Alonso wraps up a long and stellar career
Spaniard to say final goodbye at Abu Dhabi GP
>> ABU DHABHI: Fernando Alonso has slowly fallen out of love with Formula One. After 17 seasons, the last few with the uncompetitive McLaren team, he will finally have the opportunity to devote his attention to the important things in life.
“Formula One requires total dedication of your life,” he said. “All other things are not important: Family is not important, friendships are not important, love is not important. If you want to succeed in Formula One, you need to dedicate your life, so I think it has been enough.”
Today in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, Alonso, 37, widely regarded as one of the sport’s best drivers, will start a grand prix for the 312th and final time as he leaves a sport he entered in 2001. His career has yielded two world titles, 97 podium finishes, which include 32 wins, the last of which came in 2013 in his home country, Spain.
“To be honest, what I have achieved was unexpected because if I look back to when I was a kid in go-karts, I never thought I’d become a Formula One driver,” he said in an interview. “Formula One was just a wild dream for a Spanish kid like me.
“The day I then made my debut in Australia, I never thought I would have a single podium. Starting with Minardi, and seeing the likes of Michael Schumacher, Mika Hakkinen, David Coulthard, I was in an environment that seemed too big for me. With the championships and grand prix wins, it has been better than in my best dreams of 17 years ago.”
But now is the time to say goodbye to Formula One, which he describes as “a bubble, something that is not real,” and in which he has often had to put on a performance.
Next year, Alonso will still be racing, competing in three rounds of the World Endurance Championship, and he will make a second attempt to win the Indianapolis 500 and complete a version of motor sport’s triple crown — the 24 Hours of Le Mans and the Monaco Grand Prix are the other events — previously achieved only by Graham Hill.
So Alonso still has a need for speed, but not the effort required to remain in Formula One.
“I will miss the cars, the technology, the race approach, just searching for perfection on a timed lap in a car that goes beyond physics at times because all other categories are of a lower level,” he said. “So that kind of feeling, that perfection, is something I will definitely miss.”
Alonso knows it was luck that enabled him to climb the motor sport ladder, from his early karting days, into single-seaters and eventually Formula One. “Right time, right opportunities, and then delivering on those,” he said.
His two world titles with Renault in 2005 and 2006 are the obvious highs. Trying to put them into context, he said: “They are moments that are difficult to explain with words. What comes to your mind are all the sacrifices, the traveling, the study, the difficulties.
In his attempts to add a third championship, there were painful near misses: by a point in 2007, four points in 2010 and three in 2012.
After racing for Ferrari from 2010 to 2014, he rejoined McLaren for 2015 in a bid to revive the team’s fortunes, but the last four years have been frustrating because he had to retire from about 30 percent of his races over mechanical problems, draining his enthusiasm.
Lewis Hamilton of Mercedes, the five-time drivers’ champion, said Alonso’s persistence to not give up was a great example to others. “I really respect how he has handled himself at a difficult time with McLaren,” Hamilton said in an interview.
“It’s been tough for him, to continue pushing, to keep driving, to having that will to keep turning up, even though he would know the car wasn’t there. And then he’s had the guts to take on other challenges in IndyCar and WEC, to utilise his ability elsewhere. That has been really cool.
“It is sad he leaves as only a twotime world champion, but I don’t view him like that. I see him as a multiple world champion, with his pure talent the highest I’ve experienced of all those I’ve raced against.”
For the last three years, Alonso also has been running a karting school for children in his home region of Asturias in Spain.
Asked what he would say to his younger self who first competed in Formula One at the age of 20, and to those who attend his school, he said, “You learn things from the journey, and the biggest thing is to enjoy every moment.
“We are privileged people, doing what we love to do. We drive these amazing cars for amazing teams full of talented people.
“Probably, in the middle of all these years, when you are deeply involved in the job, you don’t realise and are not able to enjoy those details and the privileged life because you were too busy, too focused, too frustrated and too ambitious at times. You only realise with time, and at the end of your career.”