The Latin temperament
If there is one thing I have found to be refreshingly surprising about Fernando Alonso it is what I have thus far believed to be his ability to tame the famously feisty Latin temperament. Calm under the severest of pressure, Alonso had what it took to become world champion before his 25th birthday; an unprecedented and, surely, worthy achievement. He repeated the feat a year later - with Michael Schumacher racing in both years, remember - as if to dispel any doubts about the significance of his achievement. All the while he displayed a maturity and serenity that was new to Formula One. Imagine, then, my shock and amazement at learning of Alonso's comments today to the Spanish media.
Here's what the world champion had to say about joining McLaren and having Lewis Hamilton as his team-mate: “From the first moment, I wasn’t comfortable with everything. I'm in an English team, with an English team-mate who is doing a brilliant job. We knew that all the support and help would be going to him. I understood that from the start and I’m not complaining about it.” Remember, Alonso was speaking two days after the event and not immediately after the race when his blood would have been boiling.
Contrast that with this exchange during the post-race press conference on Sunday:
Q: (Rob Martier – CJAD Radio) Lewis two quick questions for you. Fernando didn’t have the best of days. At this point do you even care?
Lewis Hamilton: Of course. That’s a bit of a silly question to be honest. He’s my team-mate, I’ve got a lot of respect for him and we’re quite good friends. At the end of the day we are a team, we both want to finish at the front. I don’t know what happened in his race but we need to have a look and it’s not good for him obviously.
Q: (Rob Martier – CJAD Radio) You say that you are team-mates and you care about each other, that doesn’t always seem to be the case. What might this do to the relationship from here on?
LH: When does is not appear to be the case?
Q: (Rob Martier – CJAD Radio) It’s just my perspective.
LH: Ok, me and Fernando… He’s extremely professional and for me, coming into the team, I’ve got a huge amount of respect for him and I think he’s grown to get on really well with me. At the end of the day he’s the two-time world champion he’ll bounce back without a doubt and I’m sure he’ll be extremely quick in the next race.
I defy anybody not to have been shaken by the arrival of Lewis Hamilton. Alonso's nose must be badly out of joint and nobody can blame him. I remember seeing a photograph taken last October in Oviedo, Alonso's home town, a couple of weeks after he had clinched his second world championship. Alonso was standing alone on a balcony overlooking the town square while smiling at an endless sea of faces. From that to having the entire world focus on Lewis Hamilton to the exclusion of all others must be soul destroying. As I have repeatedly said about the Hamilton phenomenon, nobody has ever seen anything like it. But to go as far as accusing McLaren of not being even-handed demonstrates an astounding lapse in Alonso's judgment. This bothers me not a little. I am disturbed on three fronts.
First, I cannot credit Alonso's remarks. I have seen no evidence of favouritism and have even suggested on two occasions - Australia and Monaco - that team decisions have been taken for Alonso's, not Hamilton's benefit. McLaren, like Williams has always been a scrupulously fair team. Contrast this with the Schumacher-driven Ferrari. At Williams and McLaren drivers have always been permitted to race each other when the interests of the team were not compromised. The best example of this was the open rivalry between Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna in 1988 and 1989. Senna won the former championship and then Prost got his own back the next year. There was wheel to wheel aggression between the two which made for lovely television. As a world champion well schooled in the history of Formula One who learned all he knows at the knee of the Svengali of motor racing, Flavio Briatore, Alonso will know this only too well. He will have been well aware of this when he put his signature on the dotted line of a McLaren contract.
Secondly, introducing a national element to the questions demeans the world champion. By accusing McLaren of favouring Hamilton because they are English and Hamilton is English is effectively spitting in the faces of hordes of English fans of Alonso. If McLaren were as jingoistic as Alonso appears to imply, they would hire English drivers exclusively. Let's look at the McLaren drivers over the last five years alone and examine the merit in this: Mika Hakkinen, David Coulthard, Kimi Raikkonen and Juan Pablo Montoya. Not one name in that list belongs to an Englishman. So much for the McLaren jingoes then.
Thirdly, and perhaps worst of all, no driver can afford to create ill-feeling in his team. The opposite is always best. We saw it with Senna who, despite being a prima donna, managed to rally the McLaren team around himself. Most impressively we saw it with Michael Schumacher where the Ferrari team was like a family. The Italian mechanics would have done anything to ensure a Schumacher victory, even lent him their wives! They worked with passion and commitment. A Schumacher win was a win for all of them. In a sport with super-engineered machines which are prone to difficulties from the slightest change, dedicated mechanics and engineers are worth their weight in gold - and points. Once a team detects mistrust in a driver his fate is sealed. Witness Alain Prost, who had to defect to Ferrari in 1990, and Juan Pablo Montoya, who had to leave the sport all together last year. This is not the way to conduct a world championship campaign.
I am disappointed but not disillusioned by today's developments. Fernando Alonso is sometimes prone to the odd wobble when up against it. The Schumacher surge mid-way through last season threw him a little but he picked himself up later and won the championship. I rather suspect that Ron Dennis will have a quiet word with him and ask him to re-focus, pay attention to the task at hand and relax a little. He is not looking at a disaster scenario. At least not yet.
Gitau
12 June 2007
Here's what the world champion had to say about joining McLaren and having Lewis Hamilton as his team-mate: “From the first moment, I wasn’t comfortable with everything. I'm in an English team, with an English team-mate who is doing a brilliant job. We knew that all the support and help would be going to him. I understood that from the start and I’m not complaining about it.” Remember, Alonso was speaking two days after the event and not immediately after the race when his blood would have been boiling.
Contrast that with this exchange during the post-race press conference on Sunday:
Q: (Rob Martier – CJAD Radio) Lewis two quick questions for you. Fernando didn’t have the best of days. At this point do you even care?
Lewis Hamilton: Of course. That’s a bit of a silly question to be honest. He’s my team-mate, I’ve got a lot of respect for him and we’re quite good friends. At the end of the day we are a team, we both want to finish at the front. I don’t know what happened in his race but we need to have a look and it’s not good for him obviously.
Q: (Rob Martier – CJAD Radio) You say that you are team-mates and you care about each other, that doesn’t always seem to be the case. What might this do to the relationship from here on?
LH: When does is not appear to be the case?
Q: (Rob Martier – CJAD Radio) It’s just my perspective.
LH: Ok, me and Fernando… He’s extremely professional and for me, coming into the team, I’ve got a huge amount of respect for him and I think he’s grown to get on really well with me. At the end of the day he’s the two-time world champion he’ll bounce back without a doubt and I’m sure he’ll be extremely quick in the next race.
I defy anybody not to have been shaken by the arrival of Lewis Hamilton. Alonso's nose must be badly out of joint and nobody can blame him. I remember seeing a photograph taken last October in Oviedo, Alonso's home town, a couple of weeks after he had clinched his second world championship. Alonso was standing alone on a balcony overlooking the town square while smiling at an endless sea of faces. From that to having the entire world focus on Lewis Hamilton to the exclusion of all others must be soul destroying. As I have repeatedly said about the Hamilton phenomenon, nobody has ever seen anything like it. But to go as far as accusing McLaren of not being even-handed demonstrates an astounding lapse in Alonso's judgment. This bothers me not a little. I am disturbed on three fronts.
First, I cannot credit Alonso's remarks. I have seen no evidence of favouritism and have even suggested on two occasions - Australia and Monaco - that team decisions have been taken for Alonso's, not Hamilton's benefit. McLaren, like Williams has always been a scrupulously fair team. Contrast this with the Schumacher-driven Ferrari. At Williams and McLaren drivers have always been permitted to race each other when the interests of the team were not compromised. The best example of this was the open rivalry between Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna in 1988 and 1989. Senna won the former championship and then Prost got his own back the next year. There was wheel to wheel aggression between the two which made for lovely television. As a world champion well schooled in the history of Formula One who learned all he knows at the knee of the Svengali of motor racing, Flavio Briatore, Alonso will know this only too well. He will have been well aware of this when he put his signature on the dotted line of a McLaren contract.
Secondly, introducing a national element to the questions demeans the world champion. By accusing McLaren of favouring Hamilton because they are English and Hamilton is English is effectively spitting in the faces of hordes of English fans of Alonso. If McLaren were as jingoistic as Alonso appears to imply, they would hire English drivers exclusively. Let's look at the McLaren drivers over the last five years alone and examine the merit in this: Mika Hakkinen, David Coulthard, Kimi Raikkonen and Juan Pablo Montoya. Not one name in that list belongs to an Englishman. So much for the McLaren jingoes then.
Thirdly, and perhaps worst of all, no driver can afford to create ill-feeling in his team. The opposite is always best. We saw it with Senna who, despite being a prima donna, managed to rally the McLaren team around himself. Most impressively we saw it with Michael Schumacher where the Ferrari team was like a family. The Italian mechanics would have done anything to ensure a Schumacher victory, even lent him their wives! They worked with passion and commitment. A Schumacher win was a win for all of them. In a sport with super-engineered machines which are prone to difficulties from the slightest change, dedicated mechanics and engineers are worth their weight in gold - and points. Once a team detects mistrust in a driver his fate is sealed. Witness Alain Prost, who had to defect to Ferrari in 1990, and Juan Pablo Montoya, who had to leave the sport all together last year. This is not the way to conduct a world championship campaign.
I am disappointed but not disillusioned by today's developments. Fernando Alonso is sometimes prone to the odd wobble when up against it. The Schumacher surge mid-way through last season threw him a little but he picked himself up later and won the championship. I rather suspect that Ron Dennis will have a quiet word with him and ask him to re-focus, pay attention to the task at hand and relax a little. He is not looking at a disaster scenario. At least not yet.
Gitau
12 June 2007
posted by Gitau at 4:48 pm
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