I was watching all the old videos of senna versus prost like...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8-QhXnuLgk&feature=related
in 1989....

and senna's revenge in 1990..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLYC1lnVAic


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49qF32Pazwc

These guys had emotion and you could feel them and were not PC correct machines like modern drivers. I miss alot of that stuff or like the press conference with mika and irvine

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kucqLpjCv1w&feature=related
Those were the days then though i feel last year we were nearly there only that the mclaren PC machine could not allow the alonso lewis war to be publicly displayed.

Anyway all is not lost as long as Danica and milka can be allowed to fight it out in the indy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXUd6n1Vti8

absolutely, today's f1 drivers are corporate wh***s. Especially Lewis Hamilton.

Speaking of wh***s

pffft....
Jp

I think this is a case of the past looking rosier than it was. Corporate-speak was already becoming the norm in the late-1980s. If you read the various racing magazines at the time (including Autosport), there were many journalists who thought Micheal Schumacher was refreshing because he looked like he actually enjoyed being on the podium. Mansell spoke his mind often (and loudly) and was (still is) criticized as a whinger. Nelson Piquet was funny... until he stopped winning.

PC-speak is nothing new in F1.

Alonso battling against the McLaren PC corperate machine, including growing his hair and refusing to change suits after a race
Alonso giving Ron the finger (supposidly) from a McLaren going down the Indy start/finish straight (who wouldnt want to do that ;))
Alonso pushing Hamilton wide and then going head to head into eau rouge
Alonso calling bull on the blocking decision in Monza
Alonso taking matters into his own hands in Hungary after being wronged
Alonso giving the finger to Ralf whilst in the middle of having a crash coming out of the Monaco tunnel (classic )
etc...

The passion in F1 is there its just most of it comes from a single driver after Montoya left and soon to be less with DC leaving and Webber still not in contention for a championship. Maybe the majority of modern fans just do not have the stomach for passion themselves so they reject it or they feel there is not enough choice in drivers with such passion so assume it is a bad thing and whine about it instead.

The rest of modern F1 may have drivers with passion but they sit on the fence to try and please sponsors so they can get a more competative drive like Kubica and that is understandable. In Hamiltons case this does not apply but he seems so conflicted on being a PR tool and an ego monster because of having secured Mclaren support for nearly all of his racing career so is not humbled by the struggles others have suffered to get where he is now.

YOu know, the irony in your railing against LH here is that he does actually speak his mind...the "You know I guess there is a reason I have #2 on my car"..or when he says he drove perfect etc you go after him for being childish etc. Well, he is expressing what he thinks.

I think many of the "racing" public, don't want to see the real people as they are not perfect. Same reason they want to hang someone for accently hiting another driver when making a pass while still complaining there is no passing in F1.

LH is actually very similar to drivers of 20yrs ago as is Alonso for that matter. Not afraid to speak their mind even when it is mean or unsavory. They are still a product of the last 10 yrs and drift into corp speak but much less so than most of the others on the grid.

The whole weekend Lewis, McLaren, the Hamiltons and anyone British expected the Monaco GP to be his.
Even if he was told to back off it was after the last stop and that ment he had 2/3 of a race to do it but only ever caught Alonso after the final pit when they where told to ease the pace and bring home a 1-2.
In the interview when he said that he was clearly (body language and all from what I remember) just upset it did not turn out the way he wanted and was basically promised so that is pure ego but he didnt say it in a straight way which is PR.
Look at the interview after he crashed into the back of Kimi in the pitlane, squirming for the right thing to say while trying not to take any blame. I have never seen a driver in that situation before if they speak their mind.

I think there were many times last year when we saw emotion, not that much maybe than in the past, but last year it was not fully emotionless.


Alonso and Massa, arguing about the Nürburgring incident. I liked it because it was honest, they spoke their mind, despite the cameras and live coverage.

Ron Dennis in Monza, he was crying after the race. After the espionage scandal, the tense atmosphere within the team, people calling for his retirement, the one-two on Ferrari's track was too much for him.

Alonso, many times. Shaking his fist in Indianapolis, stating after the Nürburgring race that he was fighting against the whole world, going straight against his own team in Hungary, was clearly 'alone' within the team from then on, and still missed the championship by just one point.

Lewis speaking his mind, too... "I have No.2 on my car, I'm the No.2 driver"

Even Kimi did show emotion, shouting "F***ing hell!!!!" into the team radio after the chequered flag in Brazil!

From previous years, Alonso saying F1 was not a sport anymore.
Jacques Villeneuve and his comments.
Juan Pablo Montoya and his comments.
The many middle finger showings we see from onboard cameras.
Sometimes listening to the team radio at the end of a race after a good finish, like Vettel in China last year when he was screaming and shouting for minutes.
The desperate attempts from some drivers to gain advantage, MS in Monaco '06 or Alonso, also in '06, free practice at the Hungaroring.

These guys are driven by emotion, you may not see it while watching them in the press conferences but it's not only their fault, if Senna, Mansell etc. raced now they would be pretty much the same I guess.

Good post

A lot better than yet more Alonso fanboyism, seemingly unable to discuss a single bloody thing without going on and on (and on) about how FA was wronged and how horrid LH is.

There is still plenty of emotion in F1. But the bashboys are the first to criticise or mock any display of emotion, if it's from one of their 'enemies'.

I don't really care if all they say in the press conferences is 100% the corporate line, it's on the track that I like to see the supposed 'emotion'. Although I have to admit, the little brawl between Massa and Alonso last year at the Nurburgring was pretty good television.

I was going to mention that, it was good. Unfortunately soon after they had made up and moments like that are rare.

Well call me a softie but I much prefer them to basically have a "nice" competition with occasional flare-ups like this, than the kind of unsporting nastiness we saw with Senna/Prost or MS. I'd forgotten how much it took away from the enjoyment of it, until I watched MS running Mika onto the grass at Spa again as posted a couple of days ago. That kind of thing sours it for me. A bit of bad temper to reflect the intensity of it all, then a return to sporting rivalry, is perfect.

Agreed. I don't want to see hatred, I want to see human reactions. And the little "chat" between Massa and Alonso was definetely human. We all have arguments with our collegues and even friends sometimes, and imagine the situation, they were racing for almost two hours, in a hectic race, in the middle of the season, one of them had just won the race and the other lost an almost certain win, it's understandable that they lost their tempers.
They showed maturity afterwards by putting it all behind them and making up.

I think you should also consider this: the coverage of F1 has been multiplied to incredible heights. When I was five or six, the only F1 races broadcasted in the Netherlands were the Dutch and Monaco Grand Prix. Never did I see interviews with drivers. When I was seventeen I could watch the BBC, which means you would sometime see short interviews with drivers. Then in the 1990's, coverage exploded. Television, newspapers, internet... if I type in 'Michael Schumacher' and 'Interview' in Google, I get so much material I would cost me a lifetime to read all the stuff!

And ofcourse racing drivers repeat themselves. That doesn't mean they are so 'corporate', or unemotional. That they often sound mechanic or unnatural is first of all because they have to give interviews about 160 times a day. Second of all because they are humans. I worked as a journalist for about twenty years, and I interviewed a lot of people. My estimate is that almost everyone in the world - except perhaps Nelson Mandela - can talk about thirty minutes before they start repeating themselves. And that in onehour interview all their interesting stuff has been spilled.

Some passion here.



Though I suppose it was a decade ago now.

Schumie and Fisi getting physical at Germany 2000.



Alonso, as MichaelPM has said, has been very passionate in his driving and off track behaviour too, though it's done more harm than good. Which, in truth, is I think why you don't see it so much in modern F1.

Listen up sonny.This is my turf!

Lot´s of passion here:

You can laugh, but you're actually quite right. The negativity towards each other is borne by just as much passion to win as any of the other incidents mentioned above. This photo ought to be in the 'classic F1 photo's' thread too, because I think it captures the whole 2007 season quite well.

It does not matter what your or my take on the situation is......what you saw was LH's take regardless of what did or did not happen. The problem here is that you want to make LH the devil so baddly you can't concede any point that might ever be percieved as positive about him.

I happen to think there's less moaning in f1 than ever before and that to me is a good thing.

You only have to trawl through the list of drivers (as stated by people in this thread) seen as being full of emotion etc and it usually comes down to them being moaners for the majority of their career.

Most of the current crop of drivers (with some notable exceptions) seem to actually enjoy themselves. Unfortunately the public doesn't class happiness as an emotion these days, they view it as more of a front or an act for the cameras to appease the sponsors.

Moaners meanwhile are seen as a bit of a character. Keep them. There's not enough positivity in the world.

Pretty pathetic post, but this takes the biscuit, he was paid $30M (or whatever it was) p.a. and given a car capable of a championship, yet he gives the boss the finger when he's expected to race his teammate?

quote:Originally posted by MichaelPM
...
Alonso giving Ron the finger (supposidly) from a McLaren going down the Indy start/finish straight (who wouldnt want to do that ;) )
...

Pretty pathetic post, but this takes the biscuit, he was paid $30M (or whatever it was) p.a. and given a car capable of a championship, yet he gives the boss the finger when he's expected to race his teammate?


Might also go a long way in explaining why said driver is now languishing in an also ran car with bleak prospects of securing a drive in a top team for the foreseeable future...

Or the opposite, as conveniently proven by the two posts above this one.

The inability of fanboys to comprehend that their own side is by and large just as bad as the enemy side is a large part of the problem.

Reply to those, then

Or post on-topic, even

So says the sneakiest 'fanboys' of them all!

Even if I were, the point would still be true. That the likes of you can't comprehend fits perfectly.

Like you did in post #9?

"Emotions in F1" is not about FA. MichaelPM was way, way OT so he got those replies. He can fight his own battles I'm sure, no need for you to get involved and mess the thread up even more.

Read post 28. Before you and I drag this highly entertaining thread into the gutter..

Then you didn't understand my post. I was referring to the sad fandom of someone cheering their driver acting like a berk. Alonso has brought a lot of people into the sport who fawn over everything he does. I can only guess what would happen were he to push a marshal as he got out of the car, when it happened to Kimi most were pleading mitigating circumstances rather than doing cartwheels; not so with Alonso, no doubt the 'A team' would be giving 'high fives', lapping up yet another example of his shining 'individuality'.

Err... you seem to suggest I'm a Hamilton fanboy.
I support Alonso. End of story.

I wrote "the TWO posts above". None of them was from you, so...

Says who? Which drivers are allowed in this thread, then? Please enlighten us.

To answer the question posed at the top of the thread, it seems quite apparent to me that the 'emotions' in F1 are now only displayed by fans, as demonstrated brilliantly by my beautiful assistants here in this thread.

Please give them all a nice big round of applause.

And you really think that only Alonso fans act that way? I thought you were smarter than that.

Those broadsides at the respective other fanbase are boring to the extreme, I think.

Aspy you are being a complete nuisance.

Thanks, master.

Strangely enough it appears very widespread with Alonso fans, while remaining thankfully rare elsewhere: I don't remember Raikkonen fans gloating when he pushed the marshal, or Schumacher fans high-fiving after Rascasse, or Hamilton fans giving it "Way to go Hami!" after Hungary. Maybe as an Alonso fan you are entirely blind to this?

Sorry, I thought you meant the two posts above undesquares post. Mea culpa.

I definitely remember all of the above to varying degrees. Anyway, I made a poll , so let's keep this thread clean from now on.

First of all Alonso would never push a marshal.

Second: Who are these "a lot of people", "A team" you are referring to? The Mongolian horde?

Anyone who express views involving conceptions like "those people" ought to take a good look at themselves. IMO.

The OT strand has moved to another thread, linked to in the post immediately before yours.

I know. But I'm not interested in discussing which fans of which driver in better/worse than anyone else, I'm not very fond of bunching people - even fans of F1 drivers - together regardless. Unlike some.

OK, enough of OT. Get on with the emotions.

For the loss of emotions I'd blame first of all Bernie and MaXXX, After them all those old farts who have lost their excitement from the sport (if they ever had any) long ago but determine how things are done. F1 is becoming more and more sterile. Recently we've been deprived even from seeing how the winner takes congratulations from his team after getting out of the car. Drivers now are herded like sheep by FIA shepherds as soon as they climb out. Don't know really why but it's disgusting.
A driver returning to the pits sitting on a rival's car - forbidden.
The winner taking and waving his national flag on his glory lap - forbidden.
Winner doing doughnuts - forbidden.
......
...... forbidden.

Kimi did it last year in Spa though

No, he lost it at the turn

By emotion i want to see a guy reacting with grit and determination. Somebody who like aryton did'nt give a damn what the world thought of him. Somebody who when he gets into that car doesnt just drive and then say i was bored. Somebody in that press conference who doesn't care what the press will say tomorrow, doesn't necessarrily thanks the team...that is too pc, but speaks his mind, bangs the table if he has to, stands and walks out if asked a stupid question. That is what racing used to be.

There has been flashes of pure brilliance from alonso and lewis But this iam afraid is far in between and the guys just talk of what the PC brigade want to hear. Too bad, too bad

Can you imagine the uproar if they actually tried to sanction a driver doing those things, though? I think more likely the drivers are more in the thrall of team owners than ever, and those team owners are becoming increasingly disconnected from what it's actually like to be a racing driver. Montoya was probably an example of the dangers of not giving a shit of what your employers think.

As audience shares and revenues decline, though, it's inevitable that we'll see the 'show' elements, eg. the passion and emotions, becoming more and more accentuated, and the rules will change to reflect this. So we'll see more drivers allowed to act like Montoya in future, IMO. Not that I could imagine the likes of Rosberg, Piquet or Kubica ever doing such a thing.

Did he???

Do you have any sort of linky for this?