Fernando Alonso will return to
Formula 1 next year at the age of 40. The Spaniard has never lacked ambition and that's why he wants to compete again at the highest level. But does he do it for fun?
Amazon Prime followed
Fernando Alonso over the past few years for a documentary series about his adventures in racing classes outside
Formula 1. He told
Le Figaro that he doesn't really understand why racing fans don't watch other classes anymore.
Encouraging people to watch other racing series
"The world of motor sport is very big, but 90% of the attention is focused on F1. While curiously, today it is the only discipline that has been decided in advance and the most boring, because we already know who will win before the race even starts."
He maintains that
Formula 1 is the highest achievable for a driver, but as a fan he finds the other racing classes in which he has raced much more interesting and spectacular. He hopes that the documentary will encourage people to watch the
WEC,
IndyCar or the
Dakar rally more often.
There's something cynical about people claiming that F1 is "boring these days", and this one by Fernando Alonso resides at the apex of cynicism. But before I explain myself, let me state that F1 is indeed boring most of the times and has been so for quite some time. Lewis Hamilton is not the cause.
To claim that "boring" is solely defined by "already knowing the result" is absolutely false. I have seen this falsity before advanced, mainly by the English F1 fans and commentators, against Michael Schumacher. It was cynical then, and it's cynical now against Lewis Hamilton. There's a simple English word for what Hamilton is doing. That word is dominance. He is, like Schumacher did in the past, dominating F1. He is not making it boring!
As I said, today's F1 is much more boring than the one I saw in late 80s and early 90s. This has mostly to do with the advances in how F1 cars are engineered. While great drivers of the past like Prost thrived in managing all aspects of the car during a race, today's drivers only manage tires and they do this with the aid of some of the most powerful computers and all kinds of sensors that were not available in the past. Yet even during those days Monaco was always the most boring racetrack because it offers almost zero chances for overtaking.
So why is Lewis Hamilton's dominance of F1 being cynically presented as the source of F1 boredom? The answer to this question is so obvious, everbody knows it, including the chief Hamilton bashers who, in a very tragic twist of irony, happen to be in large numbers, English. When a rival team to the one you support is dominant, you are obviously going to be envious, jealous and sometimes, downright hateful. This happens in all of sport. It's happening to Lewis Hamilton right now. People who have defined themselves as his rivals, or supporters of his rivals, hate to see this rival dominate. The euphemism for this jealousy /hatred, in their own words, is that they are "bored" by Hamilton's dominance. Such is cynicism.
If its so boring... why bother to return... Lando n Ric are going to whip you... and show you class n manners that you lacked!!!
There is no guarantee that he will be faster and will be consistently out qualifying Ocon either. We could possibly see a situation like we have over at Ferrari when the younger team mate has been consistently faster then the more experienced one ..... time will tell. As for the motivation to return, there are 36 Million reasons to do so over two years...
Some clowns have no humility.
Give them the little finger and pretty soon the whole hand is required by them.
Some things never change..
Yep... pride before the fall...
He's rich. And he hasn't even waited until the start of his tenure to begin the whining so I have a suggestion for him. Spend some money and compete in GP2. The competition is intense and I will watch. And he will have a car that can win every weekend. Sarcasm yes, but I am somewhat serious too:)
He is letting fans know not to expect too much so that they won’t be too disappointed when he is running around the mid field fighting with the younger kids for P10