Inside F1 by Lee McKenzie

Author:Lee McKenzie [McKenzie, Lee]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-09-22T00:00:00+00:00

5

FERNANDO ALONSO

ASK ANY FAN TO NAME THE BEST DRIVER on the grid and Fernando Alonso’s name will come up time and time again. Ask any driver to say who is the best in terms of race craft or who can wring the best out of an under-performing car and Alonso’s name will almost always be at the top.

Winning two Formula One World Championships still puts Fernando into a very exclusive club, but there is a sense that it should have been more. Fans and drivers know it. The Spaniard certainly knows it. In all the titles he narrowly missed out on, just eight points separate him from being a five-time world champion. Take nothing away, he is still seen as one of the great drivers. Controversial? Yes. Charismatic? Definitely. An asset to the sport? Absolutely. As an interviewee: one of my favourites!

In my experience, there is never an interview where Alonso turns up without being fully prepared. He is softly spoken, considered and often calculated. He has been around long enough to know what will be repeated, make headlines and play out on team radio. He makes mischief and even chaos for those around him, yet it rarely strikes you as being red-zone reactionary. It’s pre-conceived and delivered at a moment of his choosing. That is really what separates Alonso from the others: the absolute control he can assert in a situation.

Straight after every race, Fernando is shown a piece of paper with the classification on it so he can better understand the bigger picture before he gives interviews. It’s the same during a race on team radio. He always wants to know exactly what is going on, mostly because he has an incredible capacity to take it all in, which lets him read a race so well. Abu Dhabi 2021 was many things, but it was also the perfect example of Alonso making sense of the chaos whilst battling hard for valuable points. As well as a discussion with his Alpine race engineer about the safety car period in the last laps which will be debated until the end of time, Alonso wanted to know exactly why he had not been in position to beat the rival Alpha Tauri. He wanted the breakdown, to know which tyres the opposition were on and on what lap they pitted. He was then given the top-ten finishers and instantly replied with a monologue about how good 2022 was going to be for the team. It was impressive, informative and inspiring for those who worked tirelessly day in, day out at Alpine.

Alonso is a thinking driver – although some would say he thinks too much and that this is one of the reasons that his career has been far from plain sailing. For me, it’s that spark and electric mind that makes him the competitor and person that he is.

In 2022 at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, after twenty-one years, three months and a day, Fernando became the driver with the longest Formula One career.

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