If he is the oldest driver on the grid at 41, Fernando Alonso proves since the start of the 2022 season that he has retained all his abilities, adding the benefits of experience to his unchanging pure talent.
A particularly fascinating aspect this year is the attention to detail shown by the pilot Alpine to take advantage of a situation. At the Austrian Grand Prix, for example, he made the effort to clean up his grid position during free practice on Saturday morning, with qualifying taking place on Friday followingnoon; this might have allowed him to take off better during the sprint if a technical failure had not prevented him from taking the start.
That’s not all. During the grid laps at the French Grand Prix, Alonso was driving very smoothly out of the pits. This allowed him to steer hard left to drop rubber on the inside of turn 1 and on the outside of turn 2. In other words, he intended to pass there at the start, when others might believe that the track is too dirty to do this. This is exactly what happened: he took off superbly and doubled Lando Norris et George Russell on the portions of the track he had just cleared.
Alonso confesses to taking great pleasure in having these little moments noticed. For him, this is part of his competitive spirit: exploiting his strengths while hoping to expose the weaknesses of others.
“Yes, I’m that kind of guy”smiles the Iberian in an interview with Motorsport.commade before the formalization of his transfer to Aston Martin for 2023. “I have to do my thing 100% and kill other people’s strengths, whatever they are. But that, I do in everything I practice, when I play.”
“Before, I played tennis, and when I played with someone good, I put the ball very high. Because that way you cut their rhythm, because they are used to hitting the ball very hard. When you play with professionals, the ball comes very hard for them, so they are used to this kind of shot. But when you put the ball high, they make mistakes, because the ball comes very soft. I play so better in tennis when I put the ball high. Putting the ball high is my only chance to beat them, so I do it automatically. It’s not only in motorsport that I have to destroy other people’s strengths and try to maximize mine.”
Fernando Alonso (Alpine)
Alonso is clear that his F1 background gives him an edge, allowing him to better assess which areas he needs to focus on. “Of course, experience helps in many ways”says the Spaniard. “For the start, the awareness of things, the management of the tyres, the pit stops, the approach with the mechanics. The approach to the weekend too: free practice and its importance – or sometimes its lack of importance When you’re young, you’re very careful with every lap you do, even the EP1s are like the last lap of the championship. I think you [journaliste] understand these things.”
“I made a lot of progress in the rainy and wet conditions. Normally, when racing in the rain, things change very quickly, there are a lot of safety cars, a lot of dry lines that appear. In short, there are has more opportunities. Each lap is not necessarily the last lap. Before, I made mistakes on this side, at the start of the race, which I now try to avoid. And that only comes with experience and only by making mistakes.”
Alonso doesn’t think his age has any negative aspects, especially following a two-year break that allowed him to recharge the batteries: “As for the downsides, it’s hard to say because I don’t think I’m missing out on something I had when I was younger. Maybe in 2018 I felt mentally drained from all the marketing, travel and things like that. And I needed to go for those two years. Now I feel good. I don’t know if it’s just those two years that helped me, or if it’s just an approach different than I have now.”
Above all, Alonso believes he is a much better version of himself for his return to F1 than when he ended his first stint in the top flight. “Having watched the races from the outside, there are different things and different behaviors that you don’t always understand. [quand on est dedans]. I’m not restricted to my cockpit and my strategy, so maybe I have a better understanding of how the race is going.”
“There are also the different categories I’ve ridden in: I think they teach me different things. There are different racing philosophies, different riding techniques. It’s not that they apply to an F1, but when I lose the car, I have oversteer, maybe my hands and feet are doing something that I didn’t know before because I only drove F1. I feel more in control now.”
Judging by what’s happened on and off the track this year, Alonso has never had things under control like he does now.