Max Verstappen says Fernando Alonso has shown him that age alone does not make a Formula 1 driver slower – but the physical toll of the cars certainly grows.<\/p>\n
Speaking to Viaplay, the four-time world champion revealed a recent conversation with Alonso, now 44, during a flight to Qatar late in the season.<\/p>\n
“I was on a plane with Fernando to Qatar and we talked about it,” Verstappen said. “For me, it\u2019s interesting to know – I mean, he\u2019s 44! So I asked him something like, \u2019What do you think about that?\u2019 I thought, let me ask.”<\/p>\n
According to Verstappen, Alonso was clear that raw speed does not simply disappear with age.<\/p>\n
“It\u2019s more about physical discomfort,” Verstappen explained. “You have more problems, and these cars aren\u2019t the best to drive anyway. And when you\u2019re older, you suffer more from these things. Your shoulders, your back, your neck – it requires much more effort when you\u2019re older.”<\/p>\n
Despite that, Alonso showed little sign of slowing down after the Abu Dhabi season finale, where he suggested he would not even touch a kart again until January.<\/p>\n
Spanish media, however, report otherwise.<\/p>\n
Just ten days after his final Formula 1 race of the year, Alonso was back on track at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, driving a 2019 Aston Martin Vantage DTM car and even giving “hot laps” to guests and journalists.<\/p>\n
He then headed to the annual A14 Management camp, where he climbed into a motocross car to give his young drivers an off-road lesson.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Max Verstappen says Fernando Alonso has shown him that age alone does not make a Formula 1 driver…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":358131,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[49,48,578,576,577,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-358130","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-formula-1","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-f1","11":"tag-formula-1","12":"tag-formula1","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=358130"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358130\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/358131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=358130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=358130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=358130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}