 races without problems for the other 5-6 teams (10-12 cars).

They still used the 1997 Renault V10 spec??? That is just unbelieveable. Renault beats the rest with an 8 year old spec engine...

Actually due to the reason that Flavio won the battle over Jean-Jacuqes His only in early 2003 for the future strategy of Renault engines, the team opted in 2004 RS24 Engine for lighter version of 2000-spec Supertec engine. Which was a slight improvemnt on 1997-spec RS9.

For 2005 RS25 was just roughly more powerful evolution of RS24. The concept and philosophy of the engine was the same.

RS26 V8 for 2006 was the first new engine produced by renault since 1997 apart from 2001-2003 111-degree miserables.

and you conveniently forget that in Hungary he was hunting for 6th place only, and finished above just because of 2 cars having problems.
renault is doing a lot worse than last year. why is that?

yeap, they were all Otto's and V10s

Basicaly the raw potential of the original car is lower comparatively with other teams of the midfield let alone the top-3 teams(6 cars)

Alonso came to test in January when R28 car was assembled. Since the first test the car was slow and problematic. Alonso was much happier with R27 which he tested first. Even with MES ECU, not with original one.

Engine-wise it became worse either in comparison with 2007 as some competitors managed to boost ther engines despite regulations.

For 2003-2004 Briatore hired above mentioned Barnard Dudot, father of Renault V10(1989-1997) and former head of Renault Viry base in order to improve the outdated engine to use it for 2004-2005.

Well as an MS fan you're excused for paying too much attention to sheer numbers.

At least Alonso kept it steady. Hamilton won the first race and finished 5th in Hungary, which no doubt proves that he's the crappiest of them all at car development.

Last year in Hungary Renault drivers qualified 8 and 11th by 1,6 sec off the pole-sitter pace and finished 8th and 12 with over a minute behind the race winner.

I don`t see it worse this year even with the worse car.

I see it got better.

That means that the new engine contained about 0-5% of the old engine and the rest is new. Besides that the Renault engine was very good, always had great torque only the top end lacked a bit.

I don`t think so. Particularly in 2004 the engine remained very heavy and massively lacked horse power. It was good in 1997 but not for 2004.

Besides bigger sizes of the old-spec engine forced Renault to use ugly engine cover in 2004.

Uhm.. make up your mind now. Was it a 1997-spec Renault RS9, or was it "heavily revised" ? I have a really, really hard time believing that much, if anything - even concepts - on that engine dated back to 1997. Things don't work that way in F1.

And if I'm not mistaken, Renault made a wider angle V10 which they used at least in 2002 and 2003. That was a totally new engine - you seriously mean that they scrapped this one, even all the stuff they learned from it, and instead found Jacques Villeneuve's old 1997 WDC winning engine on the shelf and simply bolted it onto the Renault car 8 years later?



Edited: Ok, couple of posts later there were some elaboration on the subject. Still, I find it extremely hard to believe. Are there any articles or quotes around somewhere?

Not exactly bolted the old one of course. If you remember for 2004 FIA implemented rule with 1 engine per racing week-end.
Renault had no time and resourses to design new enigine from scratch. Wider angle engine philosophy proved to be too problematic and Flavio spent 2 years fighting with Viry boss Jean-Jeacques His. There were 2 Renault managing directors, Flavio at Enstone and His at Viry.

Wide angle concept imposed so many problems and took so much resources for the problems fixing that Flavio decided to fight which was very difficult as His was French and the legend at Renault. But he was more than keen to keep wider angle engine concept despite all problems it caused - vibrations, low power and poor reliability.

When Flavio won the battle, he became managing director for Viry as well. Jean-Jacques His left the company and once again was employed by Ferrari where he has been since then, working at road cars engines department.

So Briatore had 9 months to build an engine for 2004 season and regulations. There was only one option. To use old 2000-spec Supertec engine, revised version of 1997 RS9c which Renault prepared when bought Benetton in 2000. It was proven, very successful in the past, reliable but very much outdated including power, sizes and weight.

So for 9 remaining months under Dudot supervision that engine was revised, updated and tested extensively to reduce weight, raise power and guarantee reliablity for 750 km.

I hate the "find a link or I won't believe it" frame of mind, or the "if it's not on google it never happened". But I really want to know where you got this from.

Is it a book, an interview, inside knowledge?

do you have any idea about the reliability in 2000? the engines were not even lasting ONE freaking weekend, and they were not reving anywhere near as close to 18.000rpm
if you want to believe they are connected fine...i told you what their common parts are...gasoline v10 engines...
or let me put it another way....the renault 2000/2005 engines have pretty much the same in comon as the mercedes 2000/2005, ferrari 2000/2005 etc
not more, not less

Ok. This is what I found during a quick search (http://www.f1network.net/main/s208/st66364.htm) :



The only thing which seem unchanged is the 72 degree angle - I think it was the same on the RS9. Where have you got that info anyway? Doesn't really sound like a revamped 1997 unit to me.

More info:

"You have said the RS25 is an evolutionary step: what is the crossover from last year’s engine?
- The RS25 is a clean sheet design, and shares no major components with RS24: 98% of the parts are new. The engine maintains the 72° architecture of its predecessor, but we have included the lessons learned from RS24, and further refined the engine-chassis integration. The engine’s centre of gravity is significantly lower, recovering nearly 70% of the difference relative to the previous generation of wide-angle engines. Equally, despite the doubling of life for this season, the engine has not gained in weight."

Source: RS25 V10: Technical Briefing with Rob White, http://newsonf1.net/2005/news/02/feb01r7.htm

It was a new engine. If 98 percent of the parts are new I don't really think one could talk about a 1997 engine anymore?

Interviews, tech articles. But it was quite long time ago and I don`t keep links.

At the moment I can give a link only on pdf articles at http://www.flaviobriatore.it/home_en.html

http://www.grandprix.com/ns/ns12353.html

http://www.grandprix.com/ns/ns12435.html

It is not that simple actually. White said nothing about what exactly was new in the engine.

I know that in 2005 the engine was heavily revised in comparison with 2004. But those new parts are just refinements for the concept, reliability, new materials, electronics and so on.

The concept, philosophy, mechanical baseline was the same.

72 degrees were kept again not just for fun. All other best engines from competitors had 90 or close to degrees concepts.

I read a lot of things about that which you never find in team launch press-releases.

As i expected. They just looked at it but build a whole new engine, they just used the 72 degrees angle because it was easier to make reliable and they knew the concept of it.

I believe the 2005 engine was 90 degrees or close to that already.

V10 leads to a standard angle of 72 degrees (I think it has something to do with an even number of firings, 360/72 is 5, exactly haf of the V10).
90 degrees => wider, lower center of gravity but with more vibrations
if you want, 90 degrees is right in between the 72 (standard) and 110 (extreme wide) solutions.

Another reason why MS didn't have another top driver would be money. MS earned a heap - would another top driver have come to Ferrari and "driven for nothing" (a Senna quote)?

And if another top driver had of come "for nothing" - in an era where middle order drivers get millions per year - such a top driver wouldn't have done it for nothing the next year.

The result would have been that MS would have lost income. MS has always been keen on making a euro. At the same time though, he has been a major benefactor to many un-published causes. Due to a newspapers investigations, they found via the German taxation department that MS had donated 10 million to the Indian Tsunami - the biggest individual donation in the world, and in the top twenty for nations. And yet no one would have known about, but for a newspaper seeking scandal, instead they published something quite different. Although MS ensured he made a lot of money, one should credit also his philanthropy.

Not only that, but "branding" a driver makes money. Hence Alonso's performances allowed him to be "branded", hence allowing him to add value to marketing / commerce. If Alsonso had not been so focused on being the team's focus, for instance if Trulli had of got equal treatment and had of stayed, then the Spanish increase in F1 interest, and the large revenues (value additions to businesses) generated by Alonso affiliations, would not have happened. MS was a huge brand. Ferrari makes lots from selling brand related items.

It makes no sense to have two top drivers in the one team if you want to maximize the WDC chances, and if you want to optimize a team brand. Where there have been two top drivers, IMO it hasn't worked so well for the team. There are some example of it working, but IMO outside of Mercedes with Fangio and Moss, the team would have won anyway. Well even with Fangio and Moss when I think about it.

I also recall that Irvine in the Jag - after he left Ferrari I think - put it on the front row. Irvine might not have been slow afterall. Maybe we think he was, because Ferrari invested their brand with the Schumacher name?

I think it just showed that Irvine indeed wasnt that slow but also again proved why Michael was said to be the best.

But he wasn`t fast and consistant enough for wdc level let alone his focus, commitment and determination. He was on par with Barrichello in class as their joint Jordan teammateship indicated. And if we analyse careers of both I would give Rubens more credit, he was still better driver than Eddie.

When Jaguar was yet private Stewart team in 1997-1999, as being completely new team built from scratch, Barrichello produced much more strong performances in comparison with Eddie when Jaguar took over the team in the end of 1999.

1999 season was almost sensational for Barrichello. But the package was really good that year. And still...

I don't agree, you can't compare it. The whole Stewart team somehow managed to build a really good car in 1999, albeit unreliable but it was very quick. Look at what Johnny Herbert did with the car in 99, and compare that to what he and Eddie did in 2000. Pretty much sums it up, for some reason they never were as competitive again.

There were occasions at the end of 2002 though when the team actually looked good again with the Jaguar R3, but never consistent enough. Strange, when you look at how notoriously bad that car was at the beginning of the season.

MS greatest strength and weakness is that he hates (even fears) to lose. That's a trait he shares with many extraordinary athletes in different sports.

The downside of this trait we've seen and has been discussed to death here The upside is that he paid a lot of attention to details. There are enough anecdotes about this out too.

One team has been seriously cheating in 1999. And it wasn't from a team being in contention for the WDC, WCC acorrding to Mosley. Over the years, every hint dropped that I've read point towards Steward being the team that cheated.

I remember that as well. But what was the alleged (or rumored) stuff that they had? I also remember the two Jordan cars, retiring oddly wihout obvious reason on the same part of the track in very strange fashion.. could it have been Jordan?

How corrupt then is it if the head of the FIA knew of cheating, and did nothing about it?

or maybe mosley did nothing, because of his bias towards Jackie Stewart?

Didn't Jordon have "TC" or suppose they did?

When one considers Mosley's dislike of Stewart, and Stewart's success, then that be a considerable reason why Mosley would hint the team cheated.

Dunno, but I have vague memories of this being discussed back in '99..

I seriously wonder where Bernd Rosemeyer was in 1988 and 1989, when Prost and Senna where racing each other.
Any suggestions?

Did Schumacher EVER have a teammate of that calibre, let alone for two years?