According to

http://www.pitpass.com/fes_php/pitpass_new...es_art_id=35865

Brawn is hailing Alonso.

Ross Brawn must be quite frustrated with the mediocre drivers that he is dealing with now after years on end with a driver genius like Michael Schumacher.
He must be yearning for another congenial partner that could well be Fernando Alonso.

Fernando has shown again in Spa that his motivation is as high as ever, as is his ability.
Yet, with Renault showing an upward tendency, why should he leave there?

Still, he might wait for the aftermath of Kimi´s crash in Spa - it might have been a serious blow and Kimi might reconsider his F1 career now in light of the psychological blow that Lewis dealt him at Spa.

Mind you, something similar happened in MotoGP earlier this year, when Rossi did something very similar to Stoner at Laguna Seca...
Racing is highly psychological after all.

Therefore a duo Alonso/Brawn would also command a certain respect...

You could stick Michael Ayrton Jim Alain Gilles Stewart Moss in this year's Honda and he'd look like an average driver...

OK, so what's new????

I wonder what Alonso rates Honda.

Hailing someone you're trying to hire?? Never . .

Brawn and Alonso would make a great combination.... but not in Honda IMO.

1. It´s been a while since a "no limits" offer has been made to any pilot.

2. Mario Theissen again delayed to make public his decision who BMW drives with in 2009.

3. Kimi Raikkonen reached a pivotal point in his career today.

4. Alonso showed anew that he is a force to be reckoned with.

I agree with you, Flash. Although Honda has a great racing tradition, they look deplorable right now.
A team Alonso/Brawn would be fantastic to watch.

I would love to see Alonso and Brawn in BMW so we could see a solid third contender for the WDC.

Brawn who?? Hamilton the very BEST

Thats a good point actually. After so many years with Genius it must surely be demotivating to be working with mere mortals so I can understands Brawns repeated pleas for Alonso. Hes been hailing him for a long time now, hes literally begging for Alonso, which proves he really means the words he says about Alonso.

*sniff sniff*

Well he would say that wouldn't he - He wants Alonso at Honda next year.

Brawn meant: the best free driver on the market

indeed.

my guess would be that Brawn is negotiating with another driver and that, through the Alonso praise, he is attempting to reduce that driver's asking price.

Sato maybe?

the eternal Honda spook.
Yet, Sato would definitely make for great racing, remember him overtaking Alonso in Canada 2007...

Yep, Brawn and Alonso at BMW would be quite be something, but where do you put Dr.Mario Theissen then ;)

We could make a thread (if that were allowed around here) placing bets on where Alonso finally ends up in 2009:

The quotes at the moment:

1:2 BMW
1:2 Renault
1:5 Honda
1:7 Toyota
1:12 Ferrari
1:13 STR (at least then Fernando has already the Ferrari engine at Torro Rosso...and cannot complain of missing Renault power)

Pretty brutal comment on Button, wasnt it. "Even" Massa got a mention

For the recent news:

-Theissen: 2009 lineup decision delayed;
-Alonso:after the summer I will say my future, but noy yet;
-Nick: I know I need to lift my game;

I'd say there's a big possibility that Alonso ends up in BMW rather than Renault, since Renault is not building a great car for next year, they even wanted a delay in KERS introduction.

Alonso is only waiting to make sure Ferrari won't give him a seat for at least 2010, because he knows if he goes to BMW it has to be for three years and he wouldn't be able to go to Ferrari, maybe never, so he needs to be sure he won't be offered a seat in Ferrari.

Some say the deadline for a response to BMW is 1 week. BMW would be, why not, a good option. I think a branch like that, once established as a constructor, can be as powerful as McLaren and Ferrari. It's not like Williams BMW were BMW provides the engine and that's all. It's a big manufacturer, making great sport cars, and an evolution year by year can be seen.

Just had a look back in time, not only the team principals of 2010 hail Alonso to be the best, Ross Brawn did so already in 2008. Of course, he was trying to lure Fernando to join Honda/Brawn GP for 2009, and, would Fernando have known....oi oi oi.

Somehow Alonso is not so lucky in making the best of his WDC chances. 2007 slipped away, 2009 he had the possibility to join the WDC team, 2010 slipped away.... Choices are also a factor in how your final record looks like, and it will be hard for anyone to emulate Schumachers record also in this respect.

On the other hand, people are saying that Alonso is still mirroring Schumacher´s career very much (2 WDC at Benetton, 2 WDC at Renault so far, and now Ferrari, where Schumacher won the WDC only in his 5th season!) - so everything still possible for Fernando, if they get the Scuderia together....

Meanwhile, I stay in unison with Ross´and the team principals opinion that Alonso is the best.

Nah, Alonso's been pretty lucky. He was in Renault the two years that the team had easily the best car on the grid. He was in McL the very year they finally had both the fastest car and engine that could actually finish a race -- something they hadn't had for the entire decade up till then. And now he has Santander providing him seat at Ferrari the richest team and usually most successful in F1. Is there a driver who has had better luck in F1 right now? When you get beaten by a rookie (completely aside form whether or not you were mistreated it still looks bad) it's not that bad to have to drive a poorer car for two years afterwards but then get in a Ferrari the next. And I think if he had handled things better at McL and not freaked out so much he could still have been there after 2007.

And he could have won the 2007 and 2008 WDC in the McLaren, you are right.

Hamilton and Alonso good cars:

Alonso:
2001 no
2003 no
2004 no
2005 yes
2006 yes
2007 yes
2008 no
2009 no
2010 yes

Hamilton
2007 yes
2008 yes
2009 no
2010 i would say YES, but Hamilton fans will protest it, so i say YES/NO, because it's slightly slower than Alonso's...but wait. Tim Goss said that McLaren was actually faster than Ferrari! So it must be YES.

So Alonso has 4/9 = 44,4 % of good cars
Hamilton has 3/4 = 75 % of good cars

So:



Based on car speed? Yes - it is Hamilton.

Hm I'm not sure about them being mediocre. Did you think they were mediocre? One of them won the title a year later. Didn't see much mediocrity there.

He could have done its certainly a possibility. The flipside of that is Lewis could have beaten him in consecutive seasons and even clinched both titles. We'll never know.

Seems that Alonso needs the #1 status to really take off, I mean he seems to
make much fewer mistakes also he gets it.

We all know that he was the number 1 driver in or after Germany. But take a look at all those mistakes
he made prior to that GP and the race before at Silverstone.
He was 3:rd on the grid, made a bad start and couldn´t pass Rosberg in the race. He payed the price of cutting the track when he overtoke Kubica and later in the race he touched a FI resulting in a puncture.
Instead of getting a 2-3 place he screwed up big time and came away with zero points. (Rosberg got that 3:rd btw).

It´s easier to remember the last races during a season but if we look at the whole year, Im not sure that Alonso was the best
driver during the season.

Statistics don't really prove 'luck'. The teams with the biggest budgets arn't lucky when they have the best cars. Its when the mid-field teams break-through then the drivers in said teams could be considered 'lucky' by being in the right place at the right time. (Button 2009 etc.)

Bumped from 2008.

I don't suppose you've ever considered that Alonso's presence in those teams had made the car a winner? Every team he has joined has improved it's performance compared to the previous season.

He gave Renault their first win (of that era) in 2003.

McLaren went from a distant third in the 2006 constructors to first n 2007 (disregarding the disqualification for a moment).

Renault, who had slumped in 2007, took two victories in 2008 on his return (one of which is not disputed).

Ferrari, who's top driver finished 6th in the WDC in 2009, led the WDC at the start of the last race and finished 2nd at the end.

Lighting keeps striking the same place I suppose?

Are you suggesting Alonso can turn a team into a front runner in a matter of a couple of months? He joined Mclaren well into the development of the 2007 car and he joined Ferrari well into the development of last season's car. I'm pretty sure the designers and engineer's are capable of improving on a previous season's results, without a driver giving his opinion on how a chassis or gearbox should be designed. That aside, what design input do you think Alonso offer's and how do you interpret him making the cars go considerably faster?

Renault WCC position:
2007: 3rd
2008: 4th
2009: 8th

To be fair, 2007 based purely on track performance was really a 4th (McLaren's exclusion lifted Renault a place). Still, I don't think Alonso's second spell at Renault quite fits with the picture you are trying to create. And I think demonstrates that the team personnel other than the drivers have the larger input on car performance.

Exactly. Drivers have preferences but they leave the designing and engineering to the people who have a background in and are employed to build these impressive racing cars.

Sorry, but Alonso having to put up with a piss poor car in 2008 and 2009 had nothing to do with luck. He was lying in the bed he had made himself.

Yes he definitely had a big impact on the McLaren 2007 car and the Ferrari 2010 car. All very impressive seen in the light of so very limited testing! But wait, Nando was giving Renault a boost in car performance in 2008, so what happened in 2009 exactly? And strange that the Renault 2007 car (developed under Nando's input) was quite bad after their 2006 season.

But I must be missing the point that proves he was not lucky in being in the right place at the right time for quite a few seasons in his career...

Only in his stints at Renault he was there long enough to make avaluable impact. And his second stint wasn't that great. Discount the 2008 "disputed" win and it shows Renault hardly made much of a leap from 2007. And then they went back further down in 2009.

This.

If he's not #1 then he does lots of mistakes.

Funny, from where I see it, every time he leaves a team they start doing better! Let's look at the the last two: Look how much better Renault is now that Alonso has left and they have Kubica in there. Look at McL. The MP4-22 was the most WDC and WCC capable car in 2007. Even Alonso has talked about how they had the best car. And yet they have nothing to show for the season whatsoever. But as soon as he leaves they're winning WDC.

I think there is something in that. Perhaps Alonso needs no.1 status to thrive. Up until Hockenheim he was as erratic and error prone as he was in 2007. Once Massa was officially in his pocket he settled down and delivered in the manner that he did in his two championship winning years with Renault.

Who needs Newey.

A bit off-topic, but are you saying that Renault's 2010 season was better than their 2008 season? I cannot agree with that!

Lewis has had good cars but he's never had the fastest car

Why didnt he stay at Renault then?


Lets just forget 2009

Not really, he was groomed to be a position to capitalise. He spent four years in other Renaults, 2002 as test driver.



This is true though. Just as Newey left, then Red Bull started to get appalling reliability. Coincidence, I think not.



Even if the rookie is a raw talent, the likes of which we haven't seen in years?



Probably true.

Instead of forgetting about 2008, you mean?

I find it quite surprising that people tend to summarise Renault's performance in the 2007-2009 period with what happened in 2009. In 2009 the team had high expectations that went out through the window as soon as they lost out to the DD-teams (particularly as the design of the R29 was made it difficult to implement such a change). Plus during the year they were in a far from ideal situation, with Piquet leaving mid-season, Chashgate exploding in their hands, the team losing its management, Ghosh furious, sponsors abandoning the team and all team members not sure of whether they would have a job by January. And some of you still wonder why they were not performing up to their usual standards?

No.

They did badly thanks to a poor car in 2009. They did about as well in 2008 as they did in 2007 thanks (again) to a relatively weak car. They improved from 2009 to 2010 thanks to a stronger car.

The point is rather to demonstrate that it is an overblown claim based on thin facts to say that Alonso is a master car developer because of improvement of team performance by Alonso 3 out of 4 times he arrived at a team - equally, teams have improved 2 out of 3 of the times he has left.

Those guy's designing and building the cars deserve a lot more credit than they appear to get.

Why would you dismiss the R28, particularly its end-of-season version, versus the R30? As a matter of fact, I think that the R28 is a great example of development over a season, and a credit to the team.

I am deliberately staying away from the discussion about Alonso as a car developer - I think that we have received enough comments from engineers/technical team members that have first-hand experience to get an idea about what his (or any driver's) role is in terms of supporting the development of the car, and how good or not he is about it. Plus, with the restriction of testing the role of drivers has obviously been limited versus what it used to be.

Certainly they got further with the R28 throughout the 2008 season than with the R30 throughout the 2010 season. We will never know how much influence both Alonso and Kubica had on the respective car developements, but the results speak for themselves!