Michael Schumacher was the most dominant F1 driver towards the beginning of the 21st century, winning five back-to-back world titles between 2000 and 2004. However, it was Fernando Alonso who ended the former Ferrari driver’s supremacy. Alonso, speaking about it recently during the High-Performance podcast, shared that he took a “Kamikaze” approach to stop Schumacher’s dominance.
Alonso, after a season-long battle with Schumacher was able to pick up the 2005 F1 world championship. He then became the first driver other than Schumacher to open his account in the 21st century.
Admittedly, the Spanish driver continued his excellence the next year too, by defending his title, once again, versus Schumacher. The Oviedo-born driver claimed the 2006 F1 world championship with Renault and was able to keep Schumacher at bay. Everything, in the end, was possible due to the now-Aston Martin driver’s belief which actually helped him.
Fernando Alonso revealed his weapon for battling against Schumacher
During the podcast, Alonso opened up on the way he tackled Schumacher during first title battle back in 2005. It was a year of intense competition but in the end, the Asturian was able to overthrow the German despite being very young to the grid.
Talking about this, the 42-year-old said, “When I got to Formula 1, Michael Schumacher was dominating the sport. But I never thought that I was slower than him, in a way. Maybe it was just a Kamikaze approach to Formula 1 and to start of my career.”
Even though the Spaniard had a rapid start to his career and was able to overthrow the Ferrari champion, things did not quite work out for him post 2006. Much of the credit goes to a series of faulty career choices.
Alonso’s failure post-2006 and his choices
Despite winning two back-to-back championships in 2005 and 2006, Fernando Alonso has not won any titles since then. For this, experts blame his career choices which hindered his chances of winning.
However, in the same podcast, the Aston Martin driver revealed that one can never predict how career choices will turn out. Apart from Renault, Alonso raced for Ferrari and McLaren who are indeed the most successful F1 teams ever.
We are back. #f1 pic.twitter.com/oK6bfbG5WB
— Fernando Alonso (@alo_oficial) July 8, 2020
Despite jumping ships to these teams, it was Alonso’s luck that didn’t help as nobody would say no to Ferrari and McLaren, who had an interesting project with Honda. In the end, nothing worked out for him the way he wanted.
Additionally, nobody believed how Alonso would be able to pick up podiums with Aston Martin like he has done this year. Not after they failed Sebastian Vettel for two years in a row. Hence, the Spaniard blames luck for his elongated absence from the front of the grid.
