Alonso on a quest for the holy grail of Hill’s fabled feat

he night of Nov 29, 1975, when Graham Hill’s Piper Aztec plunged to earth amid the dense fog enveloping Elstree Airfield, robbed motorsport not just of an inimitably raffish character but a true totem of his craft.

In sport, the greatest accolade, beyond knighthoods and damehoods, is to record a feat so singular that it can be named in your honour. Just look at gymnastics, where Max Whitlock, at pains to deliver a fitting encore to double Olympic gold, is on a quest to dream up a move that sits alongside the Memmel Turn or the Yurchenko Loop. Hill was one rare case who merited the same august recognition. For in the 42nd year since his untimely death, he still stands unequalled, as the only driver to have accomplished the fabled ‘Triple Crown’.

This week, Triple Crowns have filtered back into motoring parlance, with Fernando Alonso’s decision to swap Formula One for a spot of IndyCar racing. Leaving aside suspicions that the Spaniard would rather haul a caravan up the M6 than face another weekend wrestling with McLaren’s accursed Honda engines, the switch is motivated largely by a desire to bracket himself with Hill. At 35, with an unfortunate history of moving teams at exactly the wrong time, Alonso appreciates that F1 alone will no longer furnish him with the trophy collection his talent demands.

Instead, he has embarked on an exhilarating nostalgia rush. The Triple Crown has, ever since Hill completed it in 1972, held an arcane fascination for students of the sport. Requiring victories in the Indianapolis 500, the Le Mans 24 Hours and the Monaco Grand Prix – or, in an unusual suppleness of definition, an F1 world championship – it places the highest premium upon versatility. To master the remorseless speeds of the Brickyard, the gruelling straights of Sarthe and the sinuous corners of Monte Carlo is, for purists, to display an unanswerable virtuosity. Now, at last, Alonso is mounting a one-man revival of a forgotten holy grail.

His peers, one senses, are struggling to contain their envy. Lewis Hamilton, an incurable F1 romantic who has taken to wearing a replica of Ayrton Senna’s bright yellow helmet whenever he is at Interlagos, said