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After spending 12 years in Formula 1, Fernando Alonso is rated by many as the best F1 driver to be racing at the moment. He has also proved it statistically by moving past Micheal Schumacher as the driver who has aggregated the most championship points, though this can be attributed as a result of the new points scoring system, where the winner is awarded 25 points compared to 10 points during Schumacher’s era.
Alonso has also been known for out rightly dominating his team mates since he made his debut in 2001 with Minardi. He dominates his team mates to a level where you feel it’s unfair on whoever is partnering him in the team. Below, we’ll look at why that’s the case:
Minardi (2001)
During his debut stint with Minardi in 2001, Alonso partnered Tarso Marques for 14 races and Alex Yoong for 3 races. Alonso out qualified Tarso Marques on his debut by a huge margin and went on to beat him 11 more times in qualifying, only twice did he start behind Tarso Marques on the grid. In the three races that Alex Yoong partnered Alonso, he was completely whitewashed 3-0.
Renault (2003-2006)
Jarno Trulli, Flavio Briatore and Fernando Alonso
In 2002, Alonso joined Renault as a test driver. Here, he would prosper under flamboyant Team Principal Flavio Briatore, and would also go on and forge a successful two world championship reigns with him. I feel it is here that the concept of forging a team around a dominant driver came up (although the concept was adopted by Ferrari with Schumacher, no other team had followed suit).
In 2003, Jarno Trulli was Alonso’s team mate at Renault between 2003-04. In these two years, Alonso would go on and out qualify Trulli 17-16. Coming to the championship points, Alonso finished the 2003 season 22 points ahead of Trulli in the world championship.
In 2004, Alonso would continue to compete toe to toe with his experienced team mate and would again beat him in the points tally by scoring 12 points more than him. It was during this time i.e. during the 2004 season that Flavio Briatore had a big fallout with Trulli, he even went on and fired him, three races before the end of the season. Trulli had accused the Renault team of favouring Alonso over him which correlates with my point earlier that Renault were building a team by focusing fully on Alonso.
Giancarlo Fisichella and Fernando Alonso
During 2005-06, Giancarlo Fisichella would team up with Alonso. Even though Fisichella won the opening race at Australia, he had a collision in Malaysia, engine failure in Bahrain and a spin in San Marino. This effectively ended Fisichella’s momentum. Meanwhile Alonso won in all three races where Fisichella failed, i.e. Malaysia, Bahrain and San Marino.
Further, Alonso won four more races in Europe, France, Germany and China and was crowned as the youngest Drivers’ World Champion. Fisichella could only be on the podium two more times and finished way behind with 58 points in the championship compared to Alonso’s 133.
2006 would be no different with Alonso winning seven times to secure his second world championship title and also becoming the youngest to do so. On the other hand, Fisichella again triumphed by winning in the second race of the season in Malaysia, but couldn’t match his team mate in performance again. He finished the season with 4 podiums with a points tally of 72 compared to 134 of Alonso.
McLaren Mercedes (2007)
Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso
In 2007 Alonso would join McLaren Mercedes which turned out to be one of his worst seasons since coming to Formula 1. He would team up with the then rookie Lewis Hamilton during the season. The atmosphere was totally different in McLaren for Alonso, he no longer had Flavio Briatore as the Team Principal, and the McLaren team didn’t back him as much as Renault would have.
The reason for this may be the relationship between Lewis Hamilton and the McLaren Team Principle Ron Dennis. These two shared a similar relationship to that of Alonso and Flavio Briatore, Ron Dennis had discovered Lewis when he was young (the famous incident when a young Lewis told Ron Dennis that “I want to race for you one day … I want to race for McLaren”) , and McLaren and Mercedes-Benz had signed him to their Young Driver Support Programme as well. So, McLaren was like an extended family for Lewis, where there was an emotional connect between them.
The 2007 season started well for Alonso with a second place finish in Australia and then a one-two finish for McLaren with Hamilton coming second. But in Bahrain and Spain, he trailed his rookie team mate Hamilton, which gave Hamilton a lead in the driver’s championship.
Alonso came back in the following race in Monaco and won it. Next, Hamilton would win in Canada, following it up with another win in Indianapolis, which was a closely fought battle where Hamilton and Alonso went wheel to wheel. I think it is here that things went out of hand, Alonso never had a team mate who was so competitive (with all due respect to Trulli and Fisichella).
Besides, he didn’t find the kind of support Flavio Briatore would have given him in Ron Dennis. Surely Alonso’s ego must have taken a beating, after all coming from back to back championship wins, he was being pushed to the brink by his rookie team mate who was into his first Formula 1 season.
Finally, things culminated in Hungary where Alonso and Hamilton, tried to spoil the each other’s qualifying session. Hamilton eventually won the race. As the season moved on neither of the drivers were ready to relent, which paved the way for Kimi Raikkonen to win the drivers championship in a dramatic Brazilian Grand Prix, where Alonso finished third and Hamilton finished seventh.
Clearly, any of these three could have won the championship going into the last race of the season, especially when two of the drivers in question are from the same team, but neither of them wanted the other to win and hence Kimi took advantage of the situation and won his first drivers title. After the dreadful season where the relationship between McLaren and Alonso had reached new lows, both the parties agreed to terminate Alonso’s contract. Alonso would then go back to Renault the following season.
Renault (2008-2009)
Nelson Piquet Jr. and Fernando Alonso
Alonso was back to a team where he was clearly the No.1 driver. Nelson Piquet Jr. would partner Alonso for the whole of 2008 season halfway through 2009. Even though Nelson Piquet Jr. was considered a rookie akin to Hamilton, he couldn’t perform at the level that Hamilton did, securing a single podium finish in Germany. Besides, Renault were not competitive enough compared to the 2005 and 2006 season.
So, Alonso continued to beat his team mate each weekend without any fuss. He somehow dragged his Renault to wins in Singapore and Japan to finish the year fifth on 61 points, while Nelson Piquet Jr. finished the year on just 19 points.
Following year was no different as Piquet Jr. toiled, while Alonso’s dominance continued. But Renault was again lagging behind in performance. As a result, Alonso could only manage one podium, in Singapore, and no victories despite qualifying on pole in Hungary.
He finished ninth, scoring 26 points while Piquet Jr. could not score even a single point. The season saw Renault stoop to a new low as they were convicted orchestrating a crash involving Nelson Piquet Jr. in Singapore 2008, which brought out a safety car and handed Alonso the win. The Team Principal Flavio Briatore was also convicted and was banned from F1 (which was later overturned).
Ferrari (2010-present)
Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa
In 2010 Alonso replaced Kimi Raikkonen, who was forcefully pushed out of Ferrari (by paying his contract out) to accommodate Alonso. Felipe Massa would be his team mate in Ferrari. 2010 was a year where Massa was making a comeback after his horrific accident during qualifying in Hungary. But something had changed in Massa after the accident, he was never the same again. Gradually as usual, Alonso cemented himself as the No.1 driver in Ferrari.
Massa’s performance was deteriorating further. As was with Renault during 2005 and 2006 seasons, Ferrari built their team around Alonso, strikingly similar to the Schumacher era. Massa was used as a pawn just as Barrichello during the Schumacher era to aid Alonso in his championship pursuit. Ferrari were somewhat successful to an extent as Alonso finished second in the drivers championship in 2010 and 2012 though they didn’t have a competitive car.
After an elaborate look into Alonso’s career, there is no doubt that he is going to end up as one of the greatest drivers to race in Formula 1. But, somewhere I feel that Alonso is a driver who doesn’t want any competition from his team mate. He wants the team to focus their complete attention on him and when the need arises, he expects his team mates to make certain sacrifices for him so that he can finish higher (which currently poor old Massa has to do).
If his team mate doesn’t co-operate, then he tends to loose his focus, a clear example is the 2007 season with McLaren. But we can see similar traits in other world class drivers like Michael Schumacher, who had Rubens Barrichello to aide his championship ambitions, Barrichello was even made to give up his victory in Austrian Grand Prix to Schumacher to enable him to clinch the drivers title ( This incident led FIA to sanction a ban on team orders from 2003, but team orders still exist, albeit in a different form where the No.2 driver is told that his team mate is quicker than him, indirectly informing him to let his team mate pass ).
Coming to the current season, Sebastian Vettel also has shown similar traits where he clearly doesn’t want his team mate to come in his way (The famous Multi 21 incident with Mark Webber during the Malaysian Grand Prix) . May be a true champion does need to be selfish, as these three combined have 12 drivers championships between them! It will certainly be interesting to see how Alonso cops with new team mate Kimi Raikkonen for the 2014 season. Fireworks can be surely expected at Ferrari next year!
