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Author Topic: Fernando Makes Mess  (Read 4187 times)

Offline Robem64



"I'm not a pessimist, I'm an optimist with experience"

Offline Scott

Re: Fernando Makes Mess
« Reply #1 on: January 27, 2018, 07:09:04 PM »
It's true...there also always seems to be management shakeups wherever he is.
The Honey Badger doesn't give a...

Online Dare

Re: Fernando Makes Mess
« Reply #2 on: January 27, 2018, 09:45:05 PM »
Fernando always treated his teammates like crap. I think karma
had a little to do with him winning no more titles.
Mark Twain once opined, "it's easier to con someone than to convince them they've been conned."

Offline Alianora La Canta

Re: Fernando Makes Mess
« Reply #3 on: January 27, 2018, 10:11:46 PM »
Fernando seems to be magnetically attracted to mess:

Granted, Renault looked tidy enough in 2005, but when Fernando joined at the end of 2001, it was struggling to turn around after somehow producing a car six seconds slower than the previous one...

McLaren looked powerful in 2005, when Fernando started looking at it, but that stability had gone by the time Fernando arrived in 2007 because of staff members having already started having ...interesting... conversations with Ferrari counterparts, a switch to a different tyre manufacturer and the matrix system leading to unseemly conflicts.

Ferrari had imploded in 2009. I'm still not sure how that can be fixed.

McLaren in 2014 didn't know whether it was coming or going.

While I think Fernando sometimes causes messes, that's not really his biggest problem. That would be one of two things:

- that he keeps walking into messes because he's never learned how to do due diligence on that aspect

- that he tends to inadvertently cause other people to cause messes in the process of trying to impress him.
Percussus resurgio
@lacanta (Twitter)
http://alianoralacanta.tumblr.com (Blog/Tumblr)

Offline Irisado

Re: Fernando Makes Mess
« Reply #4 on: February 17, 2018, 11:20:17 AM »
Fernando always treated his teammates like crap. I think karma
had a little to do with him winning no more titles.

Hardly.  Schumacher treated his team mates poorly, yet won seven world titles.  Ayrton Senna was ruthless against his team mates, yet he won three world titles.  Vettel had no time for Webber when they were team mates at Red Bull, yet he won four world titles.  In addition, Alonso had an excellent relationship with Jenson Button, which serves further to question the assertion that you're making.
Soņando con una playa donde brilla el sol, un arco iris ilumina el cielo, y el mar espejea iridescentemente

Online Dare

Re: Fernando Makes Mess
« Reply #5 on: February 17, 2018, 11:11:58 PM »
Ask Ali about Fisichella's days with Alonso. One race I remember
Alonso's car slowed and Fisi passed hin and Alonso about had a fit
on the radio. Flavio was Alonso's manager as well
Mark Twain once opined, "it's easier to con someone than to convince them they've been conned."

Offline Scott

Re: Fernando Makes Mess
« Reply #6 on: February 19, 2018, 02:09:14 PM »
Fernando always treated his teammates like crap. I think karma
had a little to do with him winning no more titles.

Hardly.  Schumacher treated his team mates poorly, yet won seven world titles.  Ayrton Senna was ruthless against his team mates, yet he won three world titles.  Vettel had no time for Webber when they were team mates at Red Bull, yet he won four world titles.  In addition, Alonso had an excellent relationship with Jenson Button, which serves further to question the assertion that you're making.

I think the Mclaren years with Jenson were a bit special...he was being paid an insane amount just to show up and start from the back with little or no chance at points.  Why bother stirring things up with your teammate when there is nothing to fight over?

But I agree with you that Alonso is far from the only one who treats or treated his teammates like crap.
The Honey Badger doesn't give a...

Online Jericoke

Re: Fernando Makes Mess
« Reply #7 on: February 19, 2018, 03:28:11 PM »
Fernando always treated his teammates like crap. I think karma
had a little to do with him winning no more titles.

Hardly.  Schumacher treated his team mates poorly, yet won seven world titles.  Ayrton Senna was ruthless against his team mates, yet he won three world titles.  Vettel had no time for Webber when they were team mates at Red Bull, yet he won four world titles.  In addition, Alonso had an excellent relationship with Jenson Button, which serves further to question the assertion that you're making.

I think the Mclaren years with Jenson were a bit special...he was being paid an insane amount just to show up and start from the back with little or no chance at points.  Why bother stirring things up with your teammate when there is nothing to fight over?

But I agree with you that Alonso is far from the only one who treats or treated his teammates like crap.

I've noticed that drivers who have a reputation for being 'hard' on their driving teammates tend to treat the rest of their teammates (engineers, mechanics etc.) very well.  At least Schumacher and Vettell have that reputation.

Given that your driving teammate is generally held to be the greatest yardstick in F1, I can see why drivers would play psychological games with their teammates: in sports if you want to look good someone else has to look bad.

Offline Alianora La Canta

Re: Fernando Makes Mess
« Reply #8 on: February 23, 2018, 10:12:04 PM »
Ask Ali about Fisichella's days with Alonso. One race I remember
Alonso's car slowed and Fisi passed hin and Alonso about had a fit
on the radio. Flavio was Alonso's manager as well

Here goes. Note as you read this, that off-track, Giancarlo and Fernando considered themselves friends before and after the incident, and to the best of my knowledge still are:

China 2006. Renault and Ferrari are fighting each other hard for the constructors' title. In addition, Fernando is trying to prevent Michael Schumacher from becoming an eight-time driver's world champion. Michelin (supplying Renault) and Bridgestone (supplying Ferrari) are also vying for the unofficial "tyre manufacturer of the year" award.

The Renaults qualified on the front row (Fernando first, Giancarlo second) and Michael Schumacher only 6th, because the Bridgestones were not as good in the properly damp conditions in qualifying. The track was almost but not quite dry at the start, and Bridgestone ...er, Ferrari... ...was left behind a little again.

Fernando galloped into the lead, with Giancarlo doing enough to keep the rather lighter-fuelled McLaren of Kimi Raikkonen behind him. Fernando wouldn't have his team-mate again that side of victory parc fermé had Renault not decided to leave the rear tyres on at the next pit stop, matching them with new front tyres.

It was never fully established whether the problem was primarily with the fronts or the rears, but they certainly never worked well with each other. (This action, in case you are wondering, got banned at the end of the following year; it was seen as making a mockery of the concept of tyre sets). All the heat went into the back tyres (which didn't need it, being worn) and not the fronts (which did).

Giancarlo took one look at how much slower Fernando was going and told his mechanics to give him new tyres all round next lap. These warmed up slowly, but only as slowly as everyone else's Michelins. Michael, as far as can be told, had never considered anything other than a completely new set of tyres - his Bridgestones warmed up speedily and were definitely the thing to have once the track got a bit less wet than it had at the start.

Anyhow, Giancarlo exited the pits and soon caught up with Fernando. He initially tried to stay behind Fernando, but he was going too slowly for that to work... ...and besides, Michael Schumacher joined in the fun a of laps later, having passed the midfielders (or seen them pit out of his way).

Giancarlo saw that if he carried on at Fernando's speed, both of them would be sitting ducks for Michael. He took the initiative to try to prevent a total rout for Renault. The trouble was that he didn't tell his pit what he was planning (understanding that his friend would like a team order to let a team-mate through as little as he himself liked receiving such orders). So Fernando had no idea what was happening and defended Giancarlo as energetically as he would have done had the overtaken been Michael himself. On a couple of occasions, this led to Michael facing a wall of Renaults as wide as the track. Of which more later...

However, Fernando's tyres really were rubbish that stint, so on the third attempt, Giancarlo got past. He then spent the rest of the stint ably fending off Michael Schumacher. The reason he didn't win the race (as Renault would probably have liked as a Plan B) was because the Michelins heated up too slowly, so on the out-lap from the last stop he got overtaken by Michael and his already-warm Bridgestone tyres. Giancarlo gave second to Fernando to help him in the driver's title challenge. Neither was particularly happy, but kept it polite to the cameras. I assumed, from what I know of their natures, that they had a long and basically polite debrief with their team (any anger displays there would have been from Flavio and possibly Pat Symonds), exchanged some heated, frank and possibly loud words on their differing interpretations of the situation afterwards, and then made up. (From what Giancarlo said the following weekend, I think this is what he attempted to do...)

So far, so typical between team-mates. So typical that Jean Todt (then leader of Ferrari) thought the situation had been pre-planned between them as a form of blocking and cheating. Even when that was said, this was a little difficult to believe.

Skip over to the following Thursday. Fernando was selected as one of the people to do the drivers' press conference. For reasons that have never been properly established, Fernando decided this was a great moment to not only berate Giancarlo for not staying behind him for the 11 laps until Fernando's next round of pitstops, but also to accuse his team of not wanting him to win the championship*. (I'm not sure what Michelin did to escape Fernando's criticism here, but it managed it!) Not surprisingly, everyone in the press jumped on this, causing quite a bit of hassle for the title contenders. It caused a lot of in-team resentment too - it's not easy seeing one's efforts dismissed like that in public.

This is where Michael Schumacher and Sebastian Vettel understood where to draw the line. They might have been upset with their colleagues in private, but never would you hear them speak badly of the more regular team members (other than their team-mate, in Sebastian's case - come to think of it, Michael's brand of hardness against team-mates never involved badmouthing them). Fernando may also have a reputation of doing things like buying substantial gifts for his crew, but that doesn't help much if the same driver then accuses you of unprofessional conduct in public. Especially when there is no noticeable cause.

Thankfully, Giancarlo had rather more common sense. During an interview a few minutes later (before he'd had chance to hear what Fernando had said), he stuck to saying what he'd seen happen, and said he'd speak with Fernando away from the press. He, along with Pat Symonds, ended up having to patch up the holes Fernando had metaphorically made in Renault well enough for Fernando and Renault to eventually get the titles they wanted. While Giancarlo quickly forgave Fernando for his poor choice of words, location and timing... ...I'm not sure Pat ever has (he still seemed a little bitter about the whole thing in comments he made to F1 Racing nearly a decade later).

* - As far as I know, the only occasion where Fernando might have had cause to resent Renault's attitude was the time when Giancarlo beat him in a fair fight in Indianapolis 2006 (this was not a common occurrence). This was popular in the team, largely because it had been felt that Giancarlo hadn't had the results he'd deserved from earlier efforts that season. Fernando seems to have misinterpreted that as members of the team wanting him to have a bad day. (Pat, in case you are wondering, said that Fernando had already been furious because he'd been defeated by Giancarlo in the first place, even before seeing the team reaction).
Percussus resurgio
@lacanta (Twitter)
http://alianoralacanta.tumblr.com (Blog/Tumblr)

 


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