Alonso the great is still a thrill as he joins 300 club

FOR half an hour during practice yesterday, Fernando Alonso led the rest.

He was top of the timesheets on the eve of the 300th race of a career touched by the angels. The Spaniard’s total number of wins and championships, 32 and two, provide only a clue to his remarkable talent. After all, Lewis Hamilton has claimed precisely twice the victories and twice the titles.

A truer reflection of Alonso’s stature is that it can be said of him that his peers stood and watched him in awe.

Only three men this century count among drivers of the front rank: Michael Schumacher, Alonso and Hamilton. Others, led by Sebastian Vettel, are very good, but none other than that trio is a great. In the Montreal paddock ahead of the Canadian Grand Prix, which he has no hope of winning, Alonso (right) was feted at a party thrown by his McLaren team. There, he considered where he rated himself in a historical context. Without false modesty, he said: ‘I am one of the best drivers to have raced in Formula One. I am probably not the fastest driver in qualifying, in the race, or in wet conditions, but I am maybe 9.5 in all areas.’

He spooled through the memories and stopped at Imola in 2005, when he defied the daring Schumacher. ‘That win changed my life,’ he said. Aged 24, Alonso went on to claim the title that year and the next. Schumacher retired and, until Hamilton came along two seasons later, Alonso was beyond comparison. Only a lunatic would have wagered that he would win no more titles. A few points here and there and he would have done, but he kept on putting himself in the right place at the wrong time, sometimes outfoxed by his own scheming. But, still, his quality shone through. Who can remember him having an off-weekend? Each week in a substandard McLaren that would have sucked the enthusiasm from a lesser competitor, Alonso pulverises his team-mate Stoffel Vandoorne session after session. He is 37 next month and thoughts are turning to his departure. He has an option to stay at McLaren next season, but is yet to commit.

‘I’m not bored with Formula One,’ he said half- convincingly. ‘It’s where we all dreamed of coming one day when we were go-kart drivers.

‘But in the turbo era, things are so predictable. I know that I will come here and fight between seventh and 12th.’

He was duly placed seventh in practice yesterday. And that about summed up his lot.