Rainmasters? Yeeahhh righttt...?

Question

What happened to the two champions in the grid? A lot of people claim that they're supposed to be the best in wet conditions, right? Both make 2 mistakes each, hitting the barriers and hitting other cars.

Are Alonso and Raikkonen's wet weather skills overrated?

Answer 1

It was just a one off race, and the difference of making 1 or 2 mistakes is a very narrow one. Kimi was unlucky to get the penalty, without which he would have been in better position to do less mistakes  

He wasnt blindingly fast, but I guess he was going for a safe podium... some other drivers were clearly risking more, some of them hit walls hard and some survived with it (Rosberg, Hamilton, etc...)

Learning the attitude from Massa, I say Kimi had a terrible luck

Answer 2

Neither do seem to perform well in the rain, but a street race with rain is never going to go down incident free is it? Hamilton didn't even have an incident free race, he hit the barrier really early on, and Felipe Massa completely spun of the track, and luckily into an escape road.

Anyway, Luca Baldisseri made a mistake with the strategy, he put the Ferraris on a one stop strategy, and they were both fitted with the wrong tyres (intermediates even though it didn't continue to rain). Williams proved a couple of years ago that a bad strategy has dreadful consequences, while Force India proved in Monaco that a good strategy can be brilliant.

Last year, in the Chinese Grand Prix, he won in the rain, and he had taken the lead before Lewis made his very stupid mistake, he overtook Lewis on I think it was the 30th lap.

Anyway, I don't know anybody who claims that Alonso and Raikkonen are the best in wet weather conditions. I also think that you would be hard pressed to find many drivers who didn't make mistakes in that Grand Prix. Everybody has bad days, don't you agree that Kimi had one of those in Monaco, starting with his drive through penalty.

Answer 3

Well, it is way different to be in front and to fight among the back pack. Alonso overtook Webber, Button, rosberg and another one (I do not remember). He should have overtook Heifeld at Mirabeau but Heifeld avoided it changing twice his trajectory (what is forbidden).

Alonso had several good races under wet conditions. So did Kimi. So did Hamilton.

The difference is Alonso and Kimi having a good race starting from the back.

Hamilton had a good race in Fuji and Monaco, with nobody in front to overtake (on the track)

I am not saying that he is worse or better, but I still need to see Hamilton coming back from the back.

Answer 4

yup, definitely overrated..

Answer 5

I think you are really to harsh on both drivers. Kimi got a stupid drive through that caused him probably to get nervous. I think in one of the next rain races he will show his talent. Alonso is just frustrated with his c**p car. He wanted to be on the podium and Heidfeld was slowing him down. So he tried everything to pass him and at the end he was way to optimistic and crashed Heidfeld. Does that mean he is bad in rain ? No, not at all. Considering his CV his is driving in a way to slow and difficult to drive car. At some moment he wants more than his car can give him and he makes a mistake. With a good car he would have had a serious fight with Hamilton yesterday. No doubt about that.

Answer 6

They maybe overconfident not overrated.

Sutil is the Rainmaster on previous race at Monaco.

Answer 7

It's not that they are overrated. I dunno what happened to Alonso. But in Kimi's case, the car was set up for dry conditions. It was dry during quali but on race day it poured. And there's not much adjustments you are allowed to make. So Kimi was struggling a bit during the race as the car was not in perfect condition.

Kimi and Alonso do not carry the Rain King title. (But I've no doubt that they can do well in any condition) Schumi does. If Schumi were driving that day, we could've judged better.

Answer 8

I don't think that Alonso and kimi are the best rainmasters. the true rainmaster is Hammy. Except the slight maistake he made in the beginning, there was no mistake from him at all. He was just pulling away from Massa and Kubica throughout the race. i just could believe that even after the early pit stop Hammy had a 40 second lead over Kubica. That was truly amazing. Alonso and Kimi could even handle themselves in rain. Even Sutil is better than them in rain.

Answer 9

Fernando is brilliant in the rain most of the time. you must admit he was going for it h**l for leather. He hasn't got the best machinery under him at the moment and he was still pushing like h**l. IMO another few laps done before changing to the dry tyres and he would have finished the race no problems.

Answer 10

It's all to do with the set up of the car. The Toro Rosso of Vettel and Sutil's Foce India probably had the full wet weather set up with a one stop fuel load. The top runners probably had a somewhat compromised set up, to do well enough in Quali (dry) but expecting a wet weather on race day. I was pleasantly surprised by Massa's performance in the rain (although he did have one off - due to missing a braking point, not a problem with the lack of traction control as many had predicted). Kimi and Alonso's cars were probably not suited to their driving style and they struggled. They were also probably frustrated, and made silly errors.

I guess stuff like that happen even to the best of them. When you aquaplane, not even Schumi or Senna will be able to stay on track

Answer 11

i dont think either is considered to be a rain master - schumi (michael) was a rain master but kimi and alonso are good in the wets but had bad car setups, but nevertheless cannot be termedas rain masters...