“If I race now against myself at 23, I will beat him with one hand”– Fernando Alonso thinks he would have smacked his 17-year younger self.
At the age of 40, Fernando Alonso is going strong in Formula 1 and has shown that he can still take on the younger lot. At the same time, his contemporary Lewis Hamilton is still a favourite to win the championship.
For Alonso, this sport is not like Football or the Olympics, where the athletes generally peak from the age of 23-29 and claims he would have smacked his 23-year-old self.
“What I feel maybe it sounds opposite to the people outside because it seems that the sport and also how social media is, we seem to get confused about the age and about the performance that a sportsman can do, you know.”
“This is not the Tour of France, this is not the Olympic Games, this is not football where at 23 you are at the peak of your performance. If I race now against myself at 23, I will beat him with one hand, you know, it’s not the same.”
“It’s not the younger you are, the quicker you are, this is not how the stopwatch works in motorsports. There are people that want to see new names, they want to see new hopes, they want to get rid of some of the normal names that they see every weekend.”
“But I see myself [racing a] very long time. If it’s in Formula 1, great, if it’s not in Formula 1, I will try to pursue some of the remaining challenges outside Formula 1, to be hopefully the most complete driver in motorsport ever.”
2022 is crucial for his further stay in F1
Alonso then talks about the intricate 2022 regulations, and Alpine is still a work in progress for next year; therefore, he can’t comment how successful they will be next year.
“We are working on next year’s project but it’s very early days and no one knows what the numbers are because you have nothing to compare against,” he explains.
“We are all a little bit realistic and yet waiting for February because we will see many surprises when the cars are uncovered for everyone.”
