Need for speed keeps Fernando up at night
FORMER world champion Fernando Alonso has recently announced he will be returning to Formula One after a two-year break. The 39-year-old has penned a new deal with old team Renault – who are to be rebranded Alpine – and is set be crowbarred back into the cockpit in time for lights out next season.
That’s not to say the Spaniard has been idly twiddling his thumbs since he last sat twiddling the buttons on his McLaren in 2018, as a well-timed and well-executed new documentary series Fernando [Amazon Prime] shows.
When Alonso decided to exit the F1 pitlane, seemingly for the last time, it was not merely to swap the racing circuit for the lucrative punditry one, nor was it to sit back and enjoy the considerable fruits of his labours bobbing about on the picturesque lakes near his home in Lugano, Switzerland.
The fiercely competitive Fernando, it seems, had other petrol-powered fish he wanted to fry and in this fivepart series we join him on his quest to climb into ever more hi-tech, low-comfort machines as he looks to achieve those goals.
Since his father first strapped him into a go-kart at the age of three, Alonso (right) tells us he has wanted nothing more than to win so, after the challenge of F1, where in
2005 he became the first Spaniard and, at the time the youngest driver to win the world title, it was to the sleep-deprived thrills of endurance racing to which he turned and of these events, none is worth shunning your shut-eye for more than Le Mans. Perhaps unsurprisingly for a man who raced in more than 300 F1 grands prix – of which he won 32 on his way to two world titles – Alonso proved he possessed more than enough staying power to win France’s 24-hour marathon at the first attempt.
In this series his attention turns to winning the Indianapolis 500 and achieving motor racing’s triple crown – victories at the Monaco Grand Prix, of which he has two, Le Mans and the Indy 500 – and following it up with success at the Dakar Rally.
As it turns out, Alonso is still waiting for Indy success while his desert dream turned to dust. But joining him on this fascinating journey is a treat. With the ultimate racer at the wheel, it’s a hell of a ride.