Formula One’s resident elder statesman has recently claimed his 100th podium finish in a stellar drive at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix weekend, joining 5 other drivers to have stood on the podium 100 times or more in their career.
Alonso has now found himself on the podium in just under 28% of the races he has competed in. But how does the 41 year-old sum up his career to date? Speaking the day before his drive to 3rd place in Jeddah he looked back on his 20-year career with Channel 4:
“A lot more highs than lows. I know that every interview I do and every feeling that I get from a fan is that I’ve been struggling for many years in my career. I don’t see it like that.”
The double world champion continued:”…until 2013, I’ve been in Renault, McLaren and Ferrari, fighting all for World Championships and getting regularly in the podium and race wins. This is a luxury time for me, you know, for any racing driver. It’s true that after 2014, and when I joined McLaren and Honda, that project didn’t work out, OK?”
Perhaps the Spaniard has mellowed on how the McLaren-Honda reunion went down but “didn’t work out” seems like a much more restrained choice of words given his feelings at the time. GP2 engine eh? Alonso’s comments might reflect the upsurge in popularity of F1 in recent years, as a huge amount of the current audience do not remember him winning races, or indeed his struggles when he returned to McLaren and maybe he wants to remind people that he is someone who’s sole purpose is to be challenging for podiums and race victories.
And what of his break from F1 following the disastrous second McLaren spell? Then he went in search of the elusive “Triple Crown” of motorsport: “But after three or four years of that frustration, I went to WEC and I became world champion in endurance. And I became champion of Le Mans 24 hours for two times, 24 hours of Daytona.”
Just him giving us a reminder there that he isn’t just a winner in F1, but you can bet he still wishes he had gotten that Indy 500 win.
And of course defying his age and the time away from the sport he has made a somewhat unprecedented and so far at least, fairly successful return: “And then I decided to go back to the sport, with Alpine in a very competitive package, and now even in Aston Martin, an iconic brand, and first race and first podium. I’m saying that in 20 years of career, I had four frustration years in a McLaren and Honda that we were not competitive.
“But in 16 years of my life, I’ve been in Formula One, fighting for podiums and wins. And this is something that is quite unique. And sometimes I feel from the outside that people are even a little bit sorry for my career moves. And the facts don’t tell me that way. So sometimes, yeah, I’m happy to clarify that.”
Can he top off an amazing start to 2023 with a first F1 win in ten years at some stage? Only time will tell.
