Wikipedia:Peer review/Fernando Alonso/archive1

Fernando Alonso

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because I want it to be a feature article. I went through the entire article, it is well-referenced, I've just added a few more references to some of the points. I can't find any blatant flaws, or places where the article could be significantly improved, and please highlight any such things as you find them.

Thanks, Sultanofhyd (talk) 15:40, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Comments from Midgrid (talk · contribs)

• The lead section is too short and doesn't adequately summarise his career outside his championship-winning years. I also think his position as a UNICEF ambassador and his nickname are too trivial for the lead, and should be moved to the Personal life section of the article.
• The article could do with a thorough copyedit; the writing, spelling and grammar is quite good, on the whole, but there are places where it could be improved (e.g. "He is an avid card tricks fan and usually plays cards when he's hanging out with Robert Kubica during the race weekend").
• There's nothing on how he got the Minardi seat in 2001 (AFAIK, Briatore placed him there for evaluation purposes). The fact that Briatore was his manager should be mentioned earlier in the article, as I believe it dated from his year in F3000.
• The sections on his 2003 and 2004 seasons are far too short in comparison with more recent years. Even though this was before he won the championship, he still scored numerous results and broke several records.
• The 2005 section is also short on references, including a direct quotation.
• The 2005, 2006 and 2008 sections are quite disjointed in terms of the writing; they still read like they did when they were first updated at the time.
• The 2009 section is also not long enough, and doesn't cover the whole season.
• I would like to see the Controversies section integrated into the main, chronological part of the article. The first four bullet-points, in particular, are nowhere near as notable as "Spygate" and "Crashgate".
• I'm not sure if either of the See also links are justified in their inclusion.
• The formatting of some of the referencing could be improved by using the {{citation}}, or filling out additional parameters in the existing templates.
• I'm not sure if F1 Fanatic (blog) and the Formula 1 Database (user-generated content) count as reliable sources.
• The table of awards, sporting achievements and records is very large, and it may be worth considering placing it in a collapsible box (as in the Michael Schumacher article).

I hope this is helpful to you!--Midgrid(talk) 16:50, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for your comments Midgrid. I will try and expand the 2009 section, and do a copyedit of the whole thing tomorrow, also I'll try to add some more references. Thanks again. Sultanofhyd 17:36, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree with the proposal to integrate the controversies into the main part of the article. Some those "controversies" are pretty ridiculous too. He break tested D.Coulthard? Come on if that's a "controversy" then most racing drivers (like for example Senna or Hamilton) should have tons of them.  Dr. Loosmark  21:22, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Comments from Falcadore (talk · contribs)

• The personal and Early life chapter seems an uneasy combination to me. Detailing later life events like his wedding and trivial notes like card tricks seems wildly out of place in the second paragraph. Perhaps this could be separated with later life events placed in their own chapter after his racing career and could include details such as his UNICEF and GPDA roles.

• Adrián Campos gave Alonso his first test in a race car in October 1998. What was the car? A very important detail missing surely. His post-karting, pre-F1 career needs expansion generally.

• 2002-2004 years need some expansion. At least a second sentence about his first win at Hungary 2003, instead of half a sentence shared with the 2003 Spanish GP.

• The see also notes for each of the Formula One teams seem unneccessary to me, the slight implication being that Fernando Alonso is one of the most significant people in these teams histories, which while may be true of Renault F1, certainly isn't for Minardi or McLaren.

• 2010: Switch to Ferrari - just Ferrari should be sifficient. Switch to Renault or Switch to McLaren was not deemed necessary.

My opinions. Take or leave, but good work for taking the effort to improve the article and to ask for comment. --Falcadore (talk) 00:21, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Comments from AlexJ (talk · contribs)

• The 2008 section sends me to sleep. There's a results section for the race-by-race stuff, major events and a brief summary are what belong in the prose. What value does "In the European Grand Prix, Alonso performed strongly in all three practice sessions and the first round of qualifying." have if I wanted to find out more about this Alonso-guy? It's about as relevant as listing what he had for his dinner in terms of his major achievements.

• The 05 and 06 sections are also quite boring. 'He finished 6th at this GP, he qualified 2nd but finished 3rd at the next' just isn't interesting to read. Tell us about the major incidents, the big victories etc. These yearly sections are where the controversies belong for example, rather than their own section.

• "In the May 2007 issue of F1 Racing, Alonso said that the 2005 Brazilian Grand Prix was his greatest race." - It's the fact that's important here, not where it came from. Better as "Alonso later said the the 2005 Brazilian..." with the F1 Racing issue cited.

• Picture overload: There are five very similar pictures of Alonso in a Blue and Yellow Renault stacked above each other on my screen. Choose the two (or three max.) best ones, and then alternate right align then left per the MOS.

• Caption: "In the final day of the 2005 Brazilian Grand Prix" - the race was held over multiple days? Most people see the GP as being the race itself. Caption therefore needs revising.

• Referencing is OK, but I'd like to see better refs for the TdF thing, replacement sources for F1DB, F1Fanatic, F1Complete and GPUpdate stuff if possible. Some of the refs need Authors, Date and Agency information included (Rediff ref for example). AlexJ (talk) 23:57, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

• The lead and main body don't match up. There's nothing in the article about his UNICEF, GPDA work or his 100ptsX3 achievement. The lead could also do with a bit of extending with a very brief summary of his career mentioning for example the year he came into F1, the teams he drove for and the year he won his second title. AlexJ (talk) 23:57, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

That covers most of the major issues I can see with the article. Hope it's of some help. AlexJ (talk) 23:57, 7 January 2010 (UTC)