“Something that we need to address as a sport”– Fernando Alonso wants Formula 1 to increase more championship level cars to level the field.
Fernando Alonso has stood on the podium several times, but in the latter part of his F1 career, he has hardly ever contested for the podiums, be it in McLaren and now Alpine.
Only a handful of cars on the grid are the current calibre of regularly contesting for the podiums, and Alonso thinks this should be changed by levelling the field for the cars.
“What we have to address, and probably next year is the first step, is the difference between cars,” explained the double world champion to Motorsport.com.
“Now, if you are lucky enough that you drive a competitive car, your only fight is with your teammate, not with another team, and you will finish on the podium in 95 percent of the races you do in the year.
“It doesn’t matter if you’re 19 and it’s your rookie season, or if you’re 45 and you’re the oldest one. You will be 95 percent on the podium. And that’s maybe something that we need to address as a sport.”
“We need it to be a little bit more open for anyone to have inspiration one day that they can fight for podiums. At the moment this is not possible.”
Driving skills should not be underestimated
While Alonso is advocating about levelling the field in F1, he also mentions that driving skills development is also necessary to enhance the competition.
“You learn so many things on the journey, on how to deal with different situations in Formula 1,” he said. “When you get into the sport you see that there are some big differences compared to any other junior categories.”
“For three or four years you keep learning about the system and how everything works. And after that you start the next step, which is probably learning how to maximize the potential of the car.”
“It’s not any more driving at the maximum, as you normally did in go-karts or junior categories: here you have to deal with different problems and different scenarios in the race: tyre degradation, strategy, you know, things that you have to keep nailing every weekend.”
“Eventually you get to a point that you’re better and better every race and every time you jump in the car, because you learn more things about the car and how the team is helping you to develop your driving style, specifically for that year and for that tyre and for that aero configuration.”
“Then, the following year, everything resets again, and you have to relearn a couple of things. So you’re constantly improving as a driver.”
