It’s Tough Being Fernando Alonso Right Now

Fernando Alonso and milestones are, usually speaking, always at a one hand distance. No fanboy-speak this; but perhaps the actual truth. Here is how.

A few hours back, Fernando Alonso turned 43, which again meant that he turned the oldest man competing currently on the F1 grid, as if that wasn’t true of the last couple of years. Not only is Fernando Alonso the oldest on the grid, he is also the sport’s most experienced racer.

While that was one milestone in itself, there is another cropping up in a few races’ time.

Unless something really dastardly or undesirable happens, there is no power on earth besides the almighty that can stop Fernando Alonso from becoming the sport’s first driver to enter 400 Grands Prix contests.

And for that to happen, the man from Asturias, Northern Spain needs just 9 more F1 starts. In other words, he needs just 6 more F1 Grand Prix entries to become the first man in the sport’s glorious and long history to record 400 race appearances.

He must get there. He must ensure that that moment becomes one worth savouring. This is no other F1 driver; but a pure racing titan. And that is absolutely the truth.

However, it is also quite hard to be in Fernando Alonso’s shoes. Now, how is that for the milestone man?

Well, for the simplest of reasons that despite racing in no fewer than fourteen F1 races this season, Alonso is yet to score a podium. As a matter of fact, in the last 5 races, Alonso has managed a top-10 finish in a Formula 1 Grand Prix on only two separate occasions.

The Great Fernando Alonso Deserves Better Results Than His Car Is Fetching

At Spain, which is the home turf of the man considered the Samurai of racing, Fernando Alonso scored a negligible P12. This was followed by another lowly result: a P18 at Austria.

Post that, Alonso found some reprieve of sorts as he battled his way to a respectable P8 at Great Britain, which also happens to be the venue of a famous race win in the past. But then, as seen at Hungary and then, Belgium, Alonso scored points in just one of those races.

Spa-Francorchamps’ picturesque surroundings didn’t exactly cut a great frame for the man whose efforts any youngster would like to frame in his room of inspiration; at Belgium, Fernando Alonso scored a P8. However, that was slightly better than the hefty disappointment of having missed out on scoring any points, whatsoever at Hungary, which was a race before.

But what if you were told that all of this is still not as worse as probably a bit of comparison made with Alonso’s own stats at around this time last year?

For last year, Alonso had collected 7 podiums in such time. Lest it is forgotten, the man who has previously raced with both Ferrari and McLaren had opened his 2023 campaign by striking a hat-trick of podium finishes.

As on date in 2024, however, Alonso has been able to breach into the top-five just once and that too, was nearly half a year back at Saudi Arabia.

It ought to be said that strange are the ways of F1, where team- fortunes and car performances oscillate far strangely than the changing vagaries of an economic power. But then, the great must continue to persevere for that is the only way they tend to operate. And Alonso is, undoubtedly, a great of his time..of any time, actually.