Fernando Alonso talks about driving in general as he doesn’t think the pleasure of driving is related to performance only, where enjoyment can be felt at any time.
It has been decades for Aston Martin’s Alonso to be driving whether road cars and or race cars. When specific to race cars, it is not often that he has been quick. He has had streak of dominance, but also days when he has no pace or performance in the car to find success.
There are also days where the car just isn’t easy to drive too, but the enjoyment factor shouldn’t be done away with as per Alonso. The Spaniard doesn’t think that the pleasure of driving is or should be down to performance only. One should also have fun when not in the best of position as well.
Since one is one own control of the race cars, the pleasure should stem from that rather than the end result. “I don’t think that the pleasure of driving is linked to the performance only,” said Alonso to media. “Sometimes you come to a circuit or to even a go-kart track, and you are alone on track, and you are not fighting anyone. And you have a lot of joy, and you have a real good day.
“Sometimes you have a car that is not really well set up or you have a huge understeer or we all, as I said now, you jump in a rental car that you just self-steer to the left or whatever, or it’s just not really square, the chassis, and you still have a lot of fun just fighting against that weakness of the car you know and trying to make the car turn the same way, left to right, in some corners.
“So I think it’s just overcoming the challenge sometimes of what the car is able to do, which produces satisfaction and joy in driving. And I think the adrenaline and the freedom when you are behind the wheel of choosing what to do, at what speed you want to approach the corner, when you want to brake, 30 metres later, 30 meters earlier.
“So all those kind of decisions that you make by instinct is a sense of freedom that I think increases the joy of driving whatever car. So I don’t think it’s related to performance. And then comparing different eras of Formula 1, for sure, I think the early 2000s were the best cars to drive. They were very light, very reactive.
“I think the feedback that you get from the car when you have less sophisticated tools is much more pure than what we have now, that is all filtered a little bit by all the technology we have. So yeah I still think that those cars were more fun to drive,” summed up Alonso. He was then asked if he is deriving pleasure in the current juncture since Aston Martin is not in the performance window.
He didn’t undermine the challenge, but didn’t felt too put down either. There were moments of despair, but also times when he had the fun. “It has been challenging, but I still enjoyed a lot this year, especially at the beginning, obviously, when the car was a little bit faster,” said Alonso. “But even with the difficulties we face sometimes, we’re still trying to analyse and get some lessons into the 2025 car and into the future.
“And yeah, when you start the season strong and then you finish with a little bit more struggles, you have the sense of, you finish so you had a so-so season. And when you do the opposite, it’s a very different feeling when you finish strong. We are not where we want to be. But there are only four teams happier than us, not nine,” summed up Alonso.
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