Fernando Alonso, McLaren, Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, 2018

Alonso denies he’s “bored” of F1 ahead of 300th race weekend

2018 Canadian Grand Prix

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Fernando Alonso says he isn’t “bored” by F1 and expects to continue long beyond his 300th event this weekend in Canada.

The McLaren driver has recently begun competing in other championships and criticised how predictable F1 has become. But he denied he intends to leave the sport’s top flight.

“I’m not bored,” Alonso told journalists in Montreal. “It’s obviously the top series in motor sport. It’s where we all dream to come one day when we are go-kart drivers.

“But it’s true that in the last years, especially with the turbo era, things are so predictable. This is race seven, there are 21 races, and we all know what is going to happen in the next 14 races. This is very sad for the sport.

“It’s nothing against Formula One, it’s not that I get tired of F1, it’s just I know that I will come here and I will fight from seventh to 12th and I will finish the season in Abu Dhabi fighting from seventh to 12th.”

Alonso said he isn’t done with F1 yet. “I already signed last year,” he said. “It is a multi-year contract. I have many more years.”

Reflecting on his career so far, Alonso acknowledged he might easily have won more than his two world championship titles.

“I know that there are some opportunities missing in the past. We could have won probably four or five championships by, I think, seven points one time and then three and three, something like that.

“At the same time I feel extremely privileged to have 18 years in F1. I know there are drivers here that I race against, I see them on the track, I see their previous categories, and they never experienced even a podium. I see my team mate now, Nico [Hulkenberg], Carlos [Sainz Jnr], I see a lot of talented drivers that didn’t even score a podium.

“At the same time we missed some opportunities but I’m happy with the things I have done.”

Alonso has appeared in 299 F1 race weekends and started 296 grands prix. He did not officially start three races he entered: Belgium 2001, USA 2005 and Russia 2017.

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26 comments on “Alonso denies he’s “bored” of F1 ahead of 300th race weekend”

  1. I hope he will do 500 races.
    True racer

    1. Now that’s an unrealistic number even for alonso’s unexpected comment, I think he means at most 80 more races.

  2. Here again we have highlighted the problem that exists because there are so many restrictions Manon in season testing, CFD and wind tunnel work & even PU development.

    Alonso is correct in his analysis and expectation of where they will be fighting for the remainder of the season because there is so very little a team can do to improve their cars performance once winter testing is done.

    1. Considering the disparity in resources even without the current restrictions the Top 3 teams would remain the same, in would probably make the gap even worse!

    2. @dbradoc, the thing is, when you had unlimited testing in the past, it often made little difference to the majority of the grid and the majority of the teams in terms of enabling teams to catch up.

      If a big team started out the season strongly, the financial resources they’d have at their disposal and the ability to throw wind tunnel, track testing and simulator development work at the car meant they’d usually stay in that position for the rest of the season.

      If, by contrast, you started off the season poorly, even if you then did sort out the flaws the car had, your rivals would have been continuing to develop their cars and, chances are, already pulled out a major advantage in both the WDC and WCC.

      More often than not, what tended to happen is that teams would cancel each other out when it came to unrestricted development, given that the development rates of most teams tended to be reasonably similar over the length of the season. You usually end up in a zero sum game where all of the teams are spending heavily and are effectively cancelling each other out in terms of development work.

  3. ”we all know what is going to happen in the next 14 races.” – No, we don’t.

    1. ”Alonso has appeared in 299 F1 race weekends and started 296 grands prix. He did not officially start three races he entered: Belgium 2001, USA 2005 and Russia 2017.”
      – 2015 Australian, 2016 Bahrain and 2017 Monaco GPs can also be counted as races that he didn’t start.

      1. @jerejj he didn’t enter them, it doesn’t count as a non starter.

        1. @fer-no65 Yes, I’m aware that DNP, DNA, and WD (did not practice, did not arrive, and withdrawn respectively) have a little different meaning to DNS, but a non-start is still a non-start nevertheless.

          1. @jerejj you can’t count those races as non starts, because he wasn’t taking part. It’s like counting the whole of the 2002 season as races Alonso didn’t start.

    2. yes we do…2 or 3 teams have cars that will dominate the others and populate the podium barring a fluke such as inclement weather. F1 is predictable if nothing else.

  4. He keeps saying that we all know whats going to happen over the next 14 races, but do we? I think he means “we all know what’s going to happen to McLaren over the next 14 races”

    1. petebaldwin (@)
      7th June 2018, 20:48

      To be fair to him, I think that’s what he means as well. In his next sentence, he talks about how he’ll be fighting for 7th to 12th in the next race and will still be fighting for 7th to 12th in Abu Dhabi.

      That sentence written on it’s own sounds like he’s talking about the top 6 but he isn’t.

  5. Next time you hear a driver saying the results are predictable, please ask him to tell you the podium of the next 5 races.

    1. @dusty I can’t help but think the winners of the remaining WEC races are a lot easier to predict than the winners of the remaining grands prix.

      1. Exactly.

        In fact, it happens in most series, including one make series. It’s the way of motor sport.

  6. But everyone were telling that Alonso will announce his retirement in Canada. Now this.

  7. Vettel fan 17 (@)
    7th June 2018, 21:27

    I hope he doesn’t leave, he is probably the best driver on the grid currently imo

  8. Probably he’s leading then the Race Fans predictions championship! Seriously, I think he was referring the 6 first positions

  9. This is race seven, there are 21 races, and we all know what is going to happen in the next 14 races.

    The only thing we actually know is that McLaren won’t be winning any of them.

    1. You mean all but 3 teams won’t be winning any of them…

      1. Indeed, there’s too much disparity. What I expect is mercedes to have the upper hand again, ferrari to challenge them often, red bull to challenge them sometimes and win the downforce races, who wins what is hard to predict, example the coming race, save for crashes and issues should be between hamilton and vettel, but some can be any of the 3 teams, it’s however easy to predict the other teams have no chance.

      2. Yes, but what I’m really implying is that (a) the championship is fairly open still between the top 3 teams, so we don’t know what’s going to happen (who’s going to win), and (b) Alonso is only complaining because McLaren isn’t in contention. Three teams chasing the WDC is pretty good. I agreed with him about Monaco, but in terms of overall competition, it sounds more like he’s fed up with his own personal lot.

  10. Let me translate what he means:
    There are only 3 teams capable of winning races – the rest are midfielders.
    He has said it before and he is correct.

  11. What I take from this article is that Alonso has a multi-year contract to drive with McLaren, but that doesn’t mean it’s multi-years in F1. McLaren could race in Indycar, ALMS….etc. I’d like to see a video of this interview just to see if important particulars were left out, but Zak and Eric don’t spend 2 days in meetings in Detroit for nothing. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.

  12. His association with criminal Flavio certainly doesn’t work in his favor

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