Fernando Alonso reckons the current year at Alpine has been his best two F1 seasons, even better than his championship winning years.
For any F1 driver, winning the world championship is always a dream and when it comes true, it is always a memorable moment of ones career. However, for Alpine’s Alonso, he feels the current season along with 2012 has been his best two seasons in racing.
While 2012 was the year he lost the title to Sebastian Vettel while racing for Ferrari, the current season with Alpine is not a fight for the championship but for fourth in the standings. But being a 40-year-old, it is already a hard challenge for anyone.
And he is driving well too this year with consistent points results, helping Alpine to be ahead of McLaren. “I do enjoy it for sure,” said Alonso. “We would love to fight for the championship or for podiums, there’s always wins but we don’t have that possibility yet. But yeah, I’m happy with the performance this year.
“As I said at the beginning of the year, I think we lost 40-50 good points at the beginning of the year with reliability issues. And with those points, the situation in the championship will be very different, also with McLaren in the fight in the Constructors, so I’m happy and proud with the performance and I think together with 2012, probably they have been my best two seasons, even higher than the championship ones that we have a dominant car on those years. So 2012, 2022, next one will be 2032,” summed up Alonso, with a joke.
While he is enjoying the year with Alpine, but next year he will switch to Aston Martin and prolong his career to further two F1 seasons which will take him closer to 400 career races. He sits at 352 entries (349 starts) and he is set to end the year at 358 (355).
Considering the next two seasons has the same 22 races, he will certainly cross the 400 mark then and become the first to do so. “I know the number because every weekend we keep repeating it, but I’m not into this so much,” said Alonso. “I’m happy to be in Formula 1 for so many years and with the two more coming, or whatever, how long I will be in Formula 1 I will reach 400 for sure so that’s a big number.
“And yeah, it shows my passion for the sport and my discipline to perform at the high level. If you are not performing, the team will not give you 400 Grands Prix for sure,” summed up Alonso.
Here’s Nyck de Vries with his side of things which includes Alpine test