Fernando Alonso expands on luck as part and parcel of his F1 career, while noting on 20 years of him racing at the highest level.
Considering his 20 years in the sport, Aston Martin’s Alonso has seen his fair share of good and bad luck. Often he is regarded as the driver on the bad side of it since he just has two F1 titles to show and 32 race wins, when the Spaniard deserves probably more than that.
He has accolades in WEC after his side venture, but Dakar and Indy500 ended up being a bit of a letdown – full marks for trying, though. Since his return to F1, Alonso has been pushing his luck and 2026 will be the final chance, which he wants to do with Aston Martin, with Adrian Newey in the team.
Off-late, he has discussed about luck far often, especially how his races has panned out where he has ended up losing several points in races where he could have scored. While he acknowledges the bad side of it, but over the year, he feels the good and bad has kind of settled itself to be 50-50 across.
“I mean, these things can happen, but for sure, I think I remember 2022, which I think the car was not too bad, the Alpine car, and we were competitive and I had a 12 DNFs, always in the races that I was P5, P6,” said Alonso. “So I think that year the team counted like 55, 60 points lost, and this year we are already up to 22, I think.
“So, yeah, it’s a shame that we cannot finish the races on merit when we are in the points. And then when we are slow, because we are uncompetitive, normally things are always smooth and nice until the chequered flag and we score no points. But this is the way it is and this is the sport, the nature of the sport. And as long as, if next year we have a good car, we are in normal luck.
“We don’t ask for good luck, but normal luck is okay. I don’t know. Good luck, bad luck, I think 50-50 to be honest. I don’t think that when you do 400 plus races, there are a lot of races with good luck and a lot of races with bad luck. But I think everything compensated.
“Even when I went to Le Mans, the second Le Mans, we were two minutes behind the leader, one hour before the end, and then they had a puncture, and then they had a wheel that was not properly done, and they had a double pit stop on the four-way lap, and then I won the second Le Mans. So that was a lot, a lot of luck on our side. So everything compensated. But yeah, probably over 20 years, I think or maybe more than 10 years that I won my last F1 Grand Prix. It doesn’t sound right to me,” summed up Alonso.
Adding on the 20 years chapter, Alonso certainly didn’t think he would survive this long when he started out back in the day. He has seen mass amount of changes in his time with technological advancements playing a key role. But the biggest difference is how extreme the domination has become.
The dependency on car performance and getting the regulations is far greater in today’s time as per him, where a driver too is largely dependent on it. “First, no, I didn’t think about being 20 years after my championship, still around,” continued Alonso. “And then a lot of things have changed in the sport for sure.
“Technology has changed, power unit, the way we race now, the way we prepare the races and all the competitors as well, analysis of the competitors, which I think is the nature again of the DNA of the sport of Formula 1, always dictated by the car performance and set of regulations that are always better for some teams than others and this kind of things.
“But I think now it’s even more extreme. That’s why this year losing 22 points, it should sound like it’s not much. We are not fighting for the World Championship, so why should Alonso care about 22 points in a season like this? But 20 points now is a lot of effort and determination to score every single point.
“When the car is just able to score one or two points per weekend, to lose 22 is a massive amount. And yes, probably the sport went in that direction as well, of being dictated by the car performance more and more, thanks to the technology and how the teams are super well prepared now, approaching a weekend,” summed up Alonso.
Here’s Fernando Alonso on Azerbaijan GP