Do you honestly believe Fernando Alonso made the right decision in moving to McLaren!?!?

Question

Personally I feel that he was so strong at Renault and that he had a good team behind him, he should have stayed. I think McLaren will benefit from him but they have a lot to do to be at the standard Alonso would be accustomed to.

Answer 1

It probably seemed like a good idea to him at the time. As Gregnir said, at the end of 2005, there was a question mark over the Regie's long term F1 commitment, McLaren, despite losing both championships, arguably had the faster car, and Adrian Newey was still pre-Red Bull bound. If Flavio knew then that Renault were going to stay around in F1 for a while, and had he been consulted by Alonso, he would never have allowed him to go to McLaren. As it turned out, he had not been consulted, and Fernando made the decision by himself. Flavio appeared more than a little miffed when he found out, and was certainly not happy about Ron's early announcement of the new deal. I'm sure Fernado's relationship with Flavio has soured since then, and it must have been a real pain in the neck for both of them to have to see each other at work every weekend (despite the smiles and hugs and celebrations).....that's one thing he doesn't have to worry about next year, I suppose.
He's still young, and if he wants to, he can be at the top level of F1 for another 10 years. When Michael went to Ferrari in 1996, people were asking the same question. And in 96, 97, 98, 99, some non-believers thought Schumi had made a mistake changing teams. We all know what happened after that. I can't see Alonso not winning atleast another title in the rest of his career. Who knows, maybe he'll win a title or two at McLaren, and might end up driving for Ferrari sometime??!!

Answer 2

I don't think so.

With the engine development freeze coming in a year early, I don't think McLaren sit in a good position. The engine freeze effectively means limited engine development over the next 3 years. This means that McLaren will have to deal with the same Merc engine that gave them grief over the last season. Yes, they will be able to make minor changes to fuel filters, cooling devices and other things but the block and piston set must remain the same as the last race last year.

Ferrari and Renault both had superior engines as of the last race and I think reliability will be the major player.

Having said this, Alonso is a great driver and has the potential to take McLaren to another title, however, it won't be this year. I think Alonso is better the Kimi and has the results to prove it. Kimi was an erratic driver when he was at Sauber and he was the same at McLaren. If Alonso was with McLaren last season, he would have done better than Kimi.

I think McLaren are the big winners in this. They now have Alonso (youngest ever champion) and Hamilton (the only person capable of beating Alonso as been the youngest ever champion).

Answer 3

2007 will be Alonso's most dominant season yet.

First, Mercedes have been making efforts to produce a better engine, and Ron Dennis...well, he's Ron Dennis. He builds winning cars.

Second, McLaren lost their biggest problem: Raikkonen. He's a great driver, but he has no clue about how to manage the car - Raikkonen drives with sledgehammers, Alonso drives with kid gloves. In a Ferrari without Ross Brawn to direct the team and Luca Montemezolo more worried about cost than about winning, the car will be fragile and unreliable to begin with; add in Raikkonen's hamfisted driving, and he'll be lucky to finish half the races.

Third, I heard it said about Alain Prost that "he wins races at the slowest speed possible". The same is true about Alonso: he knows when to push and when to protect the car. Look at 2005: at Silverstone, he let Montoya run away with it because JPM was no threat to the world title (he missed five races), and Alonso cruised to an easy second place. For the rest of the season, Alonso took it easy, racking up seconds and thirds until China, where he embarassed the field with a superhuman performance to give Renault the constructor's title.

Throughout 2006, Alonso did the exact same thing: when the FIA tried to punish Renault to help Ferrari, Alonso found another gear and stayed in front. Every time Scumbagger got close, Alonso pulled away. He is so much in control that it seems he lets up just to make it look competitive.

As for the competition...

Lewis Hamilton - talented, but too young and lacking experience
Heikki Kovaleinen - the same as Hamilton
Fisichella - he couldn't compete with Alonso despite having an equal car; he's 34 and on the down side of his career
Raikkonen - in a fragile Ferrari, he has no chance
Felipe Massa - he has even less chance than Raikkonen
Jensen Button - Honda need to make three giant leaps in one year to become contenders
Nick Heidfeld - the same as Button, although testing so far shows BMW have made big strides

Aside from them, the good cars don't have a talented enough driver (eg. Toyota), and the talented drivers don't have a good enough car (eg. Coulthard). Alonso will finish first in the points and take at least 8-10 wins, and Hamilton or Raikkonen second in the points and get 2-4 wins.


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Answer 4

Hmmm... There are different angles to it. For someone like Alonso & Mclaren, they can pretty much get what or who they want in F1 with the possible exception of M.S. Mclaren had Kimi under a contract and Kimi is probably the fastest man in F1 today. But everyone knew that Kimi was frustrated with Mclaren and the only place Kimi could go to were a Renault or a Ferrari. WIth Kimi unhappy, Ron had no choice and similalrly Alonso because after being the youngest Champion there was only Ferrari or Mclaren he could go to.
People know that Alonso approached Ron and for Ron it just fell in place. Alonso couldn't go to Ferrari because everyone knew that it wasn't M.S alone but the entire team that M.S brought with him were the reasons for Ferrari's resurgence and the likelihood of that team dissipating is high. Ferrari will make a lousy car in 2008.
Having said that there are a lot of things going for Mclaren.
They know how to win Championships
They know how to treat Star Drivers.
They have a good Engine Package.
No Lack of Money.
Pedigree.
For Alonso it again means a team that will
Revolve around him, Develop around him primarily and moreover the only other team that can pay big bucks and has a track record of winning. With Williams out of the equation Alonso also had no choice.
For Mclaren ALonso has demonstrated that is Fast and cool qualities that the quintessential Englishman Ron Dennis appreciates.
It should work.

Answer 5

I think it was a terrible move, and one that Alonso may be second guessing as well... but it is done, and the reasons why it happened are understandable. Alonso has shown to get a little worked up from time to time when he perceives that he is not being shown the respect he feels he deserves, and that probably contributed to the change.

Renault was uncertain about if it would continue in Formula 1, and Alonso was under contract for another year. This combination meant that there was no immediate offer for a new contract with Renault. At the same time, you have Ron Dennis basically backing up a dump truck full of cash and giving Alonso the validation he felt lacking from Renault. Throw in that Mclaren's car at the end of 2005 was clearly the fastest on grid... and needed only a little more reliability to be the class of the field that year.

Of course, a year later it's a different picture, and I think Alonso is moving to a car that is not as fast, is still plagued by reliability issues, and probably has more expectations resting on his shoulders than he did at Renault (and I still wonder just how well he will hold up under such pressure). I think he had a great situation at Renault and will probably miss it... but you never know, maybe in a couple years? After all, there were questions about Schumacher heading to Ferrari back in '96.

Answer 6

I think you have to look at the big picture and the fact that there were indications a little over a year ago that Renault wasn't fully committed to staying in Formula One for the long term, so Fernando Alonso saw stability at McLaren. Only time will tell if his move to Woking will turn out to be a good one. He may not win his third successive driving title this coming season, but I think there are indications both he and the team will be highly competitive.
True, the 2006 McLaren season wasn't a good one - no wins and third in the constructors' championship, 96 points behind Renault.
However, if you go back to the 2005 season, it was Ferrari who finished a distant third, yet the team bounced back last season.
After a good 2005 campaign, second in the constructors' championship, but with 10 wins to 8 over Renault, McLaren just didn't get it right this past year. Still, you have to believe the McLaren technical team of Neil Oatley, Mike Coughlan, Tim Goss and Mark Williams will come up with a much better car for 2007.

Answer 7

No, I don't think he made the right decision; he was unsure of Renault's long-term commitment to F1, but that has been confirmed (at least until 2012), and at the end of last year McLaren clearly had the fastest car in the pack; who could have guessed that this year would be the first winless one for them since 1996? Plus there was the money factor involved. 9 million $ salary at Renault this season, 30 million $ next year at McLaren. Compare. The attraction of money is way too powerful; this also lured MS out of the Benneton in late 1995.

Answer 8

Ron Dennis would never have offered Alonso a contract if he knew Alonso would not do well in Mclaren. I think he has made the right decision. Mclaren is sometimes a very strong team. Alonso s driving style suggersts that he should move to Mclaren.

Answer 9

I think he has. Alonso was fairly lucky because Ferrari had problems when they weren't allowed to change tyres during a race in 2005, this meant Michael and Rubens were less competative than normal, which gave Alonso the chance he needed. If it hadn't been for the rule change in 2005 I don't think he would've got the championship points needed. As they said at the time, he won the championship but didn't win the most races, that fell to Riakonen at McLaren.
The fact Ferrari didn't "bounce back" immediately shows the problems weren't just the tyres.

Answer 10

He made big mistake, Renault was the best car last season, I just hope that McLaren has a better car than they had last season!!!! I support Alonso no matter what car he drives!!!