There was still the Lira, and it already was Fernando Alonso. To understand how many things can enter the twenty-year career of a sportsman, there is no better system than correlating it to certain historical events. I remember it even earlier, in Belgium in 2000, after a ‘hat trick’ in Formula 3000 with the Astromega. Pole, victory and fast lap, yet he had the face of someone with a toothache. I take another step back: Jerez, December 1999. The track was wet, the eighteen year old Nando was part of a patrol of aspiring champions of different nationalities and competitive backgrounds, faced with the opportunity to test the Minardi F1 on the track. They told him: go slowly at the beginning, the track is still wet. He drove off and immediately started lowering lap times by handfuls of seconds. At the time, Cesare Fiorio was also on the team and I remember he was quite pissed off. “We told you to go slow, didn’t we?”. Fernando did not flinch: “But I was going slow. Now I start to push “.
Competitive, always. Even when mom Ana Maria went to pick him up from school and he would challenge her to whoever arrived first in front of the front door. Satisfied, never, at least in appearance. A year as a starter in Minardi, 2001, then a season as a tester at Renault di Flavio Briatore, good and opportunist – in F1 they are almost synonymous – in understanding the potential of that kid from Oviedo who spoke little and smiled even less. The following year, 2003, the first victory in Hungary, in a world championship dominated by Ferrari and McLaren. Briatore had no doubts about the driver to bet on and when, the following season, Jarno Trulli won in Monaco and Nando crashed into the tunnel, those present, including myself, were able to witness the rare phenomenon of a team principal angry because one of his driver – yes, but the wrong one – finished first in Monte Carlo.
Volumes could be written on the almost dependent relationship between Alonso and Briatore, as well as on the figure of Fernando’s father, the former miner José Luis. Let’s forget, for now, with the spectacle of the Losail race still in our eyes, which brought ours back to the podium after seven years and several months, or after that 2014 Budapest race in which even the damaged Ferrari F14T, in his hands and on the wet asphalt, he seemed capable of winning. I’m not saying this out of flattery and / or opportunism, but few riders in the race have thrilled me like Fernando Alonso. The 2010 Singapore GP, his winning gallop with Vettel always attached to the drains, I experienced him, with other diehards, glued to the glass in the press room, which overlooked the pit lane, like a child in front of the ice cream parlor. He had, and still has, a way of driving that transmits a sense of speed and struggle to the viewer. Also for this reason I was disappointed when I saw him, in Monaco in 2013, submissive to the limits of sloth, willing to be overtaken by Sutil and Button (in Monte Carlo!) Because “I’m fighting for the world championship and I can’t take risks”. After so many years, I was left with the suspicion that there was something else behind it.
Because that’s how Fernando is: he is interested in winning, but sometimes he is more interested in others who lose. Where Briatore had succeeded, or rather in harnessing his talent by leading him to win two world titles, Ferrari was not as successful. When I arrived in Maranello, in December 2014, the echo of his presence could still be heard everywhere. In those six seasons he had tried to shape the team in his image and likeness, eventually being defeated. His first experience with McLaren-Honda was a shock, in every sense. I think everyone remembers the strange accident in the Barcelona winter tests. Massimo Rivola, then sports director of Maranello, went to see him in the hospital, but could not or did not want to say what had really happened to him, even if the hypothesis of the electric shock remains the most plausible. The one with the Japanese and the “GP2 engine” it has always seemed like an adventure with a taste of spite. For what it’s worth, I remain convinced that Fernando Alonso, with the skills of Fernando Alonso, but without the character of Fernando Alonso, could have become one of the most successful drivers in Formula One history.
But now everything has changed. Maybe even Fernando has changed. At forty you have other perspectives, a different vision of life. In a way, the Alpine is the ideal environment for a rider who has already demonstrated everything and now has very little to lose. Seeing Alonso driving in Qatar – and in general for most of this season – is a joy for the eyes and the spirit. Because it seems (it seems!) That he has finally kicked his ghosts and obsessions, to focus on what he most likes to do in the world. After Losail he said he sees himself fighting for the world championship in 2022. The important thing, if I may allow myself, is that he has fun and still has fun.
#Alonshow #FormulaPassionit