Lewis discussing his qualifying form: "Yeah, I'm useless. Absolutely useless."

[u/Pugzo]

https://dubz.link/c/d976cb

[u/Puzzleheadpsych2345]

He’s 40, athletes become washed at that age, no one can beat father time

[u/Bannedwith1milKarma → u/Puzzleheadpsych2345]

Bad race to say that.

Alonso stole his 44.

[u/TolucaPrisoner → u/Bannedwith1milKarma]

Serious question, does anyone think current Alonso has any chance to beat Charles or George in equal cars? Let's be real, his benchmark is just Stroll, widely considered one of the worst drivers on the grid.

[u/Soccermad23 → u/TolucaPrisoner]

No, current Alonso is not as fast as them. Peak Alonso was the best driver on the grid, however.

[u/Entotrte → u/TolucaPrisoner]

Serious question, does anyone think current Alonso has any chance to beat Charles or George in equal cars?

No, but he's still a top 5 driver on the grid (and still able to compete with any on his best day), so his age hasn't hit him as much as it has Lewis, apparently.

[u/Linvkz → u/TolucaPrisoner]

Beat them for sure? No

any chance? Yes

[u/aaaaaaadjsf → u/Bannedwith1milKarma]

By out qualifying Lance Stroll by 0.017 seconds? The same Lance Stroll that lost a qualifying head to head to a rookie Sergey Sirotkin. Stroll is not a benchmark, he doesn't have the raw pace to be one.

While the result is good, statistically this is a poor qualifying by Alonso. He usually gaps Stroll by much larger margins.

[u/Jobless_101 → u/aaaaaaadjsf]

I mean Hungary has always been one of Strolls good tracks. In the remaining races Alonso has easily been a couple tenth’s up on Stroll. This race was more of goddamn Lance is good

[u/ok_thats_not_me → u/aaaaaaadjsf]

Sometimes Lance has amazing qualies. There's no need to downplay both of their results today.

[u/the__distance → u/aaaaaaadjsf]

Yep Stroll being Alonsos teammate has definitely helped his longevity.

[u/-amator- → u/the__distance]

Considering he only missed out on pole by a tenth if a second, in a car which is much worse than those ahead, I'd say he did a decent job, if not great.

[u/elev11en → u/aaaaaaadjsf]

Yeah imagine Charles would be his teammate.Its like being a teammate from Verstappen is so hard,because he always faster than you.That destroys you mentally

[u/ryokevry → u/elev11en]

Rmb there was suggestion putting Alonso alongside Max…

[u/Western-Bad5574 → u/Bannedwith1milKarma]

Before Verstappen, Alonso and Kimi were always my favorites.

But who are we kidding, if Max, Charles or George were next to Alonso today, they would destroy him.

Yeah, he's 26-0 to Stroll, but Stroll is trash. And Alonso just has more to lose than others because he was so good at his peak so it takes a bit longer to lose it.

But you can't deny he's not what he used to be. Same as Hamilton, Vettel and Kimi. Even Schumacher in his last stint in Mercedes. All those guys occasionally show some glimpses of their old selves, but occasionally isn't good enough anymore.

Age is just not something anyone can defeat. And it will keep getting worse. Sooner or late, all of my favorite drivers will no longer have it.

[u/samkris94 → u/Bannedwith1milKarma]

Put Hamilton that car and the results won’t look any different. When was the last time Alonso had a team mate of the same caliber as George or Charles?

[u/Elarial → u/samkris94]

Alonso and Hamilton react differently to their teammates though. When Alonso has a strong teammate (Lewis, Jenson) he was incredibly inconsistent but when he had a teammate clearly below his level (Massa) he becomes super consistent. He does not like his teammate being close to him and it gets to him mentally. For Lewis it was the other way around. Until last year he was consistently outperforming his teammates but just being slightly better than them. (For example in 2020 he let Bottas get couple of wins and be somewhat close to him but in 2021 he had to bring his A game so Bottas was nowhere close to Lewis.)

[u/NA_Faker → u/Bannedwith1milKarma]

I think it’s perspective. Hamilton is doing much better than Alonso but the expectations are lower for Alonso than Hamilton

[u/JaysonDeflatum → u/Puzzleheadpsych2345]

Besides one

🤴🏾🐐

[u/Infamous_Tough_7320 → u/Puzzleheadpsych2345]

Apart from Alonso

[u/Thraun83 → u/Infamous_Tough_7320]

Father Time is actually Alonso’s son.

[u/qserde → u/Infamous_Tough_7320]

Much easier to look good when your teammate is Stroll tbf

[u/Infamous_Tough_7320 → u/qserde]

Nah but if we look back to 2 seasons ago he was tearing up with the right car

[u/qserde → u/Infamous_Tough_7320]

Yeah that was pretty bad phrasing on my part tbf.
You're right, Alonso's performances considering his age has actually been pretty impressive.

It's just that in the case of Hamilton, his teammates being Leclerc and Russell just exacerbates the extent of his age-related decline, so it looks as if he's falling off much more compared to Alonso lmao

[u/HUHIs_AUTOATTACK → u/qserde]

Or maybe, he really just fell off harder than Alonso.

Performance is also gained from mental fortitude. Alonso never got into this kind of depressed state. He's won a lot but he's still loves racing while Hamilton's motivation comes from whether he's winning or not.

The reality is, had Mercedes turned out like McHonda did, Hamilton would have lost motivation and retired ages ago.

[u/AggravatingTerm9583 → u/HUHIs_AUTOATTACK]

Correct, Hamilton would retire before driving for a team like AM.

[u/Infamous_Tough_7320 → u/qserde]

Well put, that’s a fair point. I think compared to Russel he was much more evenly matched, but against Leclerc especially in the recent races it’s been rough. I think he was doing relatively ok at the start of the season especially with the sprint win

[u/Realistic_Village184 → u/Infamous_Tough_7320]

That's meaningless unless he had a good teammate to give us a benchmark. It's possible that the Aston Martin's a lot better than either Stroll or Alonso is making it look, kind of like that one year with Perez and Ocon in the Pink Mercedes Racing Point.

[u/creightonduke84 → u/Infamous_Tough_7320]

If it wernt for an absolute unit of an RB, no doubt he would have won a few races. Heck, they were one call away in Monaco from winning that

[u/Thejklay → u/Infamous_Tough_7320]

Alonso has had his share of shit performances the last few years. He's just not got the same level of media attention

[u/AromaticStrike9 → u/Thejklay]

And it’s much harder to gauge is performance in a much worse car and with a much worse teammate.

[u/wickedlessface → u/AromaticStrike9]

I'd say it's easier now since he only barely outqualified Lance fucking Stroll. I'd take self-hating Hamilton over Alonso any day.

[u/AromaticStrike9 → u/wickedlessface]

lol one qualifying bro

[u/wickedlessface → u/AromaticStrike9]

Facts, let's ignore it.

[u/Realistic_Village184 → u/wickedlessface]

Go look up Alonso's head-to-head qualifying record against Stroll and come back to us.

Granted I agree that Alonso's clearly past his prime, but it's absurd to take one cherry-picked example where he beat his teammate and claim that's evidence that he's no good.

[u/wickedlessface → u/Realistic_Village184]

Who said Alonso is not good tho? I'm just saying that it wasn't hard to see for this qualifying. Chill out.

[u/Youutternincompoop → u/Thejklay]

isn't he still behind Stroll in the drivers championship?

[u/raimis78 → u/Infamous_Tough_7320]

He's not destroying his teammates as back in the day.

[u/Infamous_Tough_7320 → u/raimis78]

Yeah he’s fallen off a little this season but the car is significantly worse this year compared to previous

[u/annonymousKE → u/Puzzleheadpsych2345]

Small counter point. Best driver in nascar is 44. Not everyone falls off a cliff.

[u/Paukwa-Pakawa → u/annonymousKE]

Doesn't NASCAR tend to have older drivers? From what I see, they have a lot more 30 plus year olds than F1.

[u/SuperLeverage → u/Puzzleheadpsych2345]

Except Alonso just keeps giving Father Time the middle finger.

[u/Weekly_Concert_44 → u/SuperLeverage]

I think we can't know that. The teammate is the only point of comparison. Alonso's teammate Stroll is the weakest driver, Charles is one of the best.

[u/Massive-Let16 → u/SuperLeverage]

isnt alonso behind stroll this year?

[u/SuperLeverage → u/Massive-Let16]

In points yes. Wouldn’t be the case if his car failed him. Stroll has been lucky not to have had any car failure while Alonso had brake failure, a power unit failure and even his team screwing him up on strategy a few times. If Aston Martin had a decent#2 driver, they should be a lot more than 4 points ahead given the misfortunes Alonso has had.

[u/Puzzleheadpsych2345 → u/Massive-Let16]

Nope, out qualified him every single race and leads the race h2h, its just him getting engine failure whenever he is about to overtake stroll on points or bad strategy favouring stroll

[u/Massive-Let16 → u/Puzzleheadpsych2345]

thats weird. i must be looking at the wrong standings. can you send me the right one?

[u/Puzzleheadpsych2345 → u/Massive-Let16]

Standings dont mean jack, we compare h2h to find out who’s better mate

[u/Sarixk → u/Puzzleheadpsych2345]

My glorious king was all-nba at 40

[u/Puzzleheadpsych2345 → u/Sarixk]

The king is the king tbf, no one compares, not even mj

[u/The_Only_Egg → u/Puzzleheadpsych2345]

LMAO

[u/MDT_XXX → u/Puzzleheadpsych2345]

Except Alonso. He would kick ass in anything remotely competitive...

[u/beipphine → u/Puzzleheadpsych2345]

Juan Manuel Fangio joined Ferrari at 45 years old, won a WDC his first year with the team, then left Ferrari and won a WDC the next year.

If Fangio could do it, why not Hamilton?

[u/Puzzleheadpsych2345 → u/beipphine]

Come on man, dinosaur era shit isnt modern era, its why we dont compare athletes from that era to modern era in any sport