Emotional key to Alonso’s longevity as he reaches 400 F1 Grands Prix
Baku, October 26, AZERTAC
Formula 1 is currently gearing up for the 2024 Mexico City Grand Prix or, put another way, the ‘Fernando Alonso 400’.
According to Motorsport, the double world champion has held F1’s record for taking part in the most grands prix since he overtook Kimi Raikkonen back in 2022. In reaching 400, he’s the first human being to reach such a milestone.
“Not good for your back, for your neck, for your spine!” he half-jokingly replies when I ask him about the physical toll of that uncharted territory.
Classic Alonso. Who, on discussing his upcoming race start achievement in the Austin paddock last week, insists he would “would love to race half of the 400 and win one more championship or win more races”.
“Those are the important statistics that you want to achieve,” he adds.
Alonso’s drive for further F1 success is well known. But, as we’ll go on to see, there’s something far deeper and more human at play too. First, however, more stats. Because in four centuries of grands prix, plenty accrue.
With Alonso having made his debut at the 2001 Australian GP, 36% of world championship F1 weekends have featured him plying his trade – as per data released by his Aston Martin squad this week, with assistance from Motorsport.com's Forix guru, Joao Paulo Cunha.
Alonso has completed more than 72,750 laps in F1 weekend action and test sessions – including 21,578 race laps. He’s done 735 F1 pitstops. His record against his F1 team-mates stands at 292:107 in qualifying and, with 20 double DNFs for the teams he’s raced for since starting out with Minardi, 262:117 in GP races.
His F1 sabbatical yielded two Le Mans 24 Hours wins – the last of which, in 2019, is his most recent race victory in any category – a World Endurance Championship crown and a 24 Hours of Daytona win.
“[Reaching 400 grands prix] shows my love for the sport and the discipline of trying to perform at a very high level for 20-plus years,” Alonso explains.
“Hopefully I can celebrate a good weekend in Mexico. [I’m] not cheering for the next 400, because it will never happen, but at least 40 or 50 more with the next two years [at Aston] coming.”
He outlines how “it's not a problem of keeping up with the youngsters in terms of physical conditions” and that it’s “more mentally – travelling, events – and [other] pressure that is probably the thing that hits you harder and probably stops you racing at one point”. But amongst this there’s also something rather revealing. And very interesting.
“It's that hope that next year is going to be your year,” he says of why he’s heading into his 22nd and 23rd seasons in F1, given his latest contract signed back in April. “That it keeps you alive and it keeps you motivated.”
After 21 F1 seasons so far across three distinct stints – where he took his world titles in two, fought relentlessly for another in three others – these words disclose the disappointment Alonso felt at the times he knew, almost immediately, that that third crown wasn’t happening in a particular campaign.
We know this from the words of his longtime friend and colleague, Pedro de la Rosa, who discussed Alonso’s achievements in an exclusive interview with Motorsport.com during the US GP last weekend.
“He always says to me, ‘the day I'm most nervous, the whole season, is the day of the shakedown’,” explains the 104-time F1 race starter, who first met Alonso when his fellow Spaniard first raced for McLaren in 2007, when de la Rosa was the team’s test driver.
“He says, ‘Because the day of the shakedown, I know what type of season is ahead of me’. He's just phenomenal in feeling the car straightaway after two laps.”
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