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Massa vs Alonso at odds in car setup. Influence in last and this year Ferraris


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#1 AlexS

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Posted 21 June 2014 - 15:19

It is known that Massa and Alonso had very different requests in car setup and often gave contradictory feedback information. After this year Williams not anymore more can be said that Massa is a bad developer/setup wise.

But Ferrari is struggling with setup, the cars being unstable and mostly Alonso can be seen extract some performance from it, rarely Kimi. This replicates the issues Massa had, in rare times when the car was mostly okay he was up there with Alonso, the car started to behave badly and only Alonso could extract something from it, but never as a top car.

 

The question here is if the Alonso influence been negative in car development of the under-steering Ferraris of last couple of years. 

He has been clearly the leader of the team, so his input is certainly heavily considered for the development path.



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#2 pokerkid

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Posted 21 June 2014 - 15:22

lol what the hell? really scraping the bottom of the barrel. Williams is a great car, the Fiat is crap. Simple.


Edited by pokerkid, 21 June 2014 - 15:22.


#3 sopa

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Posted 21 June 2014 - 15:29

Complicated topic, but at least the argument has been buried for good now that around 2006 and 2007 Alonso was a great car developer and thanks to his feedback both Renault and McLaren were so fast.



#4 kosmos

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Posted 21 June 2014 - 15:30

It is known that Massa and Alonso had very different requests in car setup and often gave contradictory feedback information.

 

False, Fernando and Felipe used each other setup in  many races in the past 4 years, their feedback is complementary of each other to the point that Alonso has always praises Felipe skills when it comes to feedback and car development. You don't believe me?, go watch the Ferrari racing news video series and you will see Alonso saying that Felipe style and his style are complementary and they share many traits in their respective styles.


Edited by kosmos, 21 June 2014 - 15:32.


#5 sheepgobba

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Posted 21 June 2014 - 15:31

Complicated topic, but at least the argument has been buried for good now that around 2006 and 2007 Alonso was a great car developer and thanks to his feedback both Renault and McLaren were so fast.

 

I am sure Ferrari could use an extra .6 tenths in general regardless of the developments Fred brings  :rotfl:



#6 MastaKink

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Posted 21 June 2014 - 15:34

I didn't know Massa designed the Mercedes PU.

 

Fair play to him for keeping that quiet.



#7 PoleMan

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Posted 21 June 2014 - 15:37

It is known that Massa and Alonso had very different requests in car setup and often gave contradictory feedback information. After this year Williams not anymore more can be said that Massa is a bad developer/setup wise.

But Ferrari is struggling with setup, the cars being unstable and mostly Alonso can be seen extract some performance from it, rarely Kimi. This replicates the issues Massa had, in rare times when the car was mostly okay he was up there with Alonso, the car started to behave badly and only Alonso could extract something from it, but never as a top car.

 

The question here is if the Alonso influence been negative in car development of the under-steering Ferraris of last couple of years. 

He has been clearly the leader of the team, so his input is certainly heavily considered for the development path.

:lol:

 

Mattiacci and Allison say they need to improve EVERYWHERE, aero, chassis, engine...so that logically leads to your musing that the driving of the guy who finished 3/4 years as Vice-WDC is the root of the problem. Ok.  :rolleyes:

 

Alonso will never get some of the respect he's due from some people on this forum, but he does get it from the people in the sport who matter, so I guess he'll accept that as a consolation prize. 



#8 sopa

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Posted 21 June 2014 - 15:37

The question here is if the Alonso influence been negative in car development of the under-steering Ferraris of last couple of years. 

He has been clearly the leader of the team, so his input is certainly heavily considered for the development path.

 

Understeering car as such doesn't necessarily have to be slow as the Renaults of 2005-2006 showed, even if such car is not ideal for handling (at least for many drivers).

 

Why has Ferrari been developing understeering cars and why it hasn't worked out? Perhaps it has something to do with the technical team and their skillset, which means it is natural for them to develop cars with such characteristics. How much of this is Alonso's input, is hard to say. Does understeering car play to Alonso's strength in relation to his rivals? It seems like that. There is no guarantee Alonso would have such an advantage over his team-mates (Fisichella 05-06, Massa, Raikkonen) in, say, an oversteering car. We see it with Vettel - now struggling with a different car. So we never know, how could team-mate battle swing in a car with completely different characteristics.

 

Edit: I know that many people try to re-evaluate Raikkonen and Massa now. Some people say they were always average, some say this car just doesn't suit them - doesn't mean they were slow/bad the rest of the time. Some say they are/were past their prime, some think they are/were hindered/unlucky.

 

But I am starting to re-evaluate Fisichella. Many said he was just flat-out crap. But despite that he was once rated very highly. Perhaps in a top car in a different team he could have had Raikkonen-kind of effect by at least seemingly performing superbly and fighting for titles? Maybe he was a diamond never tested in a top car suitable for him? But he was found struggling in an understeering car against Alonso in the same team like the past two Ferrari drivers. It looks like Fisichella might have been just as good as Massa/Raikkonen, not way worse like many believed. Food for thought.


Edited by sopa, 21 June 2014 - 15:41.


#9 pokerkid

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Posted 21 June 2014 - 15:40

 

 

Why has Ferrari been developing understeering cars and why it hasn't worked out? Perhaps it has something to do with the technical team and their skillset, which means it is natural for them to develop cars with such characteristics.

 

You mean a team deliberately designs a car to lack front grip? Amazing!


Edited by pokerkid, 21 June 2014 - 15:40.


#10 sopa

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Posted 21 June 2014 - 15:48

You mean a team deliberately designs a car to lack front grip? Amazing!

 

I mean every team tries their best. But during the design process they always have to make compromises and deal with complications. One compromise is speed v reliability. Other one is speed and handling. They try to design as fast car as possible, but it ends up being understeery. Based on the knowledge and skills of the design team it just happens like that, even if IDEALLY they would not like it. But how often is the world ideal?

 

Maybe if they made another compromise and tried to build an oversteery or neutral-handling car, the design team wouldn't know, how to do it and in the end the car ends up being slower than the understeery one they designed. So they try to make the best car based on the skills and knowledge they have. 


Edited by sopa, 21 June 2014 - 15:51.


#11 Anderis

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Posted 21 June 2014 - 15:49

I didn't know Massa designed the Mercedes PU.

 

Fair play to him for keeping that quiet.

Would you bother to check Williams' progress compared to other Mercedes' powered teams before bringing up your "witty" comment?



#12 Astro

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Posted 21 June 2014 - 15:50

It is known that Massa and Alonso had very different requests in car setup and often gave contradictory feedback information. After this year Williams not anymore more can be said that Massa is a bad developer/setup wise.

But Ferrari is struggling with setup, the cars being unstable and mostly Alonso can be seen extract some performance from it, rarely Kimi. This replicates the issues Massa had, in rare times when the car was mostly okay he was up there with Alonso, the car started to behave badly and only Alonso could extract something from it, but never as a top car.

 

The question here is if the Alonso influence been negative in car development of the under-steering Ferraris of last couple of years. 

He has been clearly the leader of the team, so his input is certainly heavily considered for the development path.

 

:lol:  I don't know how this guy always end up in the wrong side of the equation.

 

As explanations go, I prefer Massa's lobotomy. At least we now know that there is hope for thousands of people around the world once Mercedes makes a commercial version of its engine.


Edited by Astro, 21 June 2014 - 15:51.


#13 Altair

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Posted 21 June 2014 - 15:54

So we are all seeing that Vettel and Raikkonen are overrated,that Massa is underrated and his pole proves that Ferrari fails 5 years in a row, and this is your conclusion. Funny the last argument to cling for recognize the truth . Alonso is not an engineer.

 

Auto anti-Alonso forum never stop surprise you. Everything is allowed for deny the truth. :rotfl:



#14 sopa

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Posted 21 June 2014 - 15:59

Actually it has to be said that Massa has been one lucky bastard in his career. With the exception of the 2008 title loss and the 2009 accident obviously...

 

But other than that - he had the Ferrari seat for 8 (!) seasons, including the last 3-4 ones, where he was massively underperforming. He gets the sack for poor performance... and finds him in a top car (except Mercedes obviously, but behind them among the best of the rest)! So instead of an expected relegation for underperforming he actually gets a promotion and keeps driving in good positions. Amazing.:D



#15 redreni

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Posted 21 June 2014 - 16:00

If Massa wasn't being listened to as much as Alonso at Ferrari, it's probably because he was so slow. And on the question of whether Alonso's feedback is good or bad for car development, I'd argue it can't be that bad or he wouldn't have won his titles at Renault. It hasn't worked out at Ferrari but that's down to the whole team, not one man, and generally the cars haven't been quick enough out of the box. It's not that they've started with an advantage and then lost their way on development through the season, although they have had issues with correlation, which I would argue was more likely due to problems with the wind tunnel or the people interpreting the wind tunnel data, rather than the drivers' feedback being wrong, and if it was poor driver feedback Massa's implicated too as he had the same correlation issues as Alonso. And if Alonso's a poor development driver, what about 2010, where they started out uncompetitive compared to Red Bull, and then outdeveloped them over the season to make themselves competitive by the end?



#16 MastaKink

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Posted 21 June 2014 - 16:01

Would you bother to check Williams' progress compared to other Mercedes' powered teams before bringing up your "witty" comment?

 

What progress?

 

They were the second quickest(Dry running) Merc powered team in Testing,Australia and more often than not since. They have just made far too many mistakes,both drivers and team. some misfortune here and there thrown as well.

 

 

We'll just forget that though and stick with the theme of the thread that Massa's set up prowess is the reason for the Williams speed,mechanical grip and handling and Alonso is holding back Ferrari.

 

K'? Cool.



#17 sopa

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Posted 21 June 2014 - 16:06

If Massa wasn't being listened to as much as Alonso at Ferrari, it's probably because he was so slow. And on the question of whether Alonso's feedback is good or bad for car development, I'd argue it can't be that bad or he wouldn't have won his titles at Renault.

 

Feedback is not related to driver's speed. This is one of the myths and misconceptions in F1.

 

Just as an example - Wurz, de la Rosa, Badoer, Panis (in 2000 for McLaren) were very highly rated test drivers, who could put in hundreds and hundreds of laps in testing, were listened to and gave good feedback to engineers. For good feedback you need to be consistent and have a good feel about car characteristics - i.e how does any detail they put on the car influence the car drivability. This has nothing to do with speed and trying to put in a banker of a lap in, say, qualifying.



#18 Hanzo

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Posted 21 June 2014 - 16:12

It is known that Massa and Alonso had very different requests in car setup and often gave contradictory feedback information. After this year Williams not anymore more can be said that Massa is a bad developer/setup wise.

But Ferrari is struggling with setup, the cars being unstable and mostly Alonso can be seen extract some performance from it, rarely Kimi. This replicates the issues Massa had, in rare times when the car was mostly okay he was up there with Alonso, the car started to behave badly and only Alonso could extract something from it, but never as a top car.

 

The question here is if the Alonso influence been negative in car development of the under-steering Ferraris of last couple of years. 

He has been clearly the leader of the team, so his input is certainly heavily considered for the development path.

 

 

Congratulations, every time you find a more complicated comparison to make Alonso look bad while trying to hide Kimi's poor performance so far. What will be next? :lol:



#19 krumpli12

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Posted 21 June 2014 - 16:21

Congratulations, every time you find a more complicated comparison to make Alonso look bad while trying to hide Kimi's poor performance so far. What will be next? :lol:

 

Well, at least, you cannot say that AlexS lacks creativity  :stoned: Anyway, this track of thought is not going to cut it, because Allison said that Alonso and Kimi are giving the same feedback about this year's craptastic car, so that would mean that Kimi is just as a bad developer as Fernando is, wouldn't? :p



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#20 D.M.N.

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Posted 21 June 2014 - 16:21

Per the House Rules:

 

"Driver vs driver threads are only welcome for team mates where a reasonable assessment of their respective abilities can be gauged. Other comparison threads which pit driver against driver for no apparent reason are unwelcome."

 

And the topic appears unconstructive as a whole, so I'm afraid I'm closing this.