F1 BLOG

Dear old Flavio Briatore seems to think that Alonso isn’t so great. It would appear that Flavio thinks the real reason they won two years running was their great car and not Fernando Alonso at all.

While I would agree that without a good car even the best driver isn’t going to accomplish much I would have to say it is a bit unfair to be suggesting that Fernando isn’t as good as people think. He was certainly good enough to win two world championships in a row for Flavio’s team. Is Briatore really suggesting that they would have won back to back titles regardless of who was in their cars? Fernando Alonso wasn’t the only driver on their team was he? I don’t recall a lot of 1st and 2nd podiums last year? I guess only one of their cars was magic by itself, the one Alonso drove.

Could this be a case of sour grapes? To win in F1 you need a combination of things. You need a great Car, A skilled driver, an excellent support team and you need them to all work together like a well oiled machine. To me, it’s not just the best driver or the best car it’s the best team that stands on that podium. I guess we will find out pretty soon now who has managed to put all these elements together this year.

Fernando Alonso turned in the fastest lap times today while testing at Valencia in his McLaren Mercedes MP4-22. Lapping almost a full second faster than the new Ferrari with Kimi Raikkonen at the wheel.

I know it’s only testing but I am encouraged to see the McLaren plus Alonso package seems to be working well so far at least.

The Red Tire rule and single tire supplier issues continue.

It looks like the latest issue is a fear that teams will know each others tire plans before the start of the race. This is apparently the reason for the resistance to the red stripe indicating which type of tire is being used.

The latest rumor is that teams would be required to publish their initial tire choice just after the start of the race. I guess this somehow prevents other teams from knowing what tires you will be on at the start of the race.

What I’m really wondering is just how much this really matters. Presumably a team chooses their optimum tire strategy for a race and sets their car up for that plan. Is it a realistic concern that any team would suddenly change their tire choice and rework their car setup and race strategy when they find out what tire compound another team is using? Personally I think that is unlikely to produce a good result for the team.

It looks like Frank Williams is about to go ballistic over the issue of Customer Chassis. Frank says he will issue a legal challange to the use of these customer cars because it is clearly against the rules in his eyes.

I think I just might agree here if for no other reason that the constructors championship. If there are two prizes to be won, the drivers championship and the constructors championship, then who wins the prize if it is unclear who the constructor is?

On the other hand, the teams that are going to be using the customer chassis are unlikely to be in contention for either prize so does it really matter?

It looks like the McLaren F1 team is getting a vote of confidence from their old designer Adrian Newey. Adrian thinks that the troubles suffered by McLaren last year were a result of all the new rules but that this year that will all play into the hands of McLaren.

With McLaren having Fernando Alonso at the wheel Mr. Newey thinks that McLaren may just be the team to watch in 2007.

I’ll admit I do have a bit of an Alonso bias and I hope McLaren comes up with a good package this year.