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mnmracer wrote:
It is my opinion that it is bullshit to claim that Alonso would have been champion right now if he was in a Lotus.
The only way being in the Lotus would have made Alonso a champion is in the fictional scenario in which he had raced the Lotus in Bahrain and Hungary.
What Nelson Is saying is that Alonso would outperform both renault drivers to such an extent he would pick up more points over the course of the season in that car and win the WDC, which when you consider that Kimi Raikonnen was recently a wdc contender until the last couple of races....perhaps is not as far fetched as you think, especially when you consider that the lotus was super quick in the beginning of the season, if you watch Sky Sports F1 they were CONSTANTLY being tipped to win races....and they didn't do it, thus why he thinks the drivers underperformed.
Really simple to understand, no stupid ass stuff about swapping drivers, swapping bodies, swapping top trump cards or swapping anything else is required to understand where he is coming from.
I pretty much agree with raymondu999, but I would like to add that I don't think Lotus has been any lower than Ferrari was in some races at the start of the season. But Ferrari got away with their poor start without loosing much, because all the other teams performed so inconsistently. Changing weather conditions and big problems making the tyres work in the first few races played in Ferrari's favour, as it prevented anyone from pulling away in the championship. 7 different winners in 7 races confirms this. After this I think Ferrari has probably been more competitive than many have assumed. For some reason, I have read a lot of people writing that Alonso was doing magic with a poor car, refering to Massa's lack of results. But I think it is more reasonable to assume that the car wasn't that bad, and that Massa was struggling. In the resent races, Massa has performed a lot better than he did earlier in the season, while Alonsos performance hasn't changed. We have actually seen much of the same with Button at McLaren. He also struggled for some races in a similary manner as Massa. Before the race in Germany, Button had taken only 7 points in the last 6 races. Canada was the most extreme case, where Hamilton won, while Button finished 16th.
I think that after Ferraris poor form during winter testing and the first races, many people got the impression that their car was not good at all. And even if this was the case in the dry, they were very strong in the wet, which made a big difference at the start of the season. After that, Massa's performance seemingly confirmed that Ferrari didn't have a good car, so it was probably not easy to judge Ferraris real level. But now it is easier, because Massa has improved a lot, while Alonso is still at the same level, so I believe that the Ferrari was underestimated. But it can be difficult to realize this after having believed othervise for a long time and seemlingly also observing confirmation.
When it comes to Vettel, he has clearly been performing better than Webber this season, although Webber had the upper hand at some occasions. But the same thing can be said about Alonso and Massa. Alonso is clearly the better driver, but just a few days ago he was out-performed by Massa. Also in Korea Massa was faster, and at Monza Massa also was in the front. Now, you could argue that Massa was in front because Alonso had problem in qualifying, but Massa has also had his car issues this year. The main difference is that Massa plays a more dedicated team role than Webber does, which of course can be explained by the fact that Webber was in the fight for a long time, while Massa was nowhere at the beginning of the season and quickly disappeard from the battle for the title.
mnmracer wrote:
It is my opinion that it is bullshit to claim that Alonso would have been champion right now if he was in a Lotus.
The only way being in the Lotus would have made Alonso a champion is in the fictional scenario in which he had raced the Lotus in Bahrain and Hungary.
What Nelson Is saying is that Alonso would outperform both renault drivers to such an extent he would pick up more points over the course of the season in that car and win the WDC, which when you consider that Kimi Raikonnen was recently a wdc contender until the last couple of races....perhaps is not as far fetched as you think, especially when you consider that the lotus was super quick in the beginning of the season, if you watch Sky Sports F1 they were CONSTANTLY being tipped to win races....and they didn't do it, thus why he thinks the drivers underperformed.
Really simple to understand, no stupid ass stuff about swapping drivers, swapping bodies, swapping top trump cards or swapping anything else is required to understand where he is coming from.
Well, thank you for explaining the obvious, but my stance remains: I do not think Fernando Alonso in the same car would have scored 93 points (>3.5 race wins) more than Kimi Räikkönen.
It's the same with claiming Vettel is underperforming and Alonso would have bagged it in the Red Bull. It's a nice one-liner, but one has yet to substantuate the point where Vettel and Räikkönen have dropped all those points allegedly. In Räikkönen's case, there's a few instance, but not 92 points. In Vettel's case, there's even fewer to think of; it's not like Alonso has not occasionally been beaten by his team-mate or underperformed.
mnmracer wrote:It's the same with claiming Vettel is underperforming and Alonso would have bagged it in the Red Bull. It's a nice one-liner, but one has yet to substantuate the point where Vettel and Räikkönen have dropped all those points allegedly.
At least when comparing to vettel, it's a case of where he would have dropped points, because his team mate was ahead of him, so he would have fewer points than he actually does this year. Against Kimi, it seems harder to justify.
