Not only that but it gets more depressing that it's claimed Alonso has to Spanish media he will purposely retire the car on the last lap of GP if he isn't in the points.
Well, he's a bit of a drama queen, isn't he?
I can absolutely understand his frustration with the engine and it's overall performance, but the constant complaints over the radio and these kinds of remarks to the press/public eye are quite honestly immature and unprofessional.
The engineers are very much aware of the fact that the engine is not up to snuff and down on power and that their overall reliability and position in general are far from ideal, so there's absolutely no reason to keep bringing the morale down and keep beating a dead horse by constantly exclaiming the disadvantages and frustrations by the Honda powerplant, and let's face it: The only the reason why the McHonda isn't competitive is because of the PU from Honda, not the chassis. Of course, for a 2-time champion, you may expect something else, especially after the development time of 2 seasons now. But a driver like Alonso is also capable to find a seat somewhere else, since his name does carry quite a bit of weight in the league, but he didn't.
I personally wish and hope that Honda will find some needed power and especially reliability in the PU, like they've (roughly) did in the second half of last season to at least compete decently with the midfield. Vandoorne and especially Alonso, as he has shown in all three races, are certainly capable to fight for points as long as the car functions properly, and hey: This time around there were only 3 (?) rounds till checkered flag, so maybe, just maybe we'll finally see a McHonda finish in Russia, maybe even inside the points.
I dodn't think Bottas had delivered on his promise even at Williams and didn't think he was a driver who could challenge in a Mercedes-Benz.
Defintion of a #2 driver to make sure Hamilton has a smoother time this year.
As of right now, yes. Which is quite unfortunate to be honest, I certainly feel like that Bottas has the caliber to actually become a #1 driver, but at the end I feel like he suffers from the Ralf Schumacher, David Coulthart, Eddie Irvine, Mark Webber, etc. - Syndrome. He's an incredibly capable driver, with the actual potential of become WDC, but never actually getting the team behind him to support him 100%. The call today (in my opinion) came way too early today to let Hamilton by, actually showing that Hamilton still is (by far) the #1 driver, which I just think is absolutely sad.
I personally think that especially teams like RBR have found a nice balance in actually supporting the guy that is quicker in that race/phase of the race without really promoting or demoting anybody to be the second driver, but at the end of the day, not every team really has a line up of such evenly matched drivers.
