{"id":637265,"date":"2026-04-29T22:37:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T22:37:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/637265\/"},"modified":"2026-04-29T22:37:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T22:37:11","slug":"mph-fernando-alonso-still-has-the-magic-hes-not-done-with-f1-yet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/637265\/","title":{"rendered":"MPH: Fernando Alonso still has the magic – he’s not done with F1 yet"},"content":{"rendered":"

Talking at the Monaco Historic event last weekend, Fernando Alonso<\/a> indicated strongly that he wishes to continue in F1 beyond his current contract, which expires at the end of this season.<\/p>\n

\u201cTime will tell,\u201d he said. \u201cI will feel it. At the moment, I don\u2019t feel it is that time yet. I feel competitive, I feel motivated, I feel happy when I drive. So, yeah hopefully [this is] not the last season.\u201d<\/p>\n

Counter-intuitively perhaps, the longer the Aston Martin<\/a> project takes to come good, the greater are the chances that Alonso will continue. Because his whole mission is to prove that he can still deliver grand prix victories, that he can still take on the whole field of F1\u2019s best and beat them.<\/p>\n

Feeling that he is still performing to a level at or close to his prime \u2013 a prime higher than 90% of the drivers on the grid \u2013 is one thing. Proving it to the watching world is something else.<\/p>\n

There is naturally some cynicism that, at 44 years old, he can really be the driver he was when he last won a world title 20 years ago. The usual barometer of a team-mate doesn\u2019t on paper make the case very strongly because, although he has totally dominated Lance Stroll<\/a> at Aston for the last three seasons, Stroll\u2019s standing isn\u2019t that high, even though he is a driver with a podium and a pole position on his CV and who held a record for the youngest front row starter back in his Williams<\/a> days.<\/p>\n

\"Fernando<\/p>\n

Alonso has dominated Stroll during their time at Aston<\/p>\n

\n Aston Martin\n <\/p>\n

There are better, deeper indications of Alonso\u2019s level than his domination over Stroll, but with regard to that, it\u2019s worth pointing out his qualifying advantage over him is substantially bigger than was Sebastian Vettel<\/a>\u2018s (see below).<\/p>\n

Year
\nDriver
\nQualifying advantage over Stroll<\/p>\n

2021
\nVettel
\n0.116%<\/p>\n

2022
\nVettel
\n0.156%<\/p>\n

2023
\nAlonso
\n0.454%<\/p>\n

2024
\nAlonso
\n0.299%<\/p>\n

2025
\nAlonso
\n0.313%<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

These numbers are expressed as an average to the fastest qualifying time at each race and take out any thwarted or severely compromised sessions. Anything more than 0.2% in qualifying counts as a big number over a team-mate in F1, even though qualifying prowess has never been the outstanding part of Alonso\u2019s game.<\/p>\n

\"Fernando<\/p>\n

Alonso remains a phenomenon even at 44<\/p>\n

\n Aston Martin\n <\/p>\n

Prior to his Aston stint, Alonso was paired at Alpine <\/a> with Esteban Ocon<\/a> for two seasons, and some of Alonso\u2019s detractors like to point out that in 2021 Ocon was marginally faster (by a tiny 0.02% average). But even then, in the sessions where a fair comparison could be made, Alonso was 10-6 up, head-to-head.<\/p>\n

That was Alonso\u2019s comeback season after two years away from F1 and another way of looking at it is that it took half a season for him to re-acclimatise. That faster Ocon seasonal average was founded in the first four races as Alonso got back up to speed. In 10 of the subsequent 12 events (83%) where a fair comparison was possible (ie taking out mechanicals, etc), Alonso was quicker, just not by enough to overcome the overall time advantage Ocon built in the early races. Into 2022, Alonso was faster than Ocon with no ambiguity this time, though the margins were small.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Talking at the Monaco Historic event last weekend, Fernando Alonso indicated strongly that he wishes to continue in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":637266,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[49,48,578,3018,576,577,3023,82],"class_list":["post-637265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-f1","tag-fernando-alonso","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-lance-stroll","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637265","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=637265"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637265\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/637266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=637265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=637265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=637265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}