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MEXICO CITY — In what has been, by all accounts, a disappointing season for Aston Martin in Formula One, its arrival in Mexico offers a chance for a small celebration.
This weekend, the Mexico City Grand Prix will mark the 400th time Fernando Alonso, the two-time F1 world champion, has entered a grand prix — the first driver in F1 history to reach that landmark.
It’s an astonishing figure. When Alonso started his F1 career in 2001, it would have seemed far out of reach. Back then, Riccardo Patrese’s tally of 267 starts seemed unbeatable; now it’s only enough to put him 11th on the all-time record list.
F1 calendars are now far longer, and it’s easier to rack up high numbers of starts. But in the case of Alonso, at 43, his longevity and commitment remain rare qualities. And they command nothing but respect and admiration among his rivals, peers and teammates.
“Fernando breathes racing, eats racing, wakes up racing,” said Esteban Ocon, Alonso’s former teammate at Alpine. “He’s one of the best ever, clearly.”
The young Fernando
Pedro de la Rosa was once the rising star of Spanish motorsport. After winning the Formula Renault UK title in 1992 at 21, he was invited to an awards ceremony for all the top Spanish drivers. One of the attendees was an 11-year-old go-karter who was tipped as a future star.
“He was just a kid, a boy,” de la Rosa told The Athletic. “I remember Fernando was so shy, he was answering the questions with yes or no. He looked so young and immature. I remember thinking he might be very good, but he has a lot to learn; how to handle the media, press conferences.”
Fast forward a decade and both de la Rosa and Alonso had made it to F1. The 2001 Spanish Grand Prix was the first time they had raced against each other. Neither had high hopes — Alonso raced for the backmarker Minardi team in only his fifth F1 race, and de la Rosa, who debuted in 1999, was racing for the first time that season with Jaguar. But as the two home drivers, national pride was involved.
De la Rosa was aware of Alonso’s junior record, but it wasn’t until that race that he saw for himself just what his compatriot was doing in the black Minardi. “I thought, ‘f—, this guy is quick,’ because the car was awful. He was driving on a knife-edge.” De la Rosa still recalls when he passed Alonso, believing they even made eye contact down the straight. “I thought, ‘holy s—, this guy is better than what the people were talking about.’ At that moment in time, I realized we were in front of a very, very special driver.”
Alonso soared, becoming F1’s youngest race winner in 2003, its youngest world champion two years later, and the first Spaniard to win the title. De la Rosa admitted that while he respected Alonso, he was “not a friend” of his. “I was always the old guy, the old Spaniard, he was the young generation coming through,” de la Rosa said. “So, in a way, I saw him like a threat.”
In 2007, they became teammates at McLaren when Alonso joined alongside Lewis Hamilton, and de la Rosa was the reserve driver, giving him the chance to see how Alonso worked.
De la Rosa felt Alonso’s wide skill set put him ahead of his time.
“It was how he was thinking about strategy while he was driving, how he was saving fuel, how he was cooling the brakes,” de la Rosa explained. “All the techniques that everyone now knows of lift and coast, of saving fuel and cooling down the tires and the braking … everyone knows how to do it now because you are taught by your engineers and you practice in the simulator. Fernando was the first driver I saw do that.
“I remember once that we were looking at his data. I was learning from him, Lewis was learning from him, we were all learning from him. That’s the reality. And he was really pissed off one day. I was looking at the data, Lewis was looking at his data, he came into the engineers’ room, and he said, ‘I hate data. If data did not exist, I would be miles ahead!’
“It was actually true. We all benefited from his experience.”
A naturally gifted driver
De la Rosa’s observations are echoed by all who have crossed paths with Alonso. His talents set him apart as one of the most naturally gifted drivers on the grid. Across his career with five different teams, only two teammates have beaten him head-to-head in an F1 season: Hamilton in 2007 and Ocon in 2022.
Telling a driver to copy what Alonso is doing in the car is like telling a golfer they should swing their club like Tiger Woods, without actually explaining how he does it.
“Sometimes I think he even struggles to tell the team what is necessary because he just has such a natural capability of adapting to something that he doesn’t always expose the problem,” Stoffel Vandoorne, Alonso’s teammate of two years at McLaren and now Aston Martin’s reserve driver, told The Athletic.
“That helps him in a lot of circumstances where he just gets in the car. He doesn’t need a lap to get used to anything, he just goes out there, and it happens automatically. I think that’s his real strength.”
De la Rosa, now an advisor and ambassador at Aston Martin, explained how Alonso could immediately know just how good — or bad — a car is within a couple of laps. It happened when the team shook down its car at Silverstone in February this year.
“He was posting times close to Max Verstappen’s pole position the year before,” de la Rosa said. “He jumped out of the car, and I said, ‘Man, this is a shakedown, what the hell were you doing?’ And he said, ‘No, I’m just pushing to where the car limit is. I’m not taking risks. I know what we can do.’”
When Alonso was told how he compared to Verstappen’s lap time, he nodded and told de la Rosa: “We are not fast enough.”
“I said, ‘Fernando, demo tires, (it’s) winter, it’s impossible to compare lap times, the track is green and freezing cold here,’” de la Rosa recalled. “He said, ‘Believe me, we are not quick enough.’”
Alonso has maximized the Aston Martin car again this year, but it lacks the performance to make him a podium regular as regularly as in 2023. He’s only scored 62 points this year, barely a third of his tally at the same point last season (183) amid Aston Martin’s dip in form.
“The reality is that he was right,” de la Rosa said. “We haven’t been quick enough.”
Vandoorne said Alonso had a “natural ability to drive around problems” with a car, especially true during their time together at McLaren, in 2017 and 2018, when the team reached its nadir. In two seasons, it didn’t finish a race higher than fifth. While Alonso could still get the most out of two bad cars, Vandoorne struggled. He was out-qualified 21-0 by Alonso in 2018, which was Vandoorne’s last season in F1.
He became champion in Formula E and believes the chance to go up against Alonso has only been good for his career.
“Fernando is one of the best that’s been around, and still is one of the best,” Vandoorne said. “So it’s never easy to be compared against a driver like him. It’s been good for my career, even afterward, to realize what parts I have to work on, and I think especially the adaptability that he has is something I’ve tried to really take with me as well into everything else that I’ve done afterwards.”
A desire to be the best
To still be racing in F1 at 43, over 23 years since his debut, and have a contract signed with Aston Martin for at least another two seasons is a testament to Alonso’s hunger to be the best. He has previously said that, without his two-season stint away from the sport in 2019 and 2020, he’s unlikely to have extended his career so much. But upon agreeing to leave Alpine for Aston Martin in the summer of 2022, it was evident to the team how much drive there was still to succeed.
“I was blown away,” Mike Krack, Aston Martin’s team principal, told The Athletic when recalling their first meeting. “There was a big reputation, and I was questioned a lot about that.’
That ‘reputation’ is Alonso’s political nature. His career had been potted with instances of serious tension with his team. An explosive fallout led to his exit from McLaren after just one year in 2007. His time at Ferrari, which included two narrow title defeats, ended fractiously in 2014. Then came the second McLaren stint and frustration about its underperformance with Honda engines, including the infamous “GP2 engine” radio message at Honda’s home race in Japan.
During Aston Martin’s current struggles, Krack has not seen any reason for concern. If anything, he feels Alonso’s all-out, brutal honesty has only been a good thing for the team as it bids to become a championship-fighting operation.
“I did not see any of this reputation,” he said. “It was quite straightforward, like an honest, transparent approach, which is mine as well. It was quite easy, to be honest. The amount of experience, the amount of commitment, and this push that he gave us, that was something we really, really gained a lot from. That was really very refreshing.”
Vandoorne saw Alonso deal with some of the more challenging periods of his career and struggle for form but notes a shift in his old teammate. “I think at McLaren, he had this kind of frustration and anger within him, sometimes,” Vandoorne said. “He was always very competitive, but he had a few years where it didn’t work out his way.
“I think he’s changed a bit in that way. I think he now understands how to communicate within the team. He’s a team player. I think that was maybe a little bit of a harder part for him before, but he really is a team player.”
An unwavering love for driving
What underpins all of Alonso’s success and his staggering longevity is that passion for racing. Even on weekends when he’s not at an F1 track, he’ll often be spending his time throwing a go-kart around his track at home in Oviedo. He’s also the only driver in the modern era to seriously pursue the ‘Triple Crown of Motorsport,’ winning the 24 Hours of Le Mans twice and entering the Indianapolis 500, looking to add them to his Monaco Grand Prix victories.
“He’s one of my favorite racing drivers,” said McLaren CEO Zak Brown, who brokered Alonso’s Indy 500 debut in 2017. “He is a throwback to the days where the Mario Andrettis hopped around and the Dan Gurneys. I’m a massive fan of Fernando’s and enjoy watching him race, and he’s a tough competitor to race against.”
Alonso’s all-out approach to racing left an impression on Ocon throughout their two years together at Alpine. “He just wants to drive and race all the time,” Ocon said. “I’ve talked about it for him, what motivates him. He just says he doesn’t really know what else to do. It’s been his life, and he just enjoys racing all the time.”
De la Rosa said that Alonso’s passion for racing far exceeded anything else he had seen, even his love for the sport.
“We have to look into ourselves and say, did I ever have the same passion as Fernando? Would I drive 400 grands prix at this level, with this intensity, with all my life virtually? No,” de la Rosa said. “Because I don’t think there is. I haven’t met any other driver in my life that has the passion that he has for motor racing.”
Alonso’s longevity has also helped redefine how drivers stay in peak condition well into their 40s. There has been no drop-off as many drivers — and top sports stars in general — may experience in their late 30s. For that reason, Alonso’s age is not even a consideration for Krack.
“I think an elite sportsman like Fernando, he would be the first to raise his hand and say ‘I’m done,’ and this point has not arrived yet,” Krack said. “(People have) asked me a lot of questions like, is he this superhuman? I think maybe partly yes, but I think what you have is the combination of talent and the professionalism to prepare yourself well, to train the right way, and to have a balanced life.”
That kind of dedication also inspires the current generation of drivers who, with 24 races per season, stand a much better chance of getting toward Alonso’s tally — and maybe even surpassing it.
“Fernando is a warrior,” said Mercedes’ George Russell. “He’s put so much focus on himself and his body, there’s no surprise to me that he’s able to keep on going at the age he is. The experience he’s gained is immense.
“Fernando, Lewis as well, those guys give me the inspiration that I can definitely keep going into my 40s. I’m 26 now — I still feel I’ve got a good 15 years left in me.”
But if a driver surpasses Alonso’s final tally of F1 races, wherever that may end up, it won’t serve as any great loss to him. While he is eager to celebrate the landmark in Mexico, to him, his career is about so much more than raw numbers.
“I would love to race half of the 400, and win one more championship or win more races,” Alonso said. “That’s the important statistics that you want to achieve.
“But at the same time, it shows my love for the sport and the discipline of trying to perform at a very high level for 20-plus years.”
Top photo: Chris Graythen/Getty Images
