'Hamilton And British Press vs Alonso'

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Monday 7th April 2008

The British press are in hot water with the PF1 readers after questioning whether Alonso was at fault for Hamilton hitting him. Also a few other Bahrain related mails...

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Hamilton Blew It
Interesting PF1 made a point of quoting ITV regarding Hamilton hitting Alonso from behind. Hamilton had one of his "I've blown it" spasms, the same as the "bad tyre beaching", and the championship choke "where are my gears". Hamilton blew his start, ending up midfield with a bunch of cars 2 seconds per lap slower, he was onto the gas faster and accelerated faster, misjudged and hit Alonso.

Bahrain may be the first sign of McLaren not having the driver development input they need to challenge for the top. Unless Hamilton has the fastest car on the track he will not win, he has never won unless he started on the front row and McLaren's front row hopes are fading.
Brent McMaster, Ontario, Canada

A Touch Of Traction Control For Lewis?
Was Alonso really so slow out of the corner or was LH just so quick out of the corner? I guess it's just me wondering if Ron and his merry men have forgotten to remove ALL of the traction control software out of Hamilton's McLaren!!!
Victor, Australia

FIA Needs To Act
I think it's fair to say that the three blind mice would have noticed how odd it was for Hamilton to ram Alonso from behind.

I mean, Alonso is an experienced driver and he took the corner really well so I don't see how he could have possibly been going slower than his McLaren counterpart. I think the FIA needs to take a further look into this!
Farai Chitsa

Those On The Other Side
Alonso is a dirty driver. If he was not guilty, why then would Renault feel the need to show the data and defend their man?

McLaren said they wouldn't bother and Hamilton raised his hand to say he was to blame for his poor race. He said nothing about Alonso. I may not be a Hamilton fan, but he acted very professionally under those circumstances.
Hans Athmaram

Six Tenths Close To A Clio
Does anyone remember the infamous six tenths Alonso claimed he took to McLaren last year with his 'expertise' input?

I wonder if he gave them to BMW this year by mistake?

If he did take them to Renault, imagine how slow it would be without those special six tenths! It's practically a Clio!

Come on Alonso, if you're going to be cocky enough to claim you can bring six tenths to a team in the first place, you really need to be able to take them everywhere you go otherwise it come across like you're full of s**t!
Lee Grant, Milton Keynes

...I am a regular visitor to the site and felt the need to write about the ITV commentators on yesterday's race. Mark Blundell (post race) and Martin Brundle have become so obsessed with Lewis Hamilton they seem to have lost all reason.

From the moment Hamilton hit the back of Alonso's car there were constant allegations of brake-testing. Why are they incapable of accepting that the guy made a mistake, he'd already made one to put himself in that position.

I wouldn't be a fan of either driver after last year but this commentary is becoming incredibly biased. To suggest that Alonso would jeopardise his race just to get back at Hamilton is ridiculous. He may be a good driver (possible even great) but no driver on the grid could expect to cause a collision from behind and know exactly how much damage their car own would suffer.

Hamilton lost his front wing, Alonso lost an end-plate and a chunk out of the wing. Why would he want that on lap 2?

Renault have released their telemetry to prove there was no brake test but we still had to listen to the ITV witch hunt for the entire race (and afterwards).

I really hope BBC don't take any of those guys over to their commentary team next year. Brundle may be an excellent analyst but he has become so biased now that he is embarrassing.
Paul Meally, Ireland

But Does Bias Have It's Place?
I am amazed somehow a boring race turned out to have gained some media attention through the Alonso/Hamilton impact, and that shows how comments from the media can spark public interest in the business even if the actual business (racing) itself becomes uninteresting.

Although fellow readers frequently suggest that some journalists are biassed towards somebody, I would think that it may be, in a certain way, a means of gaining public interest and initiating debates - which helps the media businesses and websites gaining readerships. Just think that if everybody was unbiased then there would be no debates at all and many internet forums would have folded up.

On the other hand, I think Mosley has no options but to resign, given the number of adversaries he has built up in F1 throughout his presidency. Whenever he faces them, he will certainly receive fierce criticisms or mockeries. No matter how tough you are, you just feel that 'why don't I call it a day instead, rather than making myself a clown in the public for this unpaid job?'
Nelson

A Bit Of Everything
Hamilton in Bahrain - As in Brazil, Hamilton has shown when things start going wrong, they keep on going wrong. He totally loses his cool, and then does stupid things. Alonso didn't lift, Hamilton was just too hot headed and misjudged, even Ron agreed and he does not even like Alonso! Hamilton will become one of the nearly men (ie. Guys who should have won a World Championship, but didn't), if he does not change his ways. BTW am I the only one who noticed that Hamilton has a "Launch Control" at the start ??? Hamilton said, "I messed up at the start as I didn't hit the switch early enough and therefore had not engaged the correct engine setting, and the anti stall kicked in." I thought that was banned. Looks like McLaren need another 50 Million fine.

Button vs Coulthard - Button lost control of the car under braking before the turn, and in this instance Coulthard was not to blame, in fact he must be commended for turning the other way to detach himself from Button's tangle.

Massa and in the lead - Massa has proved one thing this season. If he is in the lead, almost nobody can beat him. Let him be second or lower and you are sure he will spin off the track. I was as surprised that it didn't rain in Bahrain as I was that Massa did not spin it once again on his own!

Raikkonen faded - This was only because his Vodka was banned from the country, thus he could not prepare properly. Raikkonen drives better when pissed. Notice that he didn't do his ceremonial glug-glug on the podium, cos he can't stand fruit juice. You could actually understand what he was saying in the press conference, none of the slurring.

ProDrive - Where the hell are they, and can't the FIA choose one of the other 100 applications received? I understand this whole customer deal thing, and I agree to a point, but why not sell last year's chassis to these customer teams? I am sure they wouldn't mind a F2007 in 2008 rather than trying to build their own car. The manufacturers won't get an unfair advantage, as their customer will be using last year's technology, and the customers could catch up 50 years of development in one year. They could either develop last year's chassis or build their own, learning the trick of the trade. It worked for Super Aguri, they were even faster than their seller!
Des

More Bahrain Conclusions
Bahrain gave us a F1 GP that saw racing return to F1. Here are 10 conclusions one can make after the race:

1 - Massa finished a race and won. He proved he can. Ferrari will be breathing a sigh of relief.
2 - Kimi leads the Driver's Championship. Great motivation for Lewis and a great result for Ferrari fans.
3 - Heikki is going from being the other driver at McLaren to making a name for himself. Although his performance wasn't spectacular it's consistent.
4 - BMW is the third title contender. They're leading the Constructor's Title at the moment.
5 - Renault need their 2008 car. The one they used in Bahrain was rubbish.
6 - Honda and Toyota are getting better. Positive thinking helps less than hard work. Hard work is paying off.
7 - TC and LC ban again gave us a brilliant race. If we get to see more of this type of dogfight racing this season, the FIA should reconsider changing things in 2009.
8 - Fisi at Force India turns out to be a good business decision, not a mercy drive.
9 - Nelson Piquet Jr. got his job thanks to his dad.
10 - Fernando Alonso is worth 0.6sec to a team. The Renault is rubbish, Alonso brilliant, making the end result a laughable race rather than a mediocre one.

Forza Ferrari!
Chris van Wyk, South Africa

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