Alonso has Not Had a Title-Winning Car Since 2007

McLaren driver Fernando Alonso has said that his Formula One future will depend on the sport’s direction. He hopes that F1 can put the focus back on drivers in the coming years.

Alonso has two drivers’ championships under his belt, namely 2005 and 2006 with Renault. However, a series of poor career decisions and missed opportunities has seen him fail to add any more.

Ever since F1’s turbo hybrid engines were introduced in 2014, Alonso seems to have taken a few steps backward. He has not won a race or finished higher than sixth in the championship, and he last fought for a title in 2012.

Now, he claims that he has not had a championship-winning car since 2007. The same year when he went up against Lewis Hamilton at McLaren. That year, both drivers missed out on the title by a single point to Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen.

“I think it has been up and down,” Alonso said. “I think the last possibility of the last championship car we had was 2007. The rest has been always quite far off from the performance of the top and the winning team of that season.

“We’re now 11 years after that moment, so I don’t think it’s a problem [for me to be off the pace] but I think the biggest thing for me is to think about the direction Formula One is going and I don’t think too much about how competitive we’ll be next year as it is impossible to predict. It is just about the sport.

“When you see again the grid in Canada there were two Mercedes, two Ferraris, two Red Bulls, two Force Indias and two Renaults in Q3. It is a constructors’ world championship and not a drivers’ world championship so it is something I need to decide.”

Alonso also said that the situation is worse for other drivers.

“No not really I think there are opportunities missed in the past, and we could have won probably four or five championships by I think seven points one time, and then three or something like that. But at the same time I feel extremely privileged to have this 18 years in F1 and I know there are drivers here that I race against, I see them on the track, I see their talent, I see their previous categories, and they’ve never even reached a podium.

“I see my teammate now [Stoffel Vandoorne], I see Nico [Hulkenberg], I see Carlos [Sainz]. I see a lot of talented drivers that they didn’t score a podium. At the same time, we missed some opportunities as I said but I’m happy with the things that I’ve done.”