Alonso and Massa

[janneppi]

I'm sorry, but this is not a fact.

From 2002-2006 Kimi's cars and teammate's cars retirements due to reliability issues (not collisions, accidents, black flags or massive USA '05 retirements), have been:

2002 17 races.
Kimi: 10. (59&#37 .
Coulthard: 3. (18%).

2003 16 races.
Kimi: 1. (6%).
Coulthard: 4. (25%).

2004 18 races.
Kimi: 7. (39%).
Coulthard: 2. (11%).

2005 19 races.
Kimi: 3. (16%).
Montoya: 3. (16%). (Neither Wurz or de la Rosa retired that season).

2006 18 races.
Kimi: 2. (11%).
Montoya/de la Rosa: 4. (22%). (2 each).

TOTAL 2002-2006 88 races.
Kimi: 23. (26%).
Teammates: 16. (18%).

In 2007 Kimi has retired already twice, and to keep his average, he should do it again in another two races. If Felipe suffers 3 retirements in the next 7 races, he'll keep the average of teammates retirements; if not, the difference between kimi and his mates will increase.

This are facts.

If we were to take these figures without looking into them, you'd think there are two Kimis
The one that drove 2003, 2005 and 2006, and the one who drove 2002 and 2004.
Saying Kimi breaks the car is one thing, explaining why out the last full five seasons he's had three seasons where he had less problems than his team mates and still saying he breaks the car more often than his team mate is another.

2007 figures are also bit mis-leading, Massa has had two mechanical problems that were present before the race(one if you believe he stalled the car by accident at Silverstone)

[jens]

Here was a question that how can Kimi break hydraulics or electronics with driving style.

Well, we may take another approach. As Kimi is not very interested in the technical side of F1 nor isn't a top car developer, then he doesn't put as much emphasis on preparing the car for the race as do the rivals, which results in having more unreliable cars.

[janneppi]

Jens, can you name even one driver who participates at all in the desing and manufacturing or assembly of every component in the car?

I didn't know Massa or Alonso spend their race weekends building race cars on behalf of their engineers.

[F1MAN2007]

Here was a question that how can Kimi break hydraulics or electonics with driving style.

Well, we may take another approach. As Kimi is not very interested in the technical side of F1 nor isn't a top car developer, then he doesn't put as much emphasis on preparing the car for the race as do the rivals, which results in having more unreliable cars.

intend to agree with that. Apart from the mechanical problems, it took a little bit time to set up a car convenient to his driving style, but now he has found the best set up which suit him and then the reliability issue doesn't want to help him.

[F1MAN2007]

Jens, can you name even one driver who participates at all in the desing and manufacturing or assembly of every component in the car?

I didn't know Massa or Alonso spend their race weekends building race cars on behalf of their engineers.

I think Alonso, Massa and Lewis (and I am sure for Lewis and Alonso) spend a lot of time with their engineers in their free time and talk to them what they think can be changed or improved on the car. Drivers learn from engineers and engineers learn from drivers. Otherwise I can't see any need of test and practice session before any race?!

It would be like saying, engineers design and build the cars and give them to drivers on sunday to race whatever the drivers may like or not like as long you seem to say drivers don't have any input in design, construction or assembling the car.

Today, one of the things Ferrari is missing, is the strong feedback from MS and a part of their reliability issue is down to their lack of MS and Ross Brawn.

Last year, Ferrari was on top with MS and Mclaren was down because of their lack of reliability. And today it is the reverse?! Mclaren seems to be more reliable than Ferrari. Mclaren benefiting from Alonso and Ferrari missing MS. Following this, I hope drivers are very important as well in building up a competitive and reliable car.

[janneppi]

I think Alonso, Massa and Lewis (and I am sure for Lewis and Alonso) spend a lot of time with their engineers in their free time and talk to them what they think can be changed or improved on the car. Drivers learn from engineers and engineers learn from drivers. Otherwise I can't see any need of test and practice session before any race?!

It would be like saying, engineers design and build the cars and give them to drivers on sunday to race whatever the drivers may like or not like as long you seem to say drivers don't have any input in design, construction or assembling the car.
.

I'm saying drivers aren't needed to give input on single components, can you give any reason for Alonso (for example) demanding a slightly different flow charasteristics of a servovalve used to control some actuator?
A driver can only really give input on what he feels driving the car, not on a a specific part of traction control algorithm or in stress analysis of a suspension arm.

[jas123f1]

I think Alonso, Massa and Lewis (and I am sure for Lewis and Alonso) spend a lot of time with their engineers in their free time and talk to them what they think can be changed or improved on the car. Drivers learn from engineers and engineers learn from drivers. Otherwise I can't see any need of test and practice session before any race?!

It would be like saying, engineers design and build the cars and give them to drivers on sunday to race whatever the drivers may like or not like as long you seem to say drivers don't have any input in design, construction or assembling the car.

Today, one of the things Ferrari is missing, is the strong feedback from MS and a part of their reliability issue is down to their lack of MS and Ross Brawn.

Last year, Ferrari was on top with MS and Mclaren was down because of their lack of reliability. And today it is the reverse?! Mclaren seems to be more reliable than Ferrari. Mclaren benefiting from Alonso and Ferrari missing MS. Following this, I hope drivers are very important as well in building up a competitive and reliable car.

I don't think that Massa or any other driver are working more with their teams than Kimi or make better job than him.

It’s drivers work to tell to the team what he needs to be faster on the track. That’s the point. That’s a drivers work, because without that he or a team will newer be as champions.

So its’ not true at all that Kimi doesn't work with his team. He is working very hard with his team and you can even see the result today (if you want) because the car is today much more suited for him than it was in beginning of the year. It’s a result of the team work there Kimi has his important part ..So if we first are saying that the car is today much better suited for Kimi and then assert the contrary ??? To be quite honest with you it doesn’t sound quite truthful.

But things like electric or hydraulic failures are definitely not Kimis fault.

[Storm]

Well, we may take another approach. As Kimi is not very interested in the technical side of F1 nor isn't a top car developer, then he doesn't put as much emphasis on preparing the car for the race as do the rivals, which results in having more unreliable cars.

Or you mean his mechanics/engineers don't put as much emphasis on preparing the car ? :

Because seriously however good a driver is on the technical side, the final prep/building of the car is out of his hand. As is the luck of the draw, faulty components, strategy gone bad, weather etc.

Kimi has has rotten luck in his whole career (I call it bad luck, some of you can call it his driving style which breaks cars ). If he had as much reliability of Alonso/Renault (forget MS and HIS bullet-proof car) he would be have been atleast a 1-time world champ by now.

[andreag]

Back to topic, here's the onboard camera from changing tyres to one lap after Fernando overtakes Felipe:

http://stage6.divx.com/F1-Erco/video...-Massa-Onboard

Look at the open line Fernando use to take the turns on wet; he did the same last year at Hungaroring, as this video of the Michael hunt shows:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7vXP50UYZY

In fact this is the right way to drive on wet, and surprinsingly Michael should know it, as someone (and not anyone) did the same some years ago:

http://es.youtube.com/watch?v=fVQFEFtFBCA

The reason is simple; on wet, the usual driving line, which has too much rubber on it, is much more slipery than the rest of the track, so cars drive slowly on this line, but if you leave it, you can drive faster and safer, with more grip than your opponents.

[osg]

Anyways, after 6 pages........ the end result is that one of the 2 drivers has 2 world titles and won the race........... the other has nothing.

Felipe got schooled. Simple as that.