We will see how Michelin response to the Bridgestone. It's more on tyre war out there right now.

Fernando Alonso said he was unconcerned after German Grand Prix winner Michael Schumacher reduced his championship lead to 11 points.

But the Spaniard, who finished fifth, admitted that his Renault team need to improve in the coming races.

"I'm not worried as far as I'm in front of him," he said afterwards.

"But it's true that if we keep going like this, in three or four races we will be equal in points and this is not good for me."

Alonso started the day at Hockenheim with a 17-point lead over Ferrari rival Schumacher but saw that gap slashed as he matched his season's worst finish.

But the defending world champion, who turned 25 on Saturday, refused to blame Renault's performance on a ban introduced by the sport's governing body - the FIA - this weekend on a suspension system pioneered by Renault.

The "mass damper" system, adopted by at least six other teams, uses a counterweight within the suspension to enhance stability.

Asked how much the ban had affected his car's performance, Alonso answered: "I don't think that much, to be honest.

"It's true with this result that it is easy to say this would affect the car but I'm totally sure in Hungary we will be back with the right set-up, right tyre and forget the dampers."

However, Alonso believes tyre problems played a part in Sunday's display.

"We were not competitive this weekend, but I did the maximum I could and so did the team," added the Spaniard, who has won six races to Schumacher's five this season.

"I think that without the [tyre] blistering we experienced, the podium was a possibility for me even from seventh position."

Schumacher, however, hailed his Hockenheim victory as a turning point in the world title race.

"It is the right moment in time when we needed to have such a performance in order to bring down the gap in the championship and keep the pressure on," said the German.

"Naturally the performance we have shown in the last three races against our competition gives us great confidence.

"Hopefully we can reduce the gap in the championship pretty quickly. It is important we use this opportunity."

The Suspicious Stink of F1
Opinion: It's difficult to concentrate on Winners and Losers when there's such a strong smell of suspicion coming from the FIA's technical delegate.

It's a bit like sitting down to watch a film you've been looking forward to and finding that a piggery has moved next door. Charlie Whiting's move to ban the Renault damping system so pivotal to their set-up makes me mega suspicious - and trying to focus on the German GP has been hard given such a rank smell.

The fact is that Renault will have shown their damping system to him before they put it on the car; it has reportedly been on the car since Brazil 2005, and only now - with the F1 Championship delicately poised - does he decide to ban it. It raises huge questions over either his competency or raises the possibility of connivance within the FIA.

If the system was illegal then it should have been banned straight away. If it was illegal and he failed to spot it for nine months then clearly he is not up to the job.

Whiting's ban was undermined by the fact that the FIA's own race stewards could see nothing wrong with the Renault system.

The timing is very suspicious, coming so soon after the French GP when Fernando Alonso snatched an unlikely second place. Perhaps something needed to be done to put a bigger gap between Schumacher and Alonso if Schumi is to win the 2006 Championship.

Exactly the same thing happened in 2003 when after the Hungarian GP it looked like the 2003 season was getting away from the Scuderia. All of a sudden Max Mosley was announcing that there was a problem with the shoulder of the Michelin tyre and the tyre rules were tightened up to benefit Bridgestone. Embarrassingly for the FIA, Mosley said they hadn't been influenced by anybody and then subsequently Ross Brawn admitted that they had told the FIA about it and that Max had flown down to Maranello the next day.

That stank too.

Tom Rubython. the maverick publisher of F1 Business magazine is not slow to point out that Ross Brawn and Charlie Whiting have been drinking buddies in the past. He has also been very vocal pointing out the unwise nature of such a relationship given the fact that Whiting is the keeper of all the teams' F1 secrets. He knows the technology on all the cars and (no pun intended) needs to be whiter than white..

Maybe it is just coincidental that it came now and we are being overly critical. Only complete transparency will rid us of our doubts. What the FIA need to do now is print a full report. We need to know:
a) Why did Whiting ban the system now?
b) Was he prompted by another team - and if so, who?

It's unlikely Whiting will step down. He is one of Bernie Ecclestone's coterie of former Brabham personnel such as Herbie Blash who he likes to keep around him at races.

Our opinion is this: keep him as race director, for which he is very competent, and appoint a new technical delegate who does not fraternise with any team. And print a full report into the circumstances surrounding this highly controversial move.

Renault face a difficult Hungarian Grand Prix weekend after deciding not to use a pioneering design that was banned for the last race.

Renault have reversed a decision to fit their cars with a radical design system they had been intending to use.

F1's governing body had said it would not seek to punish teams using the "mass damper", but Renault removed it following a later communication.

Renault's Fernando Alonso struggled in Germany last Sunday without the system.

By contrast, title rival Michael Schumacher won his third straight race and is now 11 points behind the Spaniard with six races to go.

The Ferrari driver has cut Alonso's once-massive lead by 14 points in just three races, all of which the German has won.

Alonso said Germany was "probably the hardest" race of the season "because we were not competitive throughout the weekend".

A Renault spokesman said the team had "reconsidered" its decision to use the system following a communication from governing body the FIA explaining why it thought the "mass damper" was illegal.

The spokesman added that the team hoped they would not be as far off the pace in Hungary as they were in Germany.

"That was more down to tyre wear at Hockenheim," the spokesman said. "We hadn't seen an exponential rise in tyre wear without the mass damper before that - certainly not at Jerez (where Renault tested without the system before the German race)."

The "mass damper" is a counterweight mounted on springs within the nose of the car that enhances stability.

Renault learned before the German race that they would not be allowed to use the system, which they pioneered last season and which has subsequently been adopted by six other teams.

The FIA said before the race that it considered the system to be illegal because it helped the cars' aerodynamics.

But the FIA's race stewards in Germany then passed the system as legal - only for FIA bosses to say they intended to lodge an appeal against that decision.

As that appeal will not take place until after this weekend's race in Hungary, Renault felt they could not risk running the suspension system in Germany as they could have subsequently lost the points it scored if the FIA won its appeal.

But the FIA indicated after the German race that it would not seek to retrospectively punish any team using a "mass damper" if its appeal was successful.

Renault said following that announcement initially that it would use the system in Hungary, but a subsequent letter from FIA race director Charlie Whiting to the teams changed their minds.

Renault was hurt by the ban more than other teams because its entire car was designed around the system, whereas others had simply added it on at a later date.

As a result, not having the system causes Renault much greater problems with the behaviour of its car's aerodynamics and suspension.

And the blow is even worse because F1 is in the middle of a ban on testing, which means the team cannot try out ways of improving the car other than at races, where track time is limited.

Engineering boss Pat Symonds admitted that the team's performance was harmed by not running the "mass damper".

He said after the German race that "it goes without saying that removing the mass damper degraded our performance, otherwise the component would not have been on the car throughout the season.

"After using the device for the first time in the final races of 2005, the design and development of this year's car was optimised with it in place.

"The ride and the behaviour over kerbs of the R26 at the last race was certainly not as good as we have been accustomed to this year. But there were other factors at work as well."

Renault also struggled with tyre blistering, which was almost certainly worsened by not using the "mass damper", but they are hopeful that a new tyre for Hungary will solve that problem.

The team will also continue with a new aerodynamic package that was introduced in Germany, where its effectiveness was limited by the team's other problems.

Renault are facing a tough task holding on to their championship lead as Ferrari's tyre supplier Bridgestone has appeared to have an advantage over Michelin in the last three races.

Stewards penalise 'dangerous' Alonso
Unacceptable driving from the Championship leader

F1 Stewards at the Hungaroring have thrown the book at championship leader Fernando Alonso following incidents during practice on Friday.

The Spaniard will have two seconds added to his lap times in each of the three sections of knockout qualifying on Saturday, which could leave his Renault car stranded down the grid on a circuit that is notoriously difficult to pass on.

Alonso was summoned to the Stewards' room in Budapest after weaving and apparently brake-testing Red Bull test driver Robert Doornbos in the free afternoon session.


A statement said the reigning World Champion's antics were 'unnecessary, unacceptable and dangerous', while Alonso (also) also overtook under a yellow flag.

http://f1.racing-live.com/f1/en/headlines/...804193820.shtml
Alonso is going crazy, lost his patient....

i am sure this kind of attitude will only hurt his championship fight with MS

 

He might have the talent and good car....

but he definately dont hav the right attitude to be a world champion

But with his skills, its still hard to say.. he will most likely get some points out i think ....

Alonso is 1 big lucky fella. I have not seen anyone so lucky in F1 in my F1 years from last year a few occassions going from the back to get a leading points from Kimi and yesterday out of the race with just a few laps to go, all of surely thinks that's the end of the spinard with Shuey in 2nd place but then lady lucky seem have not left the spinard yet and deliver a bad tire to Shuey and he force out of race!

Now Shuey with 11 points behind and 5 more races to go..this is an uphill task for the german to defeat the spinard as Renault is known for their superb traction and pick up!