I'm not sure what to do with Alonso.
There's been a lot of discussion about how good or bad the Ferrari really was, and Alonso's efforts in downtuning the car's pace in the media. But I'm just short of thinking he's just completely lost it now. His latest comment:
"At the end of the year we were quite far from [pace-setters] Red Bull and McLaren, in a group with force Force India and Sauber behind Lotus," -link
I think not even the biggest Alonso fan would argue that they were anything but the third fastest car in the latter half. But if there was still some doubt, let's just look at the numbers from Hungary on:
- Vettel: 171 points
- Alonso: 124 points
- Button: 120 points
- Kimi: 109 points
- Massa: 99 points
- Hamilton: 98 points
- Webber: 59 points
- Hülkenberg: 44 points
- Grosjean: 35 points
- Kobayashi: 27 points
- Perez: 19 points
- di Resta: 19 points
- Red Bull: 295
- Ferrari: 223
- McLaren: 218
- Lotus: 144
- Force India: 63
- Sauber: 46
Even if believe in Alonso's 0.6 second talent, Massa had double the points of those Alonso claims were as fast or faster than Ferrari. Massa was just 10 points short of scoring as much as Force India and Sauber combined, who were apparently in the same group.
Even just taking qualifying, which some ascribe to being indicative of race pace (big if), of the 60 times a Lotus, Force India or Sauber could have been faster than Massa (again, let's assume the worst of the car), 20 times is hardly shocking.
By taking the latter half of the year, it's actually doing Alonso a favor, as taking anything closer to the actual end, only makes the comment further from the truth.
When you take out the Lotusses, 9 out of 40 shows the rediculousness of even including Force India and Sauber.
Fernando is definitely one of the three best drivers out there right now, but why the constant need for these kind of comments that are rediculous on every conceivable level?
Edited by mnmracer, 20 February 2013 - 16:11.