With 23 years of experience in the premier class of motorsport, Fernando Alonso boasts of the longest career in F1 and has achieved almost everything in the sport. Despite that, he has some regrets that he would perhaps correct if given a chance to go back into the past. The biggest of them all is never winning a championship with Ferrari.
In an interview snippet doing the rounds of YouTube, Alonso said, “Winning a championship with Ferrari, that will be probably the first thing that I choose if I go back in time. This is extremely painful. You remove the helmet and you are not in the championship.”
Alonso drove for Ferrari from 2010 to 2014. Despite his championship-winning experience, he couldn’t do much to break the dominance of Sebastian Vettel and Red Bull.
The German driver bagged four championships between 2010 and 2013. The advent of the hybrid engine era from 2014 onwards further extended Alonso’s agonizing run, kicking off Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes’ run of dominance.
Bir tarafta sevinç: Sebastian Vettel
Bir tarafta veda: Michael Schumacher
Bir tarafta hüzün: Fernando Alonso– Formula 1 tarihinin en unutulmaz anlarından biri.
2012 Brezilya GP yarışın ardındanpic.twitter.com/b21XyepQV6
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The Oviedo-born driver was forever at a disadvantage of never getting a car good enough to challenge for the championship. However, he let his race craft do the talking for him all these years.
In his very first year with the Maranello-based outfit, Alonso lost the championship to Vettel by just four points. In 2012, he came ever so close to breaking Vettel’s championship-winning run but ended up falling short by three points.
The gap between Alonso and the top spot only grew wider after the 2012 season. The Alonso-Ferrari combo was seen as a deadly force to reckon with. However, they failed to break the championship drought of either Vettel or Red Bull. While Alonso’s last championship win came back in 2006, Ferrari won its last constructors’ title in 2008.
The sad tale of ‘what if’s’ in Alonso’s F1 career
F1 is a ruthless sport and nobody knows it better than Alonso. One could possess all the talent in the world but unless they have a car to match that potential, race wins and championships will stay at a distance.
Alonso has suffered that fate ever since his consecutive world championship wins in 2005 and 2006. Many, however, blame Alonso himself for his fate.
Among those is former F1 team owner Eddie Jordan. He acknowledged the Spaniard’s talent and what all he could have achieved. However, Jordan accused him of ‘chasing the money’ and signing for whichever team offered him more of it.
Speaking on one of the episodes of his Formula For Success podcast, Jordan said, “You have to remember, Fernando Alonso chased the money. He went to teams where he was getting more money than what he would have got in another team that probably had a better chance of him winning the world title.”
