Fernando Alonso reveals how his Formula 1 career spanning over 20 years has affected his everyday life and things he missed.
Fernando Alonso has been actively racing in motorsport for over 20 years. He has plied his trade in Formula 1, IndyCar and LeMans. In all three formats, he has gained considerable success.
At the age of 40, he is the most experienced and oldest driver on the current F1 grid. Thus, a huge chunk of his life has been spent around this sport.
In this while, Alonso has been an iconic figure. Many in his own country religiously follow him. Such celebrity status and hectic brings its own sacrifices, and Alonso talks about how it reshaped his life.
“I would say yes, but [I’m] not clear on if I go in detail [on] what I missed or what it cost in my normal life,” said Alonso in Beyond The Grid Podcast. “I will not be able to say exactly what I missed or what I lost.”
“For sure, when you are in the paddock when you are 19, and now I’m 40, I’m sure I lost a few things in life, and obviously you are away from your family for most of your life and friends [too], and maybe you lose some of them.”
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Fernando Alonso believes F1 drivers are used to this
While talking about things he possibly couldn’t see, he acknowledges that it’s a privilege. He remarks that many drivers are fully willing to make such sacrifices in F1.
Moreover, he also claims that young drivers also don’t reference any ‘normal life’, since they are engaged in shaping their motorsport career from a very young age.
“When you enter here [in F1], you are just living a dream that you started when you were a go-kart driver, and you aim to become a Formula 1 driver,” Alonso explained.
“Then you arrive here, and you are ready to sacrifice whatever comes with that dream. But, because we didn’t have a normal life, [because] even from 10 years old or 12 years old, we’ve been racing internationally in go-karts, etc.”
“We don’t know what it means to have a normal life. So [there is] a mismatch.”
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