I think he means its wasted words because fanboys only hear what they want to hear.
Yup, thats what I meant.
The question is, why not? While at Renault Kovalainen had proven he was as fast as Alonso but at McLaren the equality ended as soon as they had someone that could be easily forced to play the second guitar while Hamilton collects the glory. If the drivers truly were equal it wouldn't matter a bit if one of them was a world champion, a highly rated rookie or a "regular" rookie. Or if one of them was British with huge publicity potential and one wasn't.
For some odd reason it wasn't OK by any means to favour Alonso even though he may have been faster but it's completely OK to favour Hamilton even though he may be faster. Note, I say "may" because we really don't know for sure. Kovalainen has beaten Hamilton in free runs occasionally so he's not the absolute slower driver and thus should get equal treatment but I heavily doubt that's ever going to happen.
Perhaps when Kovalainen came over to do testing with McLaren, his lap times weren't comparable to Hamiltons?
But the real reason is that:
1. McLaren had just that year tried to back both drivers equally, but look where it got them, why would they want to do it again?
2. Hamilton had proven himself in 2007, he was clearly championship-winning material now, he just needed more experience.
3. Of course drivers are never truly equal, name a team where they have been? We're not talking proper equality here, just more than, say, Renault or Ferrari?
4. If I was Ron Dennis, I wouldn't be employing Kovalainen because he's as fast as Alonso, I'd be employing him because he's not as fast as Hamilton. Anyone thinking that McLaren hired Kovalainen because they wanted a second top-rated driver is kidding themselves, of course they wanted the constructors championship, but they don't need two possible-world champions for that, just one excellent driver and one good driver.
I know what you and probably several other people are thinking, that I'm being biased because I'm a Brit, McLaren's British, Hamilton's British, Kovalainen is Finnish, Alonso is Spanish, etc. Well I can tell you that the last time I supported McLaren was before 1996 and the last time I supported a British driver was 1999. I live in a country where we're all sick of hearing about "Hamilton-this, Hamilton-that" and I had actually watched most of the 2008 season wanting Massa to win, because Felipe has shocked me in how much he's improved since his Sauber days.
I try to be as un-biased as I can, of course I have certain favourites, etc, but when I give my opinion on what certain teams and drivers are doing, etc, I'm giving what I think from what I've read/heard/seen. From what I know about how McLaren works, from their past history and from what I think an F1 team would do, this is how I see it.
Anyway, please give some reasons better than "he's as fast as Alonso", because thats not the only thing that affects McLaren's decisions, you know, like what happened the year previously? You don't think the whole fiasco didn't change McLaren's minds about treating drivers equally?
There's a lot of people who do, and not because he's black (am I still allowed to use that term?). A lot of people hate him because James Allen turned them against him. Seriously, I was quite excited to see Hamilton on the grid in his first race: the first rookie in a McLaren in 25 years, so he had to be made of something special. And I was pretty happy with him until Bahrain when he started backing off in the closing laps because he knew he couldn't catch Massa, and James Allen started going on and on and on and on about him, when there was some fantastic stuff elsewhere, like Coulthard limbing 14 places. I hate it how they seem to think Hamilton can do no wrong, calling him "Senna-like" and suggesting that Alonso brake-checked him in Bahrain this year fetmoseconds after it happened. And because a lot of that is going to Hamilton's head - likening himself to Prost and Senna, describing the guys down the back end as being monkeys etc - I hate him, too. Sure, you have to be a little arrogant to be able to suppress your instincts and drive the car like they do, but it's not a licence to carry an ego the size of a small African nation.
Now if it had have been another driver in the same position - ie swap the word "Hamilton" with the name of any driver of your pick - and people would still hate that driver. It's not racist; racism would be hating him because he's black regardless of the above. He could be the nicest guy in the world, telling camera crews to bugger off so he can talk with his fans, shake hands with the winner and runners up every time he failed to finsih on the podium, be the first to congratulate his team-mate on victory and so on, and racists would still hate him.
Agreed, I did actually support Hamilton at the start of 2007 and I still do appreciate watching (most) of his driving. But I got tired mostly because James Allen and the stupid amount of advertisements with him in (Abbey, Vodafone, etc) and his general attitude to other drivers when driving. I don't hate him at the moment, but I don't really enjoy hearing about him all the time either.
I think the main reason I don't like him, especially as a champion, is because hes been effectively been given the best car from the start, much like Villenueve back in 1996/1997 (though I have different reasons for not liking him). I don't know why this affects how good the driver is at all, it shouldn't really, but I suppose it just gives more of a general "feeling" that he's at least experienced poorer machinery and had some chances to prove how good he is without the best car, which many of the world champions have done, be it Hill in the Brabham and Arrows, Mansell at Lotus, etc.
How is it impossible for Alonso to just be on a downturn?
Can you at least look at me?"
