If Renault is not competitive next year it will be interesting to see how far into the season we get before Alonso begins to whine about something?

If Renault doesn’t put a very competitive car on the track next season I think they are in for a world of grief.

Ron says that Alonso later retracted this threat but from what I can see in the end it was the Alonso emails that cost the McLaren team all it’s points this year and also cost them $100 Million dollars.

It’s looking more and more to me like Fernando Alonso can’t quite deal with the fact that his team mate Lewis Hamilton may be new to F1 but has a level of skill so high that McLaren can’t legitimately put one driver before the other.

If Alonso can’t deal with both drivers being treated equally and has to resort to childish tantrums then perhaps he needs to go join a team like spyker where he can be clearly the number one driver.

Alonso is under contract until 2008 with McLaren but tensions in the McLaren team are clearly running very high at this point. When asked by the Spanish media if he would be staying with the team until the end of his contract Alonso’s reply was simply “I don’t know”.

When the question was put to McLaren team boss Ron Dennis he stated that this sort of speculation is inevitable but that McLaren will honour its contracts with the drivers and he hopes that the drivers would do the same.

The Renault team has said they would love to have the world champion Alonso back. I think Fernando would be unlikely to return to Renault with their current level of performance and I hope that both Lewis and Fernando can work through their differences and get on with making McLaren the best team it can be.

Hopefully the two McLaren drivers can put this weekend’s problems behind them and get on with the rest of the season.

Ron Dennis appeared livid as he saw this sad event take place, snatching the headphones from Alonso’s pit board man and marching him down pit lane it was clear he was extremely angry.

Lewis Hamilton had been clearly fastest throughout qualifying and it looks like Fernando decided that the only way to get pole was to prevent Lewis from getting his fast lap.

This kind of behaviour reminds me of a certain Ferrari driver of times past and I have personally lost a huge amount of respect for Mr. Alonso after this incident and I applaud Lewis for his typical low key, let the facts speak for themselves attitude during the post quali interviews.

Fernando, I hope you are ashamed of yourself for this pathetic behaviour.

I doubt the changes will be very obvious at first glance but these days a tenth of a second here or there can make the difference. Combining this with the even stricter rules on the flexy floors that Ferrari and some other teams are running may just be enough to close the gap for the McLaren F1 car.

With three drivers tied for 1st place in the F1 Championship after the first three races it looks like an already close F1 season is destined to become even closer.

Are we going to see Fernando Alonso or Lewis Hamilton on the top podium in Spain? Will these changes be enough to get past Kimi and the Ferrari crew?

McLaren also seems to be back (Finally) after a long winless stint. Perhaps the combination of Fernando, Lewis and McLaren is going to be one of those magic combinations. I’ll admit it’s a little early to tell but things are looking good so far.

Massa, whom I thought would do better seems to have been bested by Lewis, It was fascinating watching his frustration at not being able to get by Hamilton slowly force him to make mistake after mistake, which he never recovered from.

Kimi put on a good push near the end. I’m sure there was some serious nail biting going on for those last few laps. In the end Lewis managed to keep it together and left Kimi with 3rd place.

Things are shaping up to be a real epic battle between McLaren and Ferrari this season, I hope things remain this competitive for the rest of the season!

While watching the qualifying I found my self wondering about Ferrari. Everyone has been talking about Kimi being the Ferrari number one but the more I watch the more I think that Massa is actually turning out to be a little better than Kimi, perhaps even a lot better.

It also looks like Renault is really struggling these days. I’m not sure what their problem is but they just seem to have fallen on some hard times so far this season. Perhaps they will get their act together but they better do it soon. It was hard to believe that both their cars were out before the finally qualifying session.

I’m looking forward to tomorrows race. It looks like it’s gonna be a real Mclaren / Ferrari battle!

With Coulthard and Barrichello taking an engine penalty the final grid looks like this:

Felipe Massa
Fernando Alonso
Kimi Räikkönen
Lewis Hamilton
Nick Heidfeld
Nico Rosberg
Robert Kubica
Jarno Trulli
Ralf Schumacher
Mark Webber
Heikki Kovalainen
Giancarlo Fisichella
Takuma Sato
Vitantonio Liuzzi
Jenson Button
Scott Speed
Anthony Davidson
Alexander Wurz
Christijan Albers
Adrian Sutil
David Coulthard
Rubens Barrichello

Enjoy the Race!

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.

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.