Haug and Dennis are Jerks!!!!

[enemy-ace]

Originally posted by TimD
isn't it a recognised phenomenon that a driver defending a place will automatically be slower? He will be using the defensive line rather than the qualifying line, and he will have every other glance devoted to his mirrors.

Very True! And being a bit of a Coulthard supporter this year, it was frustrating to watch him lose a that time. Mind you, I can't blame Bernoldi, he was racing for position, but I can't help but think that he would have been better served to let Coulthard through and then set about setting some fast lap times in the chance he could have taken some points. Cause you know there's a chance when even a Prost can finish in the points.

[EERO]

Originally posted by Valve Bounce


...Bernoldi's intent was very clear, that If DC tried to pass him, DC would have, at the very least, lost his front wing, and at the worst, been driven into the fence. David showed remarkable patience, particularly when he could have nerfed Bernoldi into the fence if he wanted to. ... It can be debated at length whether Bernoldi's actions wee unsporstmanlike - I thought so, particularly when TGF was in a similar situation some years ago having to start from the rear. He was fighting desperately for the WDC, and all the drivers let him pass to fight with MIka.
However, I did think that Bernoldi exhibited great courage and ability to stay ahead of DC and not make any mistakes...I thought DC drove a great race, probably the race of his life.

I agree with Bouncey on this one. Bernoldi WAS within his rights. The conundrum being that to love Monaco means accepting that a fast driver probably will get stuck behind a slower car. Coulthard shows his usual graciousness in the following quote from Autosport:

“It was very frustrating behind Enrique,” said DC. “He was only doing his job, but he was so slow. He was also closing the door quite hard on me, but he’s entitled to do that I suppose.”

The point is, gang, maybe it wasn't "Sporting", for Bernoldi to block Coulthard, but it was RACING and everyone involved can live with it.

[Bononi]

To be honest and sincere are the best qualities one can have.

I can only admire DC for that !!!

Can you imagine some other driver saying that ???

DC you will be a champion !!!

EERO, you said it all. This discussion is OVER !!!

[Bononi]

RON DENNIS go to bed with that !!!!!

And remember ! You got a true racer !

[Dino IV]

Who writes this stuff at autosport? What a mess ...

Originally posted by steve nielsen
"There wasn’t a blue flag" Bernoldi said.

Well I was wondering all the time what all these marshalls with blue flags were doing, waving it in front of Bernoldi's face every lap. Monaco's marshalls are so close to the track the drivers can almost touch the waved flags. I can't think of any reason why he should have been blue-flagged but Bernoldi was more blue-flagged than the Minardi's altogether this race, so I don't see how he can deny any of those. He should rather make a fuss why they blue-flagged him so much in the first place ...

"I don’t think I was unfair to him." Bernoldi said.

Well as Valve Bounce expressed very well, that's quite debatable ...

"I was thinking, because he was so close to me, if I hit the wall he would hit me too." Bernoldi said.

Sorry, what did you say???
If I hit the wall???
Huh?
Startling little brainfade I guess. :confused:

"I was not holding him back deliberately. I was not braking on the inside." Bernoldi said.

Yeah, yeah, we hear you. Ofcourse you didn't. We believe that. We don't actually get to see the GP's. We follow it by radio ...

"He couldn’t go flat because he was behind me, and there was a lot of downforce." Bernoldi said.

Yep, he carried more downforce and twice as much fuel. You carried less downforce and half his fuel. Yep, we seen it. Overtaking will need you a turbo then ...

"Why Jos Verstappen pass Bernoldi,Heidfeld,Button,Alonso and De la Rosa?" Steve wrote.

Jos crashed Heidfeld out into the wall at Poitier remember? Only DC was behind him after Jos got going again. Burti dropped back with problems and was passed by the two on lap 2. Marques let them by at lap 3. From lap 4 till 7 Bernoldi was followed by Jos and DC and on lap 8 got a teamorder to let Jos by and hold off DC. Jos gets passed Alonso easily on lap 11 and scares the hell out of Button on lap 14 at the Harbour chicane and overtakes him on the straight thereafter. Steve's Jos-PDLR pass is a self-conceived fairytale as Jos never got closer than 4-3 seconds within the Jag before PDLR lost all hydraulics on lap 18. After that Jos went on for a lonely race with no-one even close for a sighting let alone a pass ... Get real, Steve.

Technically Bernoldi's behaviour was not violating any written rules. But as Valve Bounce expressed very well and SL summarized excellently it's worth quite an ethical discussion.

[Liz]

Bernoldi raced today, as did Jean Alesi. They did not roll over and play dead, as has been the tradition of F1 since Prost retired and Senna died. Some of you people have forgotten that racing is not what you do by threatening people in the back room or terrifying teenagers in the garage - it is what you do behind the wheel of a race car on the piste.

I hope Bernoldi does it again the next race. I hope he keeps on doing it until one day he wins a race - and then a whole lot of races afterwards. Without Affirmative Action or squalling from his boss that everyone else should get off the piste and let him win.

RACING is what real men do in real cars on race tracks. Not by crying to the press and threatening other people in the pits.

Ron Dennis should grow up.

[Valve Bounce]

This is a strange thread because it was quickly hijacked into the race between DC and Bernoldi. If Ron Dennis walked into any other team's pits and spoke to their driver in this manner, he should have been told to go forth and multiply, (or "get thee hence and reproduce". Anyone who invades another teams pits in this manner deserves a punch in the nose. Too bad Buch Davis wasn't in the Arrows Pits. I hope I have set the record straight on my feelings regarding the title of this thread. I mean, where does Ron Dennis think he is? In the 10-Tenths F1 forum? We don't accept threats here either.

[JeremySmith]

Bernoldi drove like a prat!

[Wrex]

Originally posted by EERO
Coulthard shows his usual graciousness in the following quote from Autosport:

“It was very frustrating behind Enrique,” said DC. “He was only doing his job, but he was so slow. He was also closing the door quite hard on me, but he’s entitled to do that I suppose.”

Well EERO, he has changed his tune since then

Originally stolen from Autorace.com
Directly after the race, Coulthard said: "It was very frustrating behind Enrique. He was only doing his job, but he was so slow. He was also closing the door quite hard on me, but he's entitled to do that I suppose".

But after a few hours past, he branded Bernoldi an "idiot" and said: "A couple of years ago I would have pushed him so far into the harbour he would not have come up again. It was obvious he was trying to wallow in some sort of glory by holding me up. The sporting gesture would have been to let me through. I don't think what he did make him appear a better racing driver or more desirable to other teams. I think it just makes him look like a short-sighted person because what goes around comes around".

Good on you DC, keep up that 'sporting behaviour'

[RussianFriend]

Ron Dennis should better to concentrate on his own faults, so he'll not have to blame other teams. If the LC on David's car was in better condition, DC would overlap EB not fight for the position.

EB had done the great job. And it's difficult to require a "beau geste" from modern driver, maybe in past drivers might gibe in to rival fighting for WDC, but now the sport became more egoistic.

Regarding DC, he has shown excellent skills during the whole week-end. It was wise of him to save a car and collect some points. Just remember TGF's trying to overtake Wurz in Monaco. This time result would be the same if DC decided to be harder. Monaco doesn't forgive such a things.

[francis]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by garyegrant
[B]RT, had Coulthard tried to overtake Bernoldi, I have little doubt he would have lost a front wing section as the Brazilian chopped desperately across his bows. With the downforce settings on both cars, i suspect that it WAS virtually impossinle for him to pass. The fact that DC showed patience and ended up with points rather than a broken suspension shows that he is MORE likely to be WDC material, IMO.

RON DENNIS'S RESPONSE:-


Sorry, but I'm more inclined to believe a respected boss of McLaren rather than a talentless rookie who is acting like a bullied child (Hmm...getting quite wound up, amn't I?

Hmm - the Ron Denis that accused DC of brain fade and then 2 weeks later tried to blame it all on Jim Rosenthal. What litle personal respect I had for the pompous and sour grapes RD dissappeared at that point. There is no dispute that the confrontation took place, the actual words or tone used and whether or not it ammounted to a threat is open to interpretation and will never be proved. But you have to admit that two heavyweights such as RD and Haug having any sort of go at a young driver who all admit had done nothing illegal, is bound to be seen at least as "confrontational". I think Tom Walkinshaw was quite right to be "incensed". If they should have complained to anyone they should have complained to Tom. It would have been quite a acceptable for DC to have confronted Bernoldi, but not the team boss - that was totally out of order.

[Bononi]

Sometimes I think all this top guys tend to have a political behaviour. The first quote was done after the race and without talking to his bosses. The next one after talking to them and building a team's response.

Still I tend to keep DC's first quote.

Maybe RD put in his head that he has to have a WDC attitude, considering the other just little ants in his way.

[Wrex]

I agree Francis, Driver to Driver, Boss to Boss, but never the other way around. If one of my competitors balled one of my staff out there would be hell to pay.

This was totally unacceptable (if true of course) and Max or Bernie or one of those wan*ers should have a word to Uncle Ron

[Liz]

So, having seen that TGF gets Affirmative Action from his teammate when he demands it, now DC demands Affirmative Action FROM THE ENTIRE GRID? "My name is David, Let Me By?" PUH-LEEEEZE!

And as far as believing Uncle Ron and his sidekick, the large and imposing Norbert Haug, over a rookie barely out of his teens and in a midfield team - in his own garage minding his own business - well, don't you think that is just what Uncle Ron and Co. are counting on? Isn't that what people who behave abusively to people over whom they have power always count on? "Who's going to believe you, you're just a brat in a midfield car and only in your first season of racing? We'll threaten you all we like and you try and prove it, that's all!"

If this is what people call "racing" these days, then I am afraid we have lost the plot.

[RussianFriend]

Maybe Ron thought that Bernoldi second name is Goliath? And Ron's name is God, so he should help David to beat little Enricqe.

[Tristan]

I'm a bit late here, but anyway.....

I actually thought DC was pretty poor yesterday. During the first part of the race I thought he was lacklusture and showed little conviction in his "attempts to pass" EB. He wasn't harrying EB enough. His attempts to pass were predictable and easily countered. When the pair were being lapped, DC made NO EFFORT to capitalise on the situation.

EB did nothing "special", but nothing wrong either. Ron and Norb are UTTERLY out of order. This is RACING for heavens sake. It's McLaren's fault their car was in 22nd in the FIRST PLACE!! Bad losers.

Whilst seemingly everyone in this forum points the finger at Ferrari as the sport's worst whingers, I beg to differ!

[R]

It's disappointing to see DC changing his tune. Still, I agree with Bononi, this is most surely due to the team's influence.

I think Hans.ca and Liz said it best. I don't know what some of the others want to see, but I certainly want to see a race, and not people moving over for each other when they're on the same lap. If you fight for position, then you... fight! To me, that's part of the charm of racing, that someone in a slower car can hold off someone in a faster by driving defensively at a track like this. And Bernoldi did that very well yesterday! Well done, Enrique, I hope to see more stuff like this from you in the future!

As for the biggest whingers in the sport, I agree with Tristan. McLaren are rivalling Ferrari in that respect as well!

[steve nielsen]

Yes, Jos DID put Hiedfeld into the barriers, Jos told a dutch newspaper this morning:

"Heidfeld tried to put me into the barrier, you should not try that with me"

Well, we all seen what happened when Nick tried it again

It was Nick own fault, he's a bit of a cry baby not to admit that he first tried to do the same to Jos!!

[Super Tourer]

Personally I think Bernoldi came out of it very well. Under intense pressure from DC, he didn't put a wheel wrong, or touch a barrier. It would have been so easy for him to lose it under pressure and end up taking both cars out.

As for the alleged RD,NH comments - like everyone else I wasn't there so its all hearsay. But maybe Ron should direct his full attention to making sure his cars make it off the line....

After all if the car hadn't stalled DC wouldn't have started at the back. If there is blame and frustration to be appointed, this would probably be the best place to start - not with another team and driver.

[JeremySmith]

We can only surmise about the contents of the conversation between Ron Dennis and Bernoldi after Monaco..Sounds like a case of the press taking this incident totaly out of context..

[Wrex]

Jersound, I can handle someone picking on a driver or team, but questioning the ethics & integrity of the media I will not stand

[ron timms]

ron dennis must have the shortest memory of any living soul. If d.c. is blocking for mika it's o.k and if d.c. pulls over for mika-as in melbourne- that's o.k but if the opposition-the RACING opposition- do it then it's tantrum time!

[Wrex]

Welcome to ten-tenths ron, good to see another Melbournian here

back to topic, put the dummy back in your mouth uncle Ron, and i don't mean Haug

[Liz]

I believe Bernoldi's story because he has nothing to gain by making up something that would accuse powerful people of behaving like prats and could be checked, and because his story simply rings much truer than Uncle Ron and his goon sidekick's story.

Having heard Ron Dennis tell blatant falsehoods on many occasions and then have to publically retract them. ("Our drivers are not enemies" as Senna and Prost breathed death threats at each other behind him; "David suffers from brain fade" without checking first to see why the car had stalled; even joining Senna's protest of Prost's championship!) and having seen examples of his temper, I do not believe that Ron Dennis merely wagged his finger at Bernoldi and told him he was unsportsmanlike. Bernoldi would not have mentioned that to anyone, surely, if that was all it was.

[Valve Bounce]

Welcome Ron Timms to our friendly forum. I note that you are a shiftworker in teh agriculture industry - I hope you don't have to work on night soil. Just joking. For your info, I have just bought tickets to the Gabba this saturday - it will be the first time I have been to an Essendon game since 1974. I hope you will ost a lot more here.