Fernando Alonso says Formula 1 drivers must accept they are role models and act accordingly even when they don’t want to.
The two-times world champion also revealed he did not choose to become a racing driver, claiming it was something his father led him into.F1’s most experienced driver of all time, who has started 395 races, made the remarks on the day after the Singapore Grand Prix, in which Max Verstappen was drawn into a conflict with the FIA over his use of a swear word during an official press conference.
Speaking at an event for an Aston Martin sponsor in Chennai, India, Alonso said the huge public interest in F1 means drivers must remember to present themselves correctly.
“You have to be ready to be a role model when you want to do it, and when you don’t want to do it, you still have to do it. When you want to say something that is not correct you have to hold yourself and be political[ly] correct.”
Alonso said the same discipline extends to how drivers prepare for competitions. “When you are in a day that you don’t want to train, or you don’t want to prepare yourself for the next grand prix, you have to do it. In the days that you are ready to do it okay, when you are not ready to do it, you still have to do it, because you have that responsibility towards your fans and the people that believe [in] you.
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“So [when] you are a driver or you are in the public spotlight you need to behave properly. So I think the fans give you a lot of love, give you a lot of motivation, but also a huge responsibility to do what they expect from you.”
Verstappen said he disagreed with the FIA’s requirement for drivers not to swear in press conferences. Since being told to perform a day of “public work” as a punishment, Verstappen limited his participation in FIA press conference to brief remarks.
Alonso also said he never made a conscious decision to become a racing driver, claiming it came about as a result of his father.
“I didn’t choose to be a driver. It was my father, I have to admit,” he said.
“In my case, I did my first go-kart race at the age of three, which you can imagine, I didn’t choose to do the race. My father was very happy that day, my mother less.
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“Then I think obviously you enjoy what you do, you develop some skills at a young age and then if you do well you have more opportunities. You deliver, you win, you go through categories and then eventually you get to F1.”
“But I could not tell my father. And then in football, there are hundreds, thousands of players. In Formula 1, there are only 20.
“So it was more appealing, more exclusive! But, no, jokes apart, I think I missed a lot of things in life, I’m aware of that.”
Alonso said focusing on kart racing meant he “didn’t have a normal school time, I was missing a lot of time, I was just racing in Italy and different countries. I was doing the exams in the following weeks and I [was] struggling a little bit.
“At the age of 19, I became a Formula 1 driver. The first time I was in a disco, I was 29. So I missed [out on] a lot of things.”
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Now 43, Alonso says he does not intend to put off his personal goals for much longer. “I think I was happy with my life, I’m happy with my life. I still miss things.
Alonso spent two seasons out of F1 in 2019 and 2020, during which time he won the Le Mans 24 Hours and contested the Indianapolis 500. However he doubts he will return to the latter after F1.
“There is this very appealing thing, which is winning the Monaco Grand Prix in Formula 1 and winning Le Mans in endurance racing and winning the Indy 500 in oval racing, which is called the triple crown of motor racing. I attempted the Indy 500 three times, didn’t succeed. It’s the only one missing.
“But at the moment it’s not in my plan. I’m very, very focused in Formula 1 now for the next two or three years. I want to win the third world title. This is my first and only priority at the moment. And after that, because I will be 45, 46, I think the commitment that it will require to go to Indy 500, the amount of learning that I will have to redo again, it will be a little bit too much. Or it’s what I think now, I cannot say 100% that it will be too much.
“I have, as I said, other goals in life as well. I think my next biggest challenge will be the Dakar rally. If I can win Dakar, I think it will be hugely rewarding for me personally because I can win in Formula 1, I can win in endurance racing, win in Le Mans and Daytona, and if I can win in rally as well, it will mean a lot for me as a driver.”
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Shimks (@shimks)
1st October 2024, 12:33
What a hero Alonso is. I absolutely love him, warts and all. What an exceptional driver, even in subpar machinery – the test of a true great, me thinks.
I find it bizarre looking at that photo of young Alonso. So much time has passed, so quickly. I don’t remember him being that young. I am now passing a mirror in my home, and I dare not look!
Nick T.
1st October 2024, 14:29
It makes me feel especially old and nostalgic. I used to dislike Alonso early on in his career simply out of petty and youthful jealousy as he was only two years older than me when he was at Renault and I was I thinking “I deserve all that!” (I didn’t of course, but I didn’t have the wisdom to realize that at the time) lolol
To add context, I was racing at the time. Otherwise, like w/stars in other sports, I wouldn’t have cared.
floodo1 (@floodo1)
1st October 2024, 13:40
bravo
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
1st October 2024, 14:11
Wow, go kart racing at 3, that’s insane.
BLS (@brightlampshade)
1st October 2024, 14:32
He’s had one heck of a career, and only missed out on cleaning up the stats book due to some miniscule events.
Had McLaren gone with de la Rosa in 2007 then he’d almost certainly be a 4x WDC by end of 2008.
How close was he really from joining Red Bull at the opportune moment?
If he’d stayed at McLaren longer would he have been more considered by Mercedes in the future?
As it was he’s driven mostly poor F1 cars since 2008. Some of the Ferrari’s were alright, but they were a step down vs the Red Bulls. He has his flaws of course but is held in very high regard despite “only” winning 8%-ish of his races. After his last Ferrari podium in 2014 he didn’t get another until…. 2021?
Stats aren’t everything, but they do tell a story of missed chances.
Nick T.
1st October 2024, 14:41
He was overly aggressive early in the season in 2007, not expecting Hamilton to be a true challenge over the season, which cost him points when he’d go for moves like the one at the start of the Spanish GP. That cost him dearly. I’d say his 2007 season was one of the poorest. He had been used to Michelins and was no Bridgestones. He was also clearly put of kilter that instead of being the undisputed #1, he had this rookie out of nowhere challenging him and he was unhappy Lewis was given access to his data. Possibly the most costly thing of all was that his English was still not great and it resulted in him misunderstanding some things Ron Dennis said (e.g., he thought Dennis had told him he didn’t deserve to win the Monaco race) and Dennis misunderstood some things he said, which played a big role in the breakdown of that relationship.
His Ferrari drives were by far the most impressive. In 2010 and 2012, his car wasn’t even close to being the second best on average.
Nick T.
1st October 2024, 14:32
He was racing his sister’s go-kart, which dad made out of who knows what. His dad had tried to get her to race, but she just didn’t care about it. Starting around 12 or so, he started funding his karting by building other people’s karts and doing their setups. It’s funny to watch his old karting races and even some his formula racing when they were still calling him “Fernando Diaz.”
J765
1st October 2024, 17:08
The man behind all the scandals in the last 20 years (clearly involved in espionage and having your teammate crash to win a race) who won 2 WDC thanks to a moving aerodinamic device banned as soon as it was discovered, says drivers should be role models.
Kerry Maxwell (@kerrymaxwell)
1st October 2024, 20:29
I didn’t realize Alonso designed the tuned mass dampers! He really is a hero! You do realize Flavio and Fernando are two different people, right? And that Alonso was not responsible for Spygate?
BenHur
1st October 2024, 20:34
Why bother? First rule: never feed’em
Nick T.
2nd October 2024, 1:39
The funniest part about the Singapore crash is you’d realize why the idea was originally Nelson’s and then backed by Flavio and Pat Symonds. Alonso never knew. Renault was threatening to pull backing for the team if they didn’t win that season. Nelson knew he’d never get another drive while Flavio would unlikely to be able to ever get such a senior position at another team. And Pat Symonds was thinking about the entire staff who had families to feed. Alonso OTH, would have been fine.
The sad irony is that Alonso dominantly won the next race fair and square. And he may have won Singapore without his teammate pulling that had it not been for fuel feed problem that prevented from setting a time in quali.
As for involved in spying…you’re telling me Alonso was with Mike Coughlin’s wife when she photocopied Ferrari docs given to him by Ferrari’s Nigel Stepney? That’s amazing!
As for your other “allegation,” it’s honestly too stupid to dignify. The better question is what your true motivation is for always slandering FA.
David BR (@david-br)
2nd October 2024, 18:27
How could you possibly know that for sure?! Only FA can.
However you spin it, getting an employee to crash, or agreeing to their offer to do so (is there a source for this version?) is inexcusable and worth all participants being kicked out of F1 for a lifetime. I don’t think ‘staff who had families to feed’ is justification or even mitigating for the main actors involved.
As for Alonso, how involved he was in either incident, if at all, is one probably for future memoirs, but it’s a long time either way. I kind of see him as a good role model in many ways actually, including his public demeanour, politeness, intelligent answers to reasonable questions, his general self-belief, motivation, resilience and passion for what he does. All good. I don’t see his comments as hypocritical.
Nick T.
2nd October 2024, 18:47
I can’t possibly know “for sure,” but according to the accounts of Pat Symonds, Flavio and Nelson Piquet, he didn’t know let alone it being his idea. Flavio is the only one with an incentive to lie about that. Piquet certainly didn’t. He spilled the beans purely out of revenge. Yet he’s protecting Alonso? If it were any driver besides Alonso, they would have been given the benefit of the doubt. But with the English media endlessly portraying him as a villain during that era and the legions of Hamilton fans who bought into that and hated him, it’s no coincidence that the true, full story was basically talked about. As a big Hamilton fan yourself, the idea he didn’t plan it let alone know probably never even occurred at the time.
Nick T.
2nd October 2024, 18:48
was basically never talked about*
David BR (@david-br)
3rd October 2024, 0:40
Well, that’s an entirely evidence-free projection of what I may have thought at the time.
As the main beneficiary of Piquet’s crash, was Alonso suspected? Obviously. Was there any proof? No. Otherwise he’d have faced similar consequences. Are the accounts of Pat Symonds, Flavio and Nelson Piquet reliable? Obviously not. They were proven to have plotted, denied and lied. So I wouldn’t believe Piquet even if he did name Alonso. Besides, it wasn’t Singapore 2008 that was the source of the English media’s vilification of Alonso, it was the events over 2007.
Nick T.
3rd October 2024, 2:51
I clearly said said he had been vilified in the run up. And the fact he was vilified over 2007 is even more of a joke.
David BR (@david-br)
3rd October 2024, 12:42
Depends on who you believe. Nobody at McLaren behaved well over that season, as we know, but the post-qualifying row at Hungary and the threats made by Alonso were seismic – and he soon (after cooling down) regretted them, returned to apologize, but Ron Dennis had already acted on them. He allegedly threatened to send Mosley emails on the Ferrari espionage (Mosley actually already knew about them) if they didn’t underfuel Hamilton in the race. Some degree of vilification is justified. The counter will be that Hamilton went back on an agreement for Alonso to be ahead on the circuit in qualifying, which, motivations aside, seems true. But that’s really not on the same level as Alonso’s response (blocking Hamilton in the pits) and then essentially going nuclear in the aftermath after he lost 5 grid positions (hardly race-ending btw). Something Alonso effectively realized and acknowledged too late.
Keith Campbell (@keithedin)
2nd October 2024, 14:43
Thank god there have only been two scandals in F1 in the past 20 years! Glad to follow such a transparent and uncontroversial sport.
Nick T.
2nd October 2024, 16:33
lol. Yeah. Thank god. And it’s crazy FA has been solely responsible for all of them.
Peter707
3rd October 2024, 13:26
“At the age of 19, I became a Formula 1 driver. The first time I was in a disco, I was 29. So I missed [out on] a lot of things.”
“I don’t have kids: Something that I want to have, as a personal goal, in the next years, not too long, hopefully. And there are things that became not as planned when I was 15 or 16, I probably imagined a different life.”
That’s why I don’t really get which kind of role model he could be, controversies apart. He may be rich, but so incredibly poor in human relationships and simple joys of life. Who wants this? Even himself, it wasn’t what he was dreaming about as a child or teenager.
Nick T.
4th October 2024, 3:55
He’s not seeking to be a role model. He clearly indicates that it is an unfortunate inevitability. And who says he’s poor in human relationships? He’s extremely close with his family and spends tons of time with them. He values his privacy, which is why most people don’t know anything about him besides F1. Also, as the only F1 driver who got into F1 as a working class kid in without getting a lucky connection to outside help, he’s a great role model, as far as F1 drivers go, for showing that if you have the talent and determination, you can achieve great things.
Frankly, it’s sign of our species’ stupidity and our cultural vacuousness that athletes are considered role models at all.
Mayrton
4th October 2024, 9:24
I do not regard them as role models at all. Why would a gladiator ever be a role model? Maybe to violent dictator kind of types they are. I would say they are the opposite of role models as they are way way too much focused on one thing and are not all round individuals at all. I have respect for them for being the best within their little niche, but I wouldn’t go any further than that.
Nick T.
4th October 2024, 10:10
Whether you do or not is not at issue (I clearly indicate that I don’t view them as such or think any athlete should be a role model), but the fact is that many kids do. And he’s addressing that fact.
Peter707
4th October 2024, 9:24
He indeed values his privacy, but it simply seems he doesn’t have too much life to hide. Compare his life to other (ex)drivers’ in their mid-40s.
Nick T.
4th October 2024, 10:12
Please point out any major differences besides not having children. And anyone who’s spent time with kids know it’s no great loss. Most parents I know seem absolutely miserable yet they console themselves with platitudes that amount to it’s awful but so rewarding. Sure.