After a tough spate of DNF’s, it would be easy to begin questioning the future of Fernando Alonso at McLaren or Formula 1 in general. This weekend he embarks on his first 24 Hours of Le Mans and last year he did the Indy 500. How long would Fernando want to trundle around mid-field in F1?
When you consider his talent, he is one of the best there has been and yet his trophy tally doesn’t suggest that. Still, Alonso is fine with that.
“I will not be happy if I have many trophies at home and people think that I don’t deserve them. That would be even harder.
“Obviously we had some opportunities missed, especially the last three years, with McLaren-Honda, didn’t deliver the results we wanted.
“Right now we are in the right direction to go back to the winning path, but we’ll see at the end of my career in F1 what we achieve, and what we should achieve.
“But I’m happy and I feel very privileged on everything we did so far.
“There are drivers here that I race against that I see their talent and they have never been even on a podium.
“I see my team-mate now [Stoffel Vandoorne], I see Nico [Hulkenberg], I see Carlos [Sainz Jr] – talented drivers.
“As I said, we missed some opportunities but I’m happy with the things we have done.”
Perhaps one could argue sour grapes but I take Fernando at his word and what I see is his praise for some drivers that are very talented and yet not able to win races. The battle mid-field have been fun to watch and Fernando has seen enough drivers to know a good one from a bad one.
I don’t begrudge Sterling Moss his place in F1 driving history due to a lack of victories. Timing is everything in F1 and Fernando’s timing was on song in 2005 and 2006 but has been less accurate since then. Perhaps that bothers his fans more than it bothers him?
The current trajectory of McLaren has me wondering if Fernando will be in F1 next year and perhaps the WEC will lure him away. Still, McLaren’s Zak Brown knows he has one of the best drivers ever and opening other doors for him as well as working hard to move the F1 team forward could still entice Fernando…as would the millions he’s paid.
Hat Tip: Autosport
He was good but he wasn’t as great as people make him out to be. I put him in the same group as Rosberg, Button, and Kimi. The greatest/standout drivers of the past decade are Hamilton and Vettel. Those two standout above the rest and not just because of their title counts. Without the controversial Renault that he won back to back titles, people won’t remanticize his career as much.
Can you not say the same of Vettel’s Red Bull run? Hamilton’s achievements may be most impressive across two teams, but one could also argue that his lows are lowest (compared to Vettel and Alonso). I rate Rosberg, Button, and Kimi highly, but they were not as consistently competitive in the championship. Two WC’s and four 2nd places in the championship for Alonso. The best comparison might be Lebron James – carrying undeserving teams to final contention where they didn’t otherwise belong. Button was runner-up once, Nico twice (in the WDC/WCC car each time), Raikkonen twice also, though dragging his… Read more »
You could say that about Vettel, but he has put together a very successful career with the stats to back it up. You can be the fastest shoe in the lot but if you can’t turn that into to results, you can’t be labeled the greatest based on “potential” or hypothetical scenarios. Being a legendary or successful driver is about having the stats and relationships. This is a huge chink in Alonso armor. People go on about him being the complete driver but he is very tough to work with. He doesn’t like being shown up. That’s why you’ll never… Read more »
“The only thing keeping him from winning is a mechanical failure“ sounds like the last 3 titles of Hamilton and the last 4 of Vettel.
That’s cute.
Maybe I was a bit short on that, my point was each driver or team that has won a championship has had some advantage. That advantage was either down to the team, the driver, Or a combination of the team and driver. It’s hard, maybe impossible, to extract out just the drivers role and say he is the best. Looking back people seem to forget what advantage the team played.