Alonso answers fan questions directly

Regular readers will know that SJ adores Ferrari’s Horse Whisperer, and those of you glancing at hate-filled comments will know that I do not. (That darstardly horse first stepped away from the glue factory and into the public domain bad-mouthing Williams in 2009, so it’s probably personal pettiness.)

Here, however, is a Ferrari PR initiative that gets a huge Hallam thumbs up.

Fernando Alonso has been fielding selected questions from his fans, and THIS – the second installment – makes for fantastic reading.

The questions, and answers, are often wonderful. First up, here are my favourite few in full.

angarbust1
When you are not happy with the set-up do you always ask for something specific to be changed or do you just describe what you feel to your engineers?
I describe what I feel when I drive the car in some corners, how it brakes, its grip, how it turns. Sometimes, I am reminded of what I felt in the past and the changes made so I can tell my engineer what we changed on the car the last time I felt the same things.

Raymond_now
What does the hand gesture mean that you make on the cool down lap?
It started with a TV programme that I watched in Spain when I was little and the main character always made this sign Then I began to use it to say hello to my grandma and every time I headed for the airport to head off to a race, she would say, “remember to say hello to me if you win.” From then on, I always did it and I will continue to do so every time I win again.

AgainOne
What do the arrows mean on your helmet?
It’s something that came from a Christmas present I got as a kid. The driver in the toy I was given had arrows on his helmet. I put similar ones on my helmet when I was in karts and from then I have always kept them.

Jbelbel
One day, we saw that Luthi’s heart rate during a Moto2 race reached 177. What does yours do?
It depends on the circuit. The highest is in Hungary where it reaches a maximum of 194 with an average of 177. The lowest is at Monza: maximum 158, average, 126. Other circuits are somewhere between these two.

The heart rate answer makes perfect sense on reflection but is fascinating. And it reinforces that it’s activity at the wheel, not fear or excitement, that really gets the drivers’ motors running.

The Q+A bonanza is lengthy, so let’s not quote it all – but it’s absolutely worth the time. Here are my top 10 paraphrased highlights from elsewhere:

1. Fernando considers last weekend’s win in Valencia as his best.
2. Unlike seemingly every two-wheel star, he doesn’t listen to music to get fired up.
3. A great racing driver is born, but must subsequently work at it.
4. Andrea Stella talks to Alonso about twice per lap in a race, Alonso talks back once every two or three laps. Unless decisions need be made, then they sometimes talk a lot more.
5. Asked to order the following five attributes in their importance for a great driver (attributes chosen by fan), Alonso ranked them: Reflexes, intuition, luck, courage, then experience.
6. Tokyo is his favourite city.
7. Punctuality is his best quality, cautiousness his worst.
8. There’s no time to enjoy the driving during a race.
9. The worst thing about Twitter is trying to say everything in 140 characters. “#emoltodifficile ;)”
10. His sporting heroes are great cyclists, “like Perico Dalgado, Indurain, Armstrong, Contador.”

This is just scratching the surface here, it’s a lovely read – go see for yourself. Then pop back and share your thoughts, of course! What info was most interesting/fresh for you, if any?