Middlemore VS Alonso

It seems the double world champion Fernando Alonso isn’t happy. All through the season there have been comments from him about different things being lack of support; his team mate getting more support, and over the Turkish GP weekend he goes onto BBC radio and says the team haven’t give him enough credit for its upturn in performance. So I thought I’d do this as a letter of support. Well kind of.


Dear Fernando

How are things? I only ask because I haven’t heard you say many positive things as of lately. If you were only a casual viewer, the headlines would make you think you’re all alone out there being cheated out of the title. Truth is your not doing to badly. Coming into the Turkish race you’re second, only 7 points behind the leader. Who is that guy? What’s his name? Oh yeah, Lewis Hamilton, your rookie team mate.

Now I know that you probably don’t want to read that last sentence again, the three words you will not want to read again are “Rookie”, “Team mate” and most importantly and painfully for you “behind”, not what your used to after your title winning years and the fact that we know how much you dislike being beaten by your team mate. Some of your old mates at Renault said you were most miserable when Fisichella was ahead. That wasn’t that often, to be fair, but you did have a stab at the team in the few occasions he did. That Hamilton guy is a bit of a bigger pain in the backside. He just doesn’t get the message does he? You’re the champ, you have the number 1 on the car he has the number 2, he even said as much in Monaco remember? Of course you do, because it put the dampers on your victory. You felt it was a good victory but as Hamilton pointed out it was due to team strategy. Whatever happened and even if Lewis could have used his extra fuel properly we’ll never know. Trouble is for you he just won’t play second fiddle.

Now a lot of people (including me) are enjoying this battle between you two but it seems you’re not. In fact it seems you don’t like the fact that Hamilton is given equal equipment. Well I’m sorry mate, but if you had read up on your history you’ll see that Mclaren have always given equal treatment to its two drivers its Ferrari that had the number one driver gets it all thing going. But then this confuses me anyway. See when you went to Mclaren you talked of a “new challenge”. What challenge exactly was this? Some people said you were going to do a “Schumacher” as in how the Schumi joined Ferrari and reversed its fortunes bringing wins and titles. I’m sorry but no… NO NO NO! There is no way you can compare the state of Ferrari when Schumacher joined as to Mclaren when you joined. For one, Ferrari had won only 2 races between the start of 1991 until Schumacher joined. Mclaren had 10 win in 2005 alone. Granted they had a winless 2006, but to try and say Mclaren were in any way in the same shape as the 96 Scuderia Ferrari is a joke. The fact is your boss Mr. Ron Dennis had seen his team would be 3rd easily but no chance to catch Renault and Ferrari. His drivers leaving or being kicked out he focused his team’s efforts on 2007 and it works. I’m also guessing this new challenge doesn’t mean having an equal team mate. Now I know when you signed that Mclaren had no 2nd driver confirmed, and your now team mate Lewis hadn’t even stepped in a GP2 car. But boy have you kicked up a stink about not having undisputed No.1 status. But here’s my question: why do you want it so badly? Aren’t you confident enough in your own ability that you can beat Lewis easily? You criticised Schumacher about his no.1 status. In fact you were pretty darn harsh about what you said about him. “"Michael is the most unsporting driver F1 has ever seen,” you also added "Zidane retired with more glory than Schumacher," I know Schumacher went to have a fight with Coulthhard in 1998, but I never remember him head butting anyone.

This leads me on to “Pitlanegate”. Now, I know Lewis broke team orders and didn’t let you past. But (a big but) what you did was it sporting? Being someone that condemned Schumacher as “Unsporting” then I’d of thought you would set the example, no? Apart from that you missed a trick that could have helped towards your No.1 status. See, you could have just gone done your lap and not held up Lewis. Then you could have very simply pointed out to the team how Lewis did wrong and didn’t play the team game, got the team more behind you. You also gave your Boss more problems than he needed. Because of what you did it alerted everyone in the paddock watching on the TVs that something was up. You by holding Lewis up focused all the attention on the team. I don’t buy your excuse that you stopped in your pit box 10 extra seconds because you were asking were you on the right tires. You had those 20 seconds to do that, Then there’s the fact the stewards found no evidence that a conversation on tires on your pit radio took place. Yes the Stewards, your move got their attention too. I know a lot of people think the Stewards did not need to interfere with what happened and it was all within the team. Erm no again. See, you held a driver up in qualifying. Regardless of who he was, it is against the rules to do so. Now people said “well maybe Ferrari should be penalized for not refuelling Massa”, I don’t think so. That was a stupid mistake by the team as a whole. But you were the one that stayed on the brakes an extra 10 seconds. No one in the team threw themselves in front of the car and stopped you going. In fact, they told you to go. You as an individual had made the choice to not move that car and therefore you were penalized, only 6 spots. The team lost constructor points and you managed to keep your driver points.

Ah yes your team, they suffer worse with your antics. Saying things in the press does not help you become part of the team. It creates a rift that wasn’t there before. You said you should be given more credit for making the car quicker this year (I know one team would claim it may have been them with a 780 page booklet that helped the team go forwards, but hey that’s for the courts.) Saying the team favours Hamilton isn’t a clever move at all. I guess the press in Spain will be angry with the team that their world champ isn’t being supported. Everywhere else, and especially here in the UK, its not working so well. One tabloid paper had a double page spread on your story of not apparently being supported as much as you think Lewis is. Its headline, however, “Cry baby Alonso”. Maybe you don’t care about what the press write, but I’m sure you must care if the team were to get fed up of your bitching and do put more weight behind Hamilton.

McLaren have always given drivers equal equipment and always will. They have had drivers fight for the title in the past, like Prost vs. Senna. A lot of people think that this is a repeat of that battle, but not me. While yes, you both drive McLarens and fight for the title that’s as close as it gets. If you look at history of the sport, there is an in team battle that does mirror this: Mansell vs. Piquet. Piquet didn’t like the fact that Mansell was allowed to challenge and beat him when Piquet thought he was the No.1 driver. Well he was, but like McLaren No.1 driver meant he had first pickings on the spare car, that’s it. The two drivers were stilled allowed to fight it out. In the end Piquet left for Lotus and he was never in the title hunt again. Now you’re almost copying Piquet. You’re unhappy with your status in the team and there’s talk you’re going back to Renault. But I don’t think you’ll be happy like you were before because that ship has sailed. If you go back to Renault it won’t be Fisichella as your teammate, it will be Hekki Kovalainen and he too like Hamilton is quick and will beat you more often than Fisi ever did. Now I doubt Renault will lose touch like Lotus did but you’re not going to have an undisputed No.1 status and its going to be tough no matter what you do. Your best bet is to stay at McLaren.

Well it has been fun but I guess its time to end this. But I’ll say this before I go. Remember you’re a double world champion you don’t need to pull what you did at Hungary tit for tat driving like that will not work. It’ll go against you in the team and it plays into Lewis’s hands. He sees how you react and it just builds him up even more. So stop the bitching and the moaning and be what you are, a damn fast racing driver and a world champion. Or in the words of Rihanna, who is pretty popular at the moment: “Shut up and drive”.


Yours Sincerely

Andy Middlemore
middlemore283@hotmail.com
azines.com Formula 1 Columnist