2017 Mclaren F1 Team - Honda

[Vasconia]

He used to have good sources when he was F1's TV commentator for the Spanish broadcast. I don't know if that comes from those sources or if he is just trying to promote his own F1 website just by telling bullshit. Time will tell I guess.

He told bullshit many time when he was a commentor(and how bad he was).

But what I have read sounds quite possible at least around 80-85%.

[Schuttelberg]

Do you know what iv noticed massa has always been in an higher finishing team than Alonso ever since they parted ways at Ferrari. even though Alonso was always the higher level of driver whilst at Ferrari (and arguably after). Man he's unlucky

Unfortunately, it's not as straight forward as that. I'm not going to make comment on Felipe Massa, because I don't want to come across as a biased hater or someone who is basically made of a heart of stone or something on those lines.

Let's come to Alonso.

For years and years, fans I meet in person or on Formula 1 forums have been saying this and personally, I never got my head around it. I'll tell you why?

2005-2006 - Alonso was in the best car, he was the best driver and after 5/6 years of staying at Renault, his stint ended in two magnificent world championships with him beating the best driver of almost two/three generations (Michael Schumacher). In a lot of ways, he had replaced Schumacher as the numero uno of the sport and rightly so. However, after the Chinese Grand Prix that year, before the penultimate round in Japan, Alonso revealed a chink in his armour that's prevalent even today. He was in his mid 20's then, he's in his mid 30's now. He accused the team of sabotaging his chances of becoming WDC, a claim that was overlooked because of his unfair penalty in Italy and with him ultimately winning the title, all was well and almost forgotten.

2007 - Alonso stepped into a restructured and well organised McLaren which would prove to be a race winning and championship winning car. However, for reasons discussed to death he was unable to adjust and thought it better to go to a Renault that had past it's best.

2008-09- Alonso turns down opportunities to go to Honda/Brawn as well as RBR, teams that would win 4 championships each from 2009-2016.

2010-2017 - He leaves Ferrari after 5 years of trying to win the title and after the shock of Rosberg retiring, turns a Mercedes-Benz drive down.

In my honest opinion, it takes a very well rounded and complete driver to beat Michael Schumacher the way Alonso did, but F1 is a lot about team work and success takes a lot of time to come and sometimes doesn't come at all. Alonso's career is a blue print for young drivers how not to lose patience when you're not winning and try to stick it out and believe in your own team's abilities without dissing them in the media in front of the world. So, you can be the best driver in the world but without being an out and out selfless team man, you're nobody and this isn't a dig at Alonso because I do believe he's one of the best drivers F1 has ever had, but this has been a weakness of his since the early days and while he's adapted to numerous regulation changes and cars and driven the wheels off them, he's not conquered his greatest weakness yet.

[GoranF1]

Do you know what iv noticed massa has always been in an higher finishing team than Alonso ever since they parted ways at Ferrari. even though Alonso was always the higher level of driver whilst at Ferrari (and arguably after). Man he's unlucky

Unfortunately, it's not as straight forward as that. I'm not going to make comment on Felipe Massa, because I don't want to come across as a biased hater or someone who is basically made of a heart of stone or something on those lines.

Let's come to Alonso.

For years and years, fans I meet in person or on Formula 1 forums have been saying this and personally, I never got my head around it. I'll tell you why?

2005-2006 - Alonso was in the best car, he was the best driver and after 5/6 years of staying at Renault, his stint ended in two magnificent world championships with him beating the best driver of almost two/three generations (Michael Schumacher). In a lot of ways, he had replaced Schumacher as the numero uno of the sport and rightly so. However, after the Chinese Grand Prix that year, before the penultimate round in Japan, Alonso revealed a chink in his armour that's prevalent even today. He was in his mid 20's then, he's in his mid 30's now. He accused the team of sabotaging his chances of becoming WDC, a claim that was overlooked because of his unfair penalty in Italy and with him ultimately winning the title, all was well and almost forgotten.

2007 - Alonso stepped into a restructured and well organised McLaren which would prove to be a race winning and championship winning car. However, for reasons discussed to death he was unable to adjust and thought it better to go to a Renault that had past it's best.

2008-09- Alonso turns down opportunities to go to Honda/Brawn as well as RBR, teams that would win 4 championships each from 2009-2016.

2010-2017 - He leaves Ferrari after 5 years of trying to win the title and after the shock of Rosberg retiring, turns a Mercedes-Benz drive down.

In my honest opinion, it takes a very well rounded and complete driver to beat Michael Schumacher the way Alonso did, but F1 is a lot about team work and success takes a lot of time to come and sometimes doesn't come at all. Alonso's career is a blue print for young drivers how not to lose patience when you're not winning and try to stick it out and believe in your own team's abilities without dissing them in the media in front of the world. So, you can be the best driver in the world but without being an out and out selfless team man, you're nobody and this isn't a dig at Alonso because I do believe he's one of the best drivers F1 has ever had, but this has been a weakness of his since the early days and while he's adapted to numerous regulation changes and cars and driven the wheels off them, he's not conquered his greatest weakness yet.

In 2005 Renault was more reaible but slower car than the Mclaren(lots of times by about 0.7 secs)
In 2006 Renault was more reaible but slower car than Ferrari(even a super slow driver like Massa that lost BIIIIIIIG time when ALO teammate, menaged to win a few times that year)
So renault was NOT best car in those years and Fernando Alonso still stands as the last World champion in a inferior car!
Twice

In 2007 Dennis sabotaged Alonso.

He did not turned Mercedes down, why you making stuff up?

Mostly everything in your post is truth twisting and lies, whit only 1 goal, to prove to yourself that Sebastian is Better than Alonso.

He is not despite title count, and in the same car Alonso would blown Seb away just like other mediocore drivers he did.

[BosF1]

In 2007 Dennis sabotaged Alonso.

He did not turned Mercedes down, why you making stuff up?

Mostly everything in your post is truth twisting and lies, whit only 1 goal, to prove to yourself that Sebastian is Better than Alonso.

He is not despite title count, and in the same car Alonso would blown Seb away just like other mediocore drivers he did.

Oh, the irony

[GoranF1]

In 2007 Dennis sabotaged Alonso.

He did not turned Mercedes down, why you making stuff up?

Mostly everything in your post is truth twisting and lies, whit only 1 goal, to prove to yourself that Sebastian is Better than Alonso.

He is not despite title count, and in the same car Alonso would blown Seb away just like other mediocore drivers he did.

Oh, the irony

Well he called for it....he shoudnt open the subject anyways....

[popovic94]

Do you know what iv noticed massa has always been in an higher finishing team than Alonso ever since they parted ways at Ferrari. even though Alonso was always the higher level of driver whilst at Ferrari (and arguably after). Man he's unlucky

Unfortunately, it's not as straight forward as that. I'm not going to make comment on Felipe Massa, because I don't want to come across as a biased hater or someone who is basically made of a heart of stone or something on those lines.

Let's come to Alonso.

For years and years, fans I meet in person or on Formula 1 forums have been saying this and personally, I never got my head around it. I'll tell you why?

2005-2006 - Alonso was in the best car, he was the best driver and after 5/6 years of staying at Renault, his stint ended in two magnificent world championships with him beating the best driver of almost two/three generations (Michael Schumacher). In a lot of ways, he had replaced Schumacher as the numero uno of the sport and rightly so. However, after the Chinese Grand Prix that year, before the penultimate round in Japan, Alonso revealed a chink in his armour that's prevalent even today. He was in his mid 20's then, he's in his mid 30's now. He accused the team of sabotaging his chances of becoming WDC, a claim that was overlooked because of his unfair penalty in Italy and with him ultimately winning the title, all was well and almost forgotten.

2007 - Alonso stepped into a restructured and well organised McLaren which would prove to be a race winning and championship winning car. However, for reasons discussed to death he was unable to adjust and thought it better to go to a Renault that had past it's best.

2008-09- Alonso turns down opportunities to go to Honda/Brawn as well as RBR, teams that would win 4 championships each from 2009-2016.

2010-2017 - He leaves Ferrari after 5 years of trying to win the title and after the shock of Rosberg retiring, turns a Mercedes-Benz drive down.

In my honest opinion, it takes a very well rounded and complete driver to beat Michael Schumacher the way Alonso did, but F1 is a lot about team work and success takes a lot of time to come and sometimes doesn't come at all. Alonso's career is a blue print for young drivers how not to lose patience when you're not winning and try to stick it out and believe in your own team's abilities without dissing them in the media in front of the world. So, you can be the best driver in the world but without being an out and out selfless team man, you're nobody and this isn't a dig at Alonso because I do believe he's one of the best drivers F1 has ever had, but this has been a weakness of his since the early days and while he's adapted to numerous regulation changes and cars and driven the wheels off them, he's not conquered his greatest weakness yet.

In 2005 Renault was more reaible but slower car than the Mclaren(lots of times by about 0.7 secs)
In 2006 Renault was more reaible but slower car than Ferrari(even a super slow driver like Massa that lost BIIIIIIIG time when ALO teammate, menaged to win a few times that year)
So renault was NOT best car in those years and Fernando Alonso still stands as the last World champion in a inferior car!
Twice

In 2007 Dennis sabotaged Alonso.

He did not turned Mercedes down, why you making stuff up?

Mostly everything in your post is truth twisting and lies, whit only 1 goal, to prove to yourself that Sebastian is Better than Alonso.

He is not despite title count, and in the same car Alonso would blown Seb away just like other mediocore drivers he did.

Maybe I am wrong but there was some article on this forum I remember reading it where Alonso said that Mercedes contacted him.

[ALO_Power]

Ye, Mercedes contacted everyone to check how the situation was and which drivers are available. (Alonso told that, too) Nico's sudden departure was a bit of a "shock" so they had to check every single option they had. To be honest, if Alonso had told yes to them I'm sure they would still go for Bottas because they probably don't want 2 great drivers in their car. Even with Nico they had headaches so I don't think Merc would even think of having 2 top tier drivers in the same car because obviously there would be many battles and heart attacks. This would be ideal for the show but, go convince them...

[Andres125sx]

http://soymotor.com/noticias/lobato-mcl ... 016-931184

From google translate (too long to do it myself)

(Lobato BS)

OMG, do not quote Lobato please!

We spaniards have been suffering his extremelly biased comments for around 10 years, so now that past season we finally got rid of him (when F1 became PPV) last thing I want is continue reading his BS here on F1T.

I does support Alonso, but Lobato is just a fanboy who can´t even consider any fault at Alonso side. It´s always someone else fault. Also, his F1 knownledge is quite limited. He´s stated himself he had no idea about F1 before becoming F1 comentator, so please, don´t take any of his words as valuable info, because plain and simple, they´re not

You guys complain about Gary Anderson... he´s an expert when compared to Lobato

[Andres125sx]

Isn't he the one that is very close to Fernando and are good friends?

He was very close to Fernando because he was main comentanto for spanish TV for many years, so their coverage put him close to Fernando constantly.

But IMO Fernando also got sick of his bias and didn´t cope him any good.

Anycase, even if he get inside info, his mind is so biased he, consciously or unconsciously, always twist reality.

Even when he´s an Alonso fanboy and I do support Alonso too, to me 90% of what he says is just BS

[J.A.W.]

Isn't he the one that is very close to Fernando and are good friends?

He was very close to Fernando because he was main comentanto for spanish TV for many years, so their coverage put him close to Fernando constantly.

But IMO Fernando also got sick of his bias and didn´t cope him any good.

Anycase, even if he get inside info, his mind is so biased he, consciously or unconsciously, always twist reality.

Even when he´s an Alonso fanboy and I do support Alonso too, to me 90% of what he says is just BS

Wow, kudos earned, right there Andres...

[Vasconia]

OMG, do not quote Lobato please!

We spaniards have been suffering his extremelly biased comments for around 10 years, so now that past season we finally got rid of him (when F1 became PPV) last thing I want is continue reading his BS here on F1T.

I does support Alonso, but Lobato is just a fanboy who can´t even consider any fault at Alonso side. It´s always someone else fault. Also, his F1 knownledge is quite limited. He´s stated himself he had no idea about F1 before becoming F1 comentator, so please, don´t take any of his words as valuable info, because plain and simple, they´re not

You guys complain about Gary Anderson... he´s an expert when compared to Lobato

And you are an Alonso fan, just imagine how much we suffered the rest.

Anyway, the quality is decreasing too in Movistar, not at a Lobato level but it used to be better.

And yes, he was a football commentor so he had no idea about F1...anyway between him and the other guy who was with him at the beginning I prefered the second, at least he as funnier and knew something about F1. Damn, I don´t even remember his name hahaha.

[diffuser]

Based on what you say, that the 2017-spec power unit has the potenial to become a great pwer unit?

Even Honda has said that they are worried with the difference in performace between their PU and the others. So it does not look like a great PU, sadly...

IMHO, there are too many unknowns to judge the PU as a whole.

Wazari said, IHHO, they spent too much time developing and not enough testing ... That train has left the station can't change that. Bloody hope that someone over at Honda are taking notes of that and/or listen to Wazari next time about the testing thou....

In 2015 it was Hungry before they sorted all the PU issues out. In the 9 races prior to Hungry we had 11 DNFs out of a possible 18, only 3 in the remaining 10 races. I don't expect it to take that long but it seems like we're in a similar predicament.

The test sessions in Bahrain on the 18th and 19th of April will be crucial.

[PhillipM]

"Dennis sabotaged Alonso"

Err, yes....that would be when Alonso tried to blackmail Dennis and magically came out of it scot free...
...not to mention having his teammates crash to give him the advantage at Renault, which cast a bit of doubt over previous wins too...

Alonso's not exactly the innocent party a lot of his fanbase seem to think. He's a decent driver, and where he shines is getting the car in the right place to take advantage through the race, but I don't think he's even in the top 3 of the fastest drivers on the grid. I certainly don't think he's worth the money Mclaren/Honda are paying him, bit funny really when they lost Hamilton over less money

[Alonso Fan]

"Dennis sabotaged Alonso"

Err, yes....that would be when Alonso tried to blackmail Dennis and magically came out of it scot free...
...not to mention having his teammates crash to give him the advantage at Renault, which cast a bit of doubt over previous wins too...

Alonso's not exactly the innocent party a lot of his fanbase seem to think. He's a decent driver, and where he shines is getting the car in the right place to take advantage through the race, but I don't think he's even in the top 3 of the fastest drivers on the grid. I certainly don't think he's worth the money Mclaren/Honda are paying him, bit funny really when they lost Hamilton over less money

There is a difference between 'fastest' and 'best'.

[PhillipM]

There is a difference between 'fastest' and 'best'.

I don't think he's that either. Although I would put him in the top 3 for that one.