Fernando Alonso - Time for a move on again?

Fernando Alonso

“Hopefully I can continue as long as I want and I can finish my career here with a lot of wins. I really think Ferrari will be my last team. Leaving Ferrari to change teams is a step backwards.” – Fernando Alonso after joining Ferrari in October 2009.

It seemed like joining Ferrari was all Fernando Alonso wanted from his Formula 1 career. It did look rosy for him in the beginning of his Ferrari career when he converted his first race for Ferrari into a victory in Bahrain. It was a fairy-tale beginning. It was not just the debut victory; he would have gone onto win the title with Ferrari that season had there not been a strategy goof-up by the team in the last race of the season in Abu Dhabi.

The romantics and the Tifosi would have been surely expecting and hoping for a legendary partnership to ensue. The post-race interviews saw Alonso’s trademark ‘protect my team’ act, where he went on to defend what clearly seemed like a wrong call by the Ferrari engineers.

But sadly for Alonso, he never got what he expected out of Ferrari, a consistent front-running car. Ferrari has always been on the verge of providing him a car capable of competing with Vettel, but has always been a crucial few tenths behind on the average throughout the past three seasons, and the trend seems to be continuing this season. All through this period, the one thing that has been common is that Alonso has always backed his team of engineers, be it good or bad times.

Ever since he joined the Maranello-based outfit, we seem to have lost some of his flamboyancy when compared to his earlier seasons at Renault and McLaren. By no means am I suggesting of him being less flamboyant on the track, but rather off it.

Back in the day, he had always had those niggly relationships with team mates and rivals, and he was never a guy who would shy away from making the odd statement that would stir a controversy.

“Zidane retired with more glory than Schumacher. Michael is the man with the most sanctions and the most unsporting driver in the history of Formula 1.” That was Alonso’s comment on Michael Schumacher after his retirement at the end of the 2006 season.

Be it his rivalry with Schumacher, his animosity with Hamilton at McLaren or the infamous Crashgate scandal, he has never been alien to controversies.

You tend to miss those carefree interviews from his Renault and McLaren days when he used to be upbeat about his feelings in public. Now, it seems, he is a lot more concerned about carrying his image as a ‘Ferrari Driver’. Call this change- ‘coming of age’ or the effect of Ferrari’s ‘Team before driver protocol’.

The rebuke he got from Ferrari president, Luca Montezemolo, in Hungary because of his comments was a rare occasion when he came out expressing his frustrations in public regarding the team’s progress. All throughout his career, he has shown to have possessed a rare trait of being positive even in the hardest of times instead of grumbling about the cars’ performance issues. He did it best during the tough times he had at Renault and he continues to do the same at Ferrari.

But you got to give the double world champion some space. He came to Ferrari expecting a car that could win Championships, but the team has not even come close to delivering a car capable of it. He has always been pushing that car way out of its driveable limits and to be fair to him, he has had a long and patient wait so far.

Alonso’s Formula 1 career so far can be segregated into three major stages:

Renault (2003-06):-The team was already on a surge when he joined them in 2003 and it was just a case of pouncing on to the opportunity he had got with a midfield running team. He rightfully earned his No.1 status in the team and at the time he won the 2006 world title, it almost seemed like a team and a car that he had forged around himself.

Fernando Alonso celebrates his victory with Team principal Flavio Briatore in Monaco, 2006.

McLaren (2007):- He went to Mclaren expecting to get same sort of favours he had had at Renault and why blame him for his perspective. Very few people would have expected Lewis Hamilton to pose the serious challenge for the title in his rookie season.

“It was very simple- Alonso didn’t expect Hamilton to be that competitive in his first year. He told me at the beginning that it was my decision to sign a rookie like Hamilton, but that it could cost me the Constructors’ Championship. Fernando was calculating everything, but not that Lewis would challenge him.”- Ron Dennis after Alonso left Mclaren.

It would be fair to say that he gained a lot from his stay at Mclaren and it did turn out to be a career altering season. More importantly what he must have learned is that the atmosphere at McLaren was never something that suited him as a person or as a driver.

Ferrari (2010-Present):- He did fulfil his father’s dream of seeing him driving for Ferrari at some point in his career. As things stand he does seem to have struck the balance when it comes to the bonding he has with the team. But the truth remains that he has just not got a car that is truly worthy of fighting for the championship.

Possible Red Bull move?

“It was good for my career to take that step of joining Mclaren. I learned how to work with a team and also to withstand the media pressure. The difficulties I had were coming from the team and media. Now I am prepared for everything in Formula 1, and also in life.”- Alonso on his time at Mclaren.

Lesson Leanrt?

An inference that could be possibly drawn from the above three stints is that he was most successful when he had a good car engineered around him, and, more importantly, a team that backed him completely.

He has never got the combination of the two ever since he left Renault in 2006. So, should he be expecting something similar when he goes to Red Bull? Obviously no. He would be aware of the fact that he’ll be entering ‘Sebastian’s team’, and beating him in such a scenario would be an uphill task. Can he accomplish what Button did to Hamilton at McLaren? Or will it be a 2007 all over again? Only time will tell.