Fernando Alonso laid out the major differences that he has noticed from his time racing in Ferrari and McLaren.
Fernando Alonso will enter his 19th season in F1 in 2022. So far in his career, he has raced for four different teams. He admits that every racing team has their own way of going about things.
The Spaniard drove for McLaren in 2007 then he raced for Ferrari for five years between 2010 and 2014. He later came back to McLaren for a second stint from 2015 to 2018 before joining the French team, Renault.
He believes that each team has part of the DNA of the team. In the Beyond The Grid podcast he drew on his experience and explained the difference between McLaren and Ferrari.
“Historically, they’ve been racing with a different philosophy, so each of them is different. In Renault, I think you find this family environment and friendly approach, by everyone in Enstone and Paris.”
“In Ferrari, I think it’s a little bit more passionate, what you see there from the people at the factory. A little bit more chaotic, as well, because it’s part of maybe the Latin, Italian, Spanish DNA as well.
2014 Silverstone : Battling through Copse with Fernando Alonso in which was more or less quite the equal machinery with the Ferrari was breathtaking to watch pic.twitter.com/Fur2FROr8Q
— auz ⁵ (@mickvettelz) December 31, 2021
“McLaren is a little bit more serious, a little bit more precise [in] everything, but maybe lacking a little bit of communication internally as well, but a very professional environment,” he said.
He said that each of them is only a tad different. But ultimately they all find the limits and achieve the same goal, which is to produce the fastest cars possible.
Fernando Alonso thinks Ferrari and Minardi have similarities
The two-time world champion began his career in F1 with Minardi, where he spent one year before joining Renault. Alonso believes that Minardi had some similarities to Ferrari in terms of passion.
“I put it more in the Italian side, it’s more like Ferrari,” Alonso said.
“I think what I found in Minardi in those days was a very passionate group of people about Formula 1, with very little resources at that time, and [it was] quite a changeable environment in the way that, at the beginning of the year, it was Minardi.”
“Two months before Australia [the opening race of the 2001 season], the team was not racing anymore because of the lack of funding and budget, then Paul Stoddart came in, saved the team in the last moment, and we went to Australia with no winter testing. That was the debut.”
“That probably was unthinkable at that time, and it is unthinkable now, but this was part of the course, this was part of the passion.
“The Italian teams, they put on it and probably at that time it was a little bit more normal,” he concluded.
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