Gentlemen, start your engines!

[CerberusIV]

Alonso deserves to be champion, no question. However he is being overhyped, even by F1 standards, as he certainly isn't a great driver yet. Many have won one championship and faded away. If he takes 2 or 3 then he can be considered a great driver.

It was interesting to see how much Montoya disliked having to let Kimi win. If J-P gets a better start to next season than Kimi expect to see Kimi crack.

If Ferrari can put a decent car together next season and MS lifts his eighth title I'm going to laugh myself silly at all the smartass "experts" who are claiming this season is the start of a new era and will be trying to forget that they did so.

[Zoid]

MS days are over! I don´t think he´ll take another title. As long as McLaren and Renault keep their stuff together they will win.

And Alonso will win more championships!

[Thorgal]

Obviously:

http://www.lequipe.fr/Formule1/BRE_05_ALONSO.html

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by Thorgal
Kimi may be better driver? I dont know what Kimi fans have been seeing all season. All i have seen is a driver with the fastest car losing the championship and being beaten several times by his teammate. About Alonso i have seen a driver with a much slower car to win the championship smashing his teammate on all aspects. In despite that Ron Dennis (McLaren boss and official F1 whinning loser) has said lately, Kimi still have to prove himself. Alonso have not.

About McLaren, next year we go to V8. It will be another world. Toyota may very well be ahead. And dont forget Ferrari is there again, this time surely with a working car. So maybe McLaren/Kimi have lost his only chance to win a championship in many years...

I'm not a Kimi fan, but it would be innacurate to ignore the effect of multiple hardware failures on his season. He has also carved through from the midfield to the podium several times - has Alonso proved himself on that score? Sure, in terms of beating the team-mate FA wins hands down, but Montoya is quicker than Fisi so that's not a true measure.

Cosworth have plenty of V8 experience - so watch out for Minardi at the start of the season - and Williams come to that.

[Thorgal]

Alonso went through the field many times in past seasons and in this season the did it in Australia, going since 16th to 3rd. After that the has never go through the field again beacuse he was always ahead.

About Montoya faster than Fisi. maybe or maybe not. Fisi has been considered a great driver ever. He has overshadowed all his teammates but this time he have simply found a stronger one.
It could be too that Flavio Briatore (Renault boss) sabotaged Fisi´s car, damaging Renault interests. I know that is laughable, however it is a very common opinion among some fans...

[Cort Haus]

Spain made to wait to greet Alonso as champion

SPAIN was hailing its new national hero yesterday. Unfortunately, he has no intentions of going home to see the people who have elevated him to the status of a sporting god. At least not yet.
Fernando Alonso left a curious void at the heart of sporting Spain yesterday when he decided that his next port of call after winning the Formula One World Championship at the Brazilian Grand Prix would be Oxford, his adopted home, and not Oviedo in Asturia, his birthplace.



There will be no open-top bus rides and no royal receptions, although one of the first calls to his mobile phone after the race on Sunday was from King Juan Carlos — one of 300 calls that blitzed the airwaves over South America as well-wishers tried to contact the new champion. But they were precisely the calls that Alonso seemed reluctant to take.

He has spoken several times about how he had to leave Spain to find his way into Formula One by travelling to Britain as an 18-year-old and clearly some bitterness and caution remain in his mind. When asked about holding a celebration in Spain, Alonso replied enigmatically: “I would like to thank all my fans and everyone in Spain, but I am not returning to Spain just now because there are too many political interests that want to get involved.”

Alonso is a one-man sporting phenomenon at home, a sort of Andrew Flintoff, David Beckham and Tim Henman wrapped into one package.

Singlehandedly, he has transformed Formula One from a cult following to one that rivals football; the television audience for viewers who witnessed his coronation as champion on Sunday was thought to be more than ten million — double the figures even for the celebrated matches involving Real Madrid and Barcelona.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,5923-1799115,00.html

Perhaps Spain's many 'fair-weather' fans - only interested in a sport when they are winning - leave the champ slightly cold. I wonder what he meant by "political interests". By contrast, the motor racing fans in the country that Fernando came to to build his career tend to love the sport more than just their own drivers, as reflected by the diversity of support for all teams and drivers to be found at Silverstone, rather than just the local boys. Perhaps he prefers passion for the sport over passion for the flag.

One of my favourite Champ Car drivers is Oriol Servia. I wonder what his profile is in Spain.

[Thorgal]

Sporting god. A bit exagerated. Alonso is receiving the same amount of attention as any tennis player winning Roland Garros or Davis Cup, some bike rider winning the world championship or any driver wining WRC or Dakar. Much less that real Madrid winng Champions League for instance.

About F1, it has a relatively big attendance in Spain since 20 years ago or so OTOH Champcar nobody knows what it is. An yes, we like when we win, sorry. About UK i would not speak too much. I know they have not a winner driver, but having in mind how much they speak about Button, who never has done anything remarkable, i cant even imagine how it would be the day Button win a WDC.

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by Thorgal
About UK i would not speak too much. I know they have not a winner driver

Hey, we have a winner - Dan Wheldon!

For those people who think that the world of Motor Sport consists only of F1, well, they're not true fans IMV.

[Cort Haus]

Roland Garros

Nadal

[Thorgal]

If you want a falg war i would compare Spain´s performance in motor sport in general with Britain´s performance any day.

[Thorgal]

Nadal is quick but serves like a girl. I prefer Moya or Ferrero.

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by Thorgal
If you want a falg war i would compare Spain´s performance in motor sport in general with Britain´s performance any day.

I wasn't seeking a flag war - just correcting your mistake.

[Thorgal]

BUMP!!!!

Best Race in everal years IMO.

-Raikkonen superb and McLaren superb, going since 17th to 1st, amazing. Solid performance from KR and magistral strategy from his team, giving him a clean air race even starting from 17th KR only overtook 2 cars in the race (after first lap of course). Final pass on Fisi in last lap, the best in F1 in a lot of time.

-Alonso Super-Superb. 10 overtakings in the race after 1st lap. First pass on Schumi the best of the year. OTOH Reanult strategy was pathetic. He pitted too soon and was in traffic all race. He was even overtaking same people twice (Schumi for instance).

-Fisi was totally dissapointing this time. Not possible defense. The should have give Kimi a fight, at least.







BTW: Who in hell is Dan Wheldon?

[Zoid]

I can only agree Easily the best F1 race I´ve seen in a long, long while.

Fisi did all he could I suppose. He just not a very good driver. Kimi is. But I was pretty confident Fisi would win anyway, it looked so stabile and unusually troublefree to be Fisi so perhaps... But there´s no stopping the finnish juggernaut

And you mean this Dan Wheldon? http://www.danwheldon.com/driver_profile.cfm

[Thorgal]

Thanks. IRL????. Pfffft.