Following his outburst over the team radio at the Japanese Grand Prix, Fernando Alonso said that he wishes the team radio communications were “private chats” rather than publicly broadcasted messages.
This opinion was posted as part of a three part Tweet by the McLaren racing legend.
This collection of Tweets was about things that may not have seemed clear to those who watched the race. Part one stated that the Japanese Grand Prix was McLaren’s third best result of the season. In part three, he stated that no one should doubt that he will stay with McLaren for another three years and that his career will end with McLaren. It was part two of these Tweets which got interesting.
For the past few months, there has been a lot of speculation regarding whether McLaren will be able to retain their driver lineup for another season. After switching to the new Honda power unit this season, both Jenson Button and Fernando Alonso seem equally frustrated with the poor performance. This was evident in Japan, when Alonso called the Honda engine a GP2 engine. The broadcast ended the team radio message with Alonso yelling in anger.
Fernando Alonso Tweeted the following, in regards to his team radio message:
2/3. When we are fighting in group is difficult, we all want to win, and sometimes transmit the team radios, but it should be private chats.
— Fernando Alonso (@alo_oficial) September 27, 2015
Is private team radio really the solution to this issue? Radio transmissions that are aired on the broadcasts are a magnificent way for viewers to get an insight into how a driver is feeling at that moment. Making team radio private, would be a significant loss to fans. Even giving the drivers an option for private or public transmissions wouldn’t be a valid option because few drivers would opt to use the public transmission.
Certainly every fan can understand the pain of Button and Alonso. It is truly difficult to be racing in a pack, but not have the performance required to defend. It means that you are basically an obstacle to the oncoming drivers and that is not the way that either of the McLaren drivers are used to racing in Formula One. Maybe the broadcasting company needs to look into what controversial transmissions they air.
However, the bottom line is, every driver that sends a radio message to the team knows that their message could be broadcasted. It is up to the driver and the team to decide what is ok to transmit. Perhaps Alonso transmitting a message that really had no technical value was not the best decision, but in the heat of the moment, your frustration can get the better of you.