McLaren Had Problems With Senna, Prost, Raikkonen, Montoya, Perhaps The Problem

[TheStig]

 Fernando Alonso has admitted he still harbours a dream to race for Ferrari one day.

The Spaniard has been persistently linked with the Italian marque this year, but it is now clear that - while weighing up a big-money offer from Honda - he is likely to stay at Renault for the 2009 season.

But he told Italy's Corriere dello Sport newspaper: "I admit that one day I would very much like to be with Ferrari.

"It's the best team in the history of formula one, and it is clear that those who go with them, are part of history," the former double world champion said.

Ferrari has elected to stick with its current drivers, Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa, for the next couple of years.

Alonso said the last two grands prix, which he won, have not compensated for a difficult season, because his only goal is to "win the title or at least be able to fight for it".

But he said: "I do not consider this a lost year. I have remembered that I love formula one, and how to enjoy it."

The 27-year-old is believed to have been courted by BMW-Sauber for 2009, but Alonso denies that the deal fell through because he would not have fit in at the team.

"I have raced karts since I was three years old. In the last 24 years I have been fine with all of my teams, except for one," Alonso said, expressing frustration that his disastrous year with McLaren in 2007 tarnished his reputation.

"It was the same team that had problems with Senna, Prost, Raikkonen and Montoya. Perhaps the problem is with the team rather than with the driver," he told Germany's Stuttgarter Zeitung.


http://www.paddocktalk.com/news/html/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=97071&newlang=&topic=8&catid=0


No doubt with the car he could write history?

TheStig

[johnbull]

If only he'd keep his mouth sut TIGHT, and let his driving do the talking ........ like Kimi.

[Scott]

Not just McLaren.  Senna was difficult, period.  Prost I can't really say, I don't know enough about the history with McLaren.  Montoya was a spoiled brat long before he made it to F1, and McLaren didn't have a problem with Kimi, just that Kimi had problems with a lousy Merc motor for a couple of seasons.  McLaren wouldn't have let Kimi leave if they could have matched Ferrari/Phillip Morris' offer - but that would never happen.

[John S]

I think Prost was fine at McLaren, he won several WDCs there, until Senna arrived and soured the relationship. Senna was as demanding as Alonso is now. Prost went on to prove himself capable of winning the WDC in more than one make of car and I believe Alonso wants to be hailed amongst the best for acheiving a similar feat, It would explain why he is always so desperate to leave Renault.

Raikkanon equally had no axe to grind about McLaren they just couldn't give him the reliability & performance he expected with the Merc lump.

[Steven Roy]

Prost's problem was Senna not McLaren.  Senna's problem is that at that time McLaren could build a better car than Newey

[cosworth151]

Remember, we're not talking about how thing were in Real World. We're talking about Ferd World, an entirely different reality!

[Alianora La Canta]

Perhaps the problem is that McLaren, like every other team, works best with one type of driver and works considerably less well with other types?

[Dare]

Perhaps the problem is that McLaren, like every other team, works best with one type of driver and works considerably less well with other types?

huh

[lkjohnson1950]

Prost did have problems with McLaren, but they were the same ones he had with all his teams: He is a perfectionist, and would keep his mechanics jumping to make tiny changes to the car, then have it put back to the original set-up. Senna was more of a "that's close enough, I'll make it work" type, so of course he was more popular within the team.

[Steven Roy]

That reminds me of Mansell's comments about Prost when they were team mates at Ferrari.

He is not a proper racing driver.  He is just a chauffeur.  He spends forever altering the car and in the end the car is doing most of the work.

Well yeah but....

[John S]

So if Nigel had paid attention to the proffessors lessons he may have won more WDCs himself.

[Alianora La Canta]

Warning! Long post alert!

Perhaps the problem is that McLaren, like every other team, works best with one type of driver and works considerably less well with other types?

huh  {dare, quoting Alianora La Canta - 4 comments ago}

dare, what I mean is that every organisation has a particular ambience, a particular culture, a particular way of doing things (or methodology as Ron would call it) generated by those working within it. That ambience/culture/methodology will attact some people and repel others. You need only think of the places and people where each of you have worked in the past to see that you work better in workplaces and with people that fit the way you think, rather than those which work in ways that seem strange to you.

The same principle works in F1 teams. If you have a slightly chaotic team where the technical director is an extremely powerful influence, then you will get more performance from the team if you listen to that technical director and treat him as an equal rather than forever trying to prove a point against him or seeming perpetually scared of him. Isn't that right, Jacques Villenueve and Heinz-Harald Frentzen (at Williams in 1997-8)?

If your team has a team principal that appears to have a clear favourite before you've even started, that favourite isn't you and the principal won't stand still long enough to explain why, you'll probably have a somewhat easier time of it if you don't argue too hard back, don't take it as an intended insult and simply try to do what you think you should be doing as well as you can. Jarno Trulli can attest to this at Renault.

If your team, on the other hand, is a highly disciplined team that expects its drivers to be equally disciplined, that likes to keep a reasonably low profile in the press (and prefers its administration to do the talking when it does speak out) and expects its drivers to at least try to co-operate with each other and with team strategies, you need to be disciplined, low-profile and co-operative, you should try to be those things. Needless to say, the team I refer to in this case is McLaren. Everyone in the list failed at least one of those attributes.

Prost and Senna fell out with each other bigstyle, as you'd perhaps expect the two biggest titans of the age to do when forced to face each other in the same team. Senna demanded the best of his team at the expense of his team-mate, fuelled by years at Lotus where that was the only way any decent results at all were possible. Prost in turn was generally argumentative in the sense lkjohnson referred to (and got even more so in the psuedopolitically-charged Ferrari), which wouldn't have amused Ron any.

Raikkonen was apparently a bit indisciplined with the drink, which wouldn't have helped his cause. Though to be honest, his "problems" were probably no bigger than the problems a driver can expect to have with a team they have slight incompatibilities with. Raikkonen needed a consistently winning car most of all, because as we now know he finds it difficult to motivate himself unless there's something to clearly compete against (though unlike Hakkinen before him, he won't lose heart simply because he's near the back of the grid - it's being left in a lonely position of any type that causes him motivation issues). McLaren couldn't provide the car, so he went to a team that he thought could deliver what he needed. And in the case of 2007 at least, he was right...

Montoya came up with problems that nobody else could see quite often, and was also highly indisciplined. Turning the McLaren Communications Centre into a creche was the biggest symbolic representation of indiscipline I have ever seen an F1 driver commit off-track.

Alonso was too high-profile in his complaints. For a low-key team, that's a major irritant. When the complaints appear to include psuedopolitically incendinary stuff, it's more than an irritant. Some teams take it better than others, but McLaren was always going to take it really, really badly.

This is what I meant by my original comment, dare.

[lkjohnson1950]

Unfortunately, I don't seem to fit in well anywhere I work! All those other people are sooo weird.

Lonny

[Alianora La Canta]

Perhaps you are cut out for self-employment, then, and would be suited to employing like-minded people yourself?

[lkjohnson1950]

Do you really think there are like-minded people out there? Unfortunately, I've run a couple of businesses and I don't seem cut out for that either!! 

Lonny