Soon Fernando Alonso will be able to surpass Kimi Raikkonen’s record for the number of Grand Prix starts – the Finn has 350, the two-time world champion has 348. But he believes this is not such a significant achievement, although it says a lot …
Q: Is it important to you that you will soon have more Grand Prix starts than any other driver in Formula 1 history?
Fernando Alonso: When will it happen?
Ask Literally through a few races.
Fernando Alonso: You see, it’s not that important to me. Although of course I knew it would happen at some point in the season. Such a record reflects my love for Formula 1, as well as all the years I have devoted to it, even if I missed a few seasons. And yet it’s not that important.
Q: But probably this is one of the few records that characterizes the racer as the number of wins, pole positions and titles is more dependent on the car…
Fernando Alonso: That is it. To do this, the teams of the championship have to believe in you for years, in your abilities. Of course, much always depends on technique – if you can’t get a seat behind the wheel of a good car, you won’t last very long in Formula 1. But such reports reflect the driver’s degree of self-denial and speak of the amount of work he has done.
Q: This summer we see the teams end the contracts with the riders early because their results leave something to be desired. How have you played in the championship for nearly two decades?
Fernando Alonso: It is important that I had freedom of choice and that I was in charge of my own destiny. I was lucky, I enjoyed such a privilege – I could change teams, and this is one of the little secrets of such a long life.
When you owe a lot to the team, or you get a seat in the cockpit because a vacancy has suddenly arisen, or thanks to the financial support of a sponsor – there are many options – in all these cases your services can be quickly discontinued . But I was lucky, because I was little dependent on others.
Q: What tasks do you usually set yourself up?
Fernando Alonso: I always try to perform at a good level so that my results are higher than my partner’s because he is almost always your only reference. And it doesn’t matter whether there is a battle for places in the top five, for the podium or for the championship. It is important not to make mistakes, to enjoy the work and also to make special efforts that depend only on me.
Often when we discuss the tactics for the upcoming race on Sunday, all calculations from the day before show that we can count on a maximum of 9th place in the Grand Prix, for example. And if you manage to finish sixth or seventh, this is your little personal achievement. I always set the highest standards for myself.
Q: Do you think the value of the driver’s personality as a team leader has diminished in recent years? Once the entire Ferrari team was built around Michael Schumacher, but now this is impossible…
Fernando Alonso: Yes, Michael really had real power. However, I don’t think everything is completely different now. Technologies have changed, machines have become more technically complex, computer modeling is more widely used, the volume of various data has become many times larger and all this is analyzed in more detail. There is less improvisation, the world has changed, but key people in teams still have a lot of power.
Although you can remember that the authority of people like Ron Dennis, Flavio Braitore or Eddie Jordan was really high.
Q: By what criteria do you approach the evaluation of opponents? It’s not just about the number of titles…
Fernando Alonso: I see if they make mistakes, how consistently they perform. For example, they can be in the top ten at Spa, and then they come here to Zandvoort and we see them in the top ten again. I appreciate if the rider performs more or less evenly when he doesn’t have too noticeable recessions.
Q: At what point in your career was the rivalry in Formula 1 at the highest level?
Fernando Alonso: Rivals should always be treated with respect and the overall level of their competitiveness should be assessed. From this point of view I would call the 2006 season – I was playing for Renault then and in the first half of the championship we had the fastest car.
Q: But still, you’ve never owned a car that could claim wins in all the races of the season…
Fernando Alonso: Never. But who knows, if I got a car like that, maybe I wouldn’t be in Formula 1 now. I remember when I moved to McLaren in 2007 I had a three-year contract, and I thought after that I will probably end my career.
By then I had already achieved better results than I could have ever imagined. If those three years had gone well, and I had won another title or even two, there was still a possibility that I would end my career…
Source: F1 News
I’m Todderic Kirkman, a journalist and author for athletistic. I specialize in covering all news related to sports, ranging from basketball to football and everything in between. With over 10 years of experience in the industry, I have become an invaluable asset to my team. My ambition is to bring the most up-to-date information on sports topics around the world.
