“It was clear that Lewis was going to pass me, he was faster, but at least he didn’t do it on the track, it had to be in the pits,” Alonso joked after the Canadian Grand Prix. He is the oldest in racing and in age in the history of F1. He is going for 400, he is going for 7 car changes per regulation, different, he has fought against fathers and sons (the Schumachers, the Verstappen), he has seen a few debut and retire (like Vettel) he has ridden with all the engines for a quarter of century, atmospheric, turbo and hybrid, tires of three brands, with and without stripes, ultrasoft and like stones, races with and without stops, with and without refueling, with and without HALO, DRS, S and F duct… He is an encyclopedia behind the wheel and to pass him you have to be very superior, because equally he is Everest, the final boss of the game.
In Montreal he once again pulled from the catalog, as he already did to give Ocon the victory in Hungary 2021, precisely against the same English patient, Lewis Hamilton. In Canada there were 25 laps of precision, braking, tracing, recharging, in water and dry, crossing the car… a classic that, after being repeated so much, seems easy. But it is nothing if not the culmination of many years of inventing and reinventing oneself.
“The ability to adapt comes from a very early age. I remember when I practiced karting, between the ages of six and 11, in Oviedo. The weather there is very changeable, but I had rain tires or dry tires. We only had the tires that came with the kart when we bought it, so we always used that tire regardless of the weather conditions,” Fernando said at an event with Valvoline, the team’s sponsor.
“I had a lot of experience for my age back then; I gave my opinion on what was wrong, I changed vehicles every hour, every day, every week, and I learned to get the most out of the different machines. From the age of six I tried karts that were for children much older than me, even adults. They didn’t fit me well, so I stretched myself to ride them. From the beginning, having to adapt was a normal part of my career. You have to reinvent yourself every season, every race, to try to surpass your competitors,” he remembers now, 32 victories and 2 world titles later.
It’s like your brain is a hard drive, everything you know is on that hard drive and you access it when you need it in those moments.
KARTING DAYS
“In the days of karting You learn how to defend and how to explore any possibility and any strength of your car. It could be top speed, traction, maybe high or low speed performance… And then you choose different parts of the circuit where you have to go very fast to avoid any attack from the car behind, and some parts where you can save a little: you can save the tires, you can save the battery, you can save a little fuel and use it later in the race,” says the Asturian, which has its circuit and its karting team in the main international championships.
I’m never happy with the position I’m in. I want to be better tomorrow and I want to be better next week and next month. This is what has kept me riding for so long
Alonso brings priceless value to the teams he rides for. “At the beginning of your career, you just provide information and feedback while the team tries different things. But By the end of your career, you’ve tried so many different modifications (softer suspension, stiffer suspension, more rear suspension, wing, less rear wing, more camber, less camber) that you develop an understanding of how the car will respond to that specific change. on that circuit and in those conditions. And so, you can suggest the solution: ‘Do you remember when we tested the height of the car at this height on this circuit in these conditions, and immediately made a profit?’ We need to make that kind of configuration change,'” he says analytically. It is not surprising that Carrot, his popular red-haired mechanic, is amazed from the first day with the Spanish’s corrections.
From very early in my career I changed vehicles every hour, every day, every week and learned to get the most out of different machines.
“There are moments in the race when you enter a state of mind where everything happens automatically and you are able to drive the car at 99 percent without using all your mental capacity. You start by asking for information about other cars, about your teammate . Sometimes on the big screens you can see a direct competitor making a pit stop and he’s going for the hard tire, so you immediately think, ‘Okay, they’re going for the hard tire, so they plan to go all the way?’ Or are they planning to make another stop, as predicted in our simulation?” It has not been on rare occasions that he does this over the team radio. “Without a doubt he would be a great team manager, he is the one who understands racing best,” recognized among others Gunther Steiner, formerly of Haas.
“Every time you’re in a racing car, you learn something. It may be more useful or less useful at that particular moment, but later on you may encounter the same conditions, the same level of grip, the same level of stress.” , same balance of the car. In that moment of oversteer or when you have a front lock, your memory, a muscle memory, kicks in based on what you have experienced before and you instantly react the way you need to. It’s like your brain is a hard drive, everything you know is on that hard drive and you access it when you need it in those moments. The more laps you do in a racing car, the more experience you have with different cars, on different circuits, in different conditions, can be an advantage,” adds the 14th, that to his four hundreds of races he adds another two years of Resistencia and Dakar. Only in F1, more than 100,000 km in the race (like two trips around the Earth), the most in history, and almost 9,000 leading.
I don’t know exactly what area or what specific part of an F1 weekend, but I’m sure that my experience and my learnings from other series made me a better driver.
“I have learned a lot of things in other series and other categories. The way you have to approach a new discipline like the Indy 500 or endurance racing is by starting from scratch. When you are well established in F1, or any sport, It’s easy to fall into the trap of not improving or learning anything new because you think you already know everything. But you have to be ready to absorb all the information that the specialists in that series are giving you. Be humble and absorbing everything I could from racing in those different series made me a better F1 driver. “I don’t know exactly in what area or what specific part of an F1 weekend, but I’m sure that my experience and my learnings from other series made me a better driver,” he says before closing.
“It all comes back to the same thing: I always want to improve; being better is what has motivated me the most throughout my career. I’m never happy with the position I’m in. I want to be better tomorrow and I want to be better next week and next month. This is what has kept me riding for so long.”
