Sorry, but the donkey will be going to renault or bmw. Ferrari is also offering a ton of money to get Hamilton, but I don't see that happening. McLaren will match or better any offer and Kimi wouldn't like that either. It's hard for any top team to have two upper tier drivers.

 

Here's my prediction:

Donkey will take his 3rd consecutive WDC this year, and then go to.... NASCAR!!!

Yep, you heard it here first.

 

i think ferrari should dump massa and get heidfeld. in this case alonso could go to bmw.

 

Are you serious? What an utter admission of failure that would be (yes, JPM fans, that's exactly what it is). Most people would lose respect for his prior accomplishments and his WDCs wouldn't mean as much (D Hill or JV, anyone?).

If he had to leave McLaren, driving for a 3rd/4th place team would be better than Nascar. You either bring the team up or you move again in 1-2 years' time.

For all the talk of "there are no spots on any decent team" you'd be surprised how much sponsors can move things (and which sponsor wouldn't want a 2- or 3-time WDC at a reasonable price?).

I would guess that, maybe aside from Ferrari and McLaren, sponsors have as much say on driver selection as anyone else.

 

Alright, maybe he'll go to DTM and beat Hakkinen.

 

Maybe he'll go Demolition derby

 

I find myself agreeing, in spite of all the crazy stuff that is going on w/ MM, w/ quite a few members on here: hatem, nola ,emrliquid...

Alonso is a great driver, but his recent behavior and jealousy of Hamilton and not watching his mouth, is reprehensible IF Dennis did not order him to time out Ham on the final quals, which I watched again last night. Just from what I saw on Speed TV, it seemed that Alonso just choked Ham out. But I think, as someone said on here, that Ham can act quite coy when he wants to also. This and the whole Stepneygate sordid affair is not making MM look good or operate w/ integrity. Since I work in corporate mergers and acquisitions, where any "insider" info/data leakage is taken extremely seriously, I can tell you this from experience: whatever Briatore's good or bad points, if you are the team leader and you get data from the other side that is highly confidential or illegaly obtained or suspected to be so, you don't f--k around IF you have integrity and don't want to look stupid later and make BS claims that Dennis has that MM never used any of Ferrari's data (regardless of whether MM did or did not, and especially if they did not!). You pick up the f'g phone, call the other side or their lawyers, and report the incident and immediately return the data and represent that you did not use it. Any other claims to the contrary are just an ***-cover and not credible.

So there you have it: an otherwise great racing F1 team w/ 2 of the most talented and comptetitive piloti, f'g up their own reputation and prestige by stupid and thoughtless actions and words, regardless of what the "truth" may be. Very sad indeed.

I predict, that IF allowed to by both Dennis and Alonso's sleazy moves, Ham will win the WDC.

 

I agree with you mostly. "We have not used the data" is an excuse that would only fly with the most blinded, die-hard fans (and apparently the FIA's kangaroos).

It's not appropriate conduct for any team, whether it be Ferrari, McLaren or anyone else.

 

there's an old saying that goes something like this: "if you play w/ the pigs in the mud, then you will get dirty no matter what you do."

What's disappointing to us die-hard f1 fans perhaps is: we see all the other competetive sports and want f1 to be above it all. It's not, sadly. Heck, when you've got stupid bodies making rules like the pending 2011 rules, Ecclestone-hubris, otherwise decent racing venues squeezed out due to mo' do' for Bernie, what can you really expect?

Aahhhh, reality sucks sometimes........

 

There's an old racing adage that comes to mind... if you aint cheating, you aint trying. Anyone remember option 13?

Anyway, I hear you Chutia. Ron Dennis is lucky his company is not bound by Sarbanes-Oxley.

 

Yeah, it's like saying "I was gonna give it back"

 

Nola: right on, bro!!! on all counts.

 

ohmygosh... I just ran accross this video. It's in spanish, but it plays the entire drama, complete with two-face Hamilton doing more of his sel serving choir boy act. I'm really hating his guts right now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fr5N65vW7ds

A few minutes into it, there's footage of a "meet the team" on Saturday afternoon with McLaren where Ronbot, Haug, Donkey and Bonkey were supposed to be. Only Bonkey wasn't there... Dennis explains that he was still too worked up from quali and would not participate. Then he shows up and says "Oh, I was watching GP2... I didn know this was going on" right . Then Alonso explains that he did exactly what he'd done the previous 11 races, wait for the engineer countdown, so ham-brat intejects saying "well you didn't have your teammate behind in the previous 11 races".

The reason I'm livid is that later he meets with the british press and says "oh, I'm not even worked up about anything... what's the problem here?" Idiot.

 

yup i have seen it.. very good.. it shows alonso is good guy imo ! and shows drama queen hammy...

 

Yeah, I really wish his comments and body language when interviewed right out of the car translated well into english. It's something like this:

-Fernando, it's a McLaren front row, and it's like a funeral in the team
-That's because I'm the one who made it
-That harsh?
-Yeah, that harsh

...and later

-You seem very upset even though you're in Pole
-I'm happy... but I see them, how they are [like a funeral], and it is not fun.

All the while, his body language is that of someone betrayed by his best friend.

 

Staff has been debating this remark and have determined it to be a racial innuendo. And we all know what that means. In addition to the efforts to circumvent the forum censor with the word "fuken" dozens of times after being warned not to and...

60 days.

Just thought we'd answer the question before it comes up.

 

Just 60 days?

Ferrari fans are the biggest whiners when they don't win. They have even complained about the vodafone stickers this year.

 

 

Pls don't let guys like egx define your view of Ferrari fans.........

...............anyway, I'd rather talk about the cars, drivers, teams, etc. than the fans

Back on topic: to Nola's point, if we are going to be bothered about how drivers act in front of the cameras/media, how is Alonso's behaviour any better than LH?

There is no good reason to believe Alonso was best friends with LH, so this portrayal of betrayal is just more acting for the cameras. McLaren doesn't even define Alonso as its #1 driver, so he wasn't betrayed by his support driver either.

I hardly pay attention to LH's portrayal of himself in the media so, unlike some of you, I have little indignation at his "two-faced" or "hypocritical" ways. Who really cares? And why does anyone expect either of these guys to be "nice guys"?

There's no point in making yourself the "loyal" #2 driver unless you're at Ferrari waiting for MS to retire or at Williams in the mid 1990s (i.e. have a realistic shot at winning the WDC the following year)

 

Excellent points. Race drivers are like combat jet fighter pilots. They must have a killer instinct and supreme confidence in their abilities. Often, that comes across as as "ego issue."

One need only remember the classic on/off track battles between Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna to realize that elite drivers are not nice guys among their peers. Other examples such as Nigel Mansell and Rene Arnoux... With time and thought I'm sure we could list a dozen or more such rivalries.

Being buddies simply runs counter to the instincts that make them successful on the track. You have to think and live as if you are the best in order to be the best, to the exclusion of all others, period. Nothing new here, really.