1 Year Before $179,000,000,000 Fever Took Over, 5 Words Shattered Fernando Alonso’s Ego for F1 Return

Even the most competent drivers occasionally experience confidence issues in the highly competitive Formula 1 world, where ego and ambition blend on the racetrack. The same thing happened to the legendary Fernando Alonso, whose ego suffered an unanticipated hit just one year before the sport saw a phenomenal $179,000,000,000 fever. It wasn’t a controversy with any major F1 star or the organization, but just five words that shattered the ego of the ” Bad Guy” of Formula 1.

Fernando Alonso’s competitive mindset is well known to all of us, but if a driver has a career spanning more than 20 years, there will undoubtedly come a time when the individual gets worn out enough to say goodbye to what has been the foundation of their identity. A situation similar to this one arose for Formula 1’s villain in 2018 when the Asturian decided to quit the sport. In parallel, Liberty Media was working on a sizable initiative to raise the image of motorsports at the highest levels worldwide by partnering with Netflix, a 179-billion-dollar platform.

How did Netflix and Liberty Media collab shatter the ego of Fernando Alonso?

As the days went by, the sport’s popularity skyrocketed, making it challenging for Fernando Alonso to avoid the spotlight. And after a two-year break, Alonso decided to return to the fast world of cars, which constantly leaves us wondering why he chose to do so.

It was Fernando Alonso himself who responded, revealing the five words that crushed his ego and inspired him to make a comeback. In one of the episodes of the High-Performance podcast: Inside The Mind Of A World Champion, Alonso responded to the question of the host where he was asked, “What did you learn that you simply couldn’t see when you were in it [F1]?” To which the Aston Martin driver replied, “As I said, not being able to compete for high things, but I don’t know. I didn’t have any perception or anything that maybe people thought about the sport or myself in general.”

Alonso later revealed the remarks while explaining how he received adoration everywhere he went and felt it was time to again come back to the spot after being anonymous for so long which completely shattered his ego. “But when I stop, the only thing that I receive every time that I was meeting people or any fan or yeah, people at the airport or in the hotels or whatever it was, ‘You need to come back’. You know, because for me, the last few years before I stopped, it was like, you know, we are nearly anonymous here.“

The former Alpine driver highlighted DTS as one factor that helped the sport gain popularity worldwide and how it inspired him to make a comeback as he wrapped up the conversation. He said, “You know, no one is seeing us and the sport was not maybe great as it is now with all this ‘Drive to Survive’ on Netflix and all these things. So I thought that it was much less interest. But I was surprised of how much love I received from people.”

READ MORE: Fernando Alonso Exposes F1’s Dark Side That Robbed Him of Life’s Cherished Moments

Fernando Alonso stands out from the other F1 drivers owing to the variety of distinctive characteristics that he possesses. Although we are witnessing a different Alonso in Aston Martin, in his early days, the man had blood on his mind and was as ferocious as one could be, which led to a fierce battle with another legend of Formula 1, Michael Schumacher.

What characteristic trait of Fernando Alonso led him to battle the iconic Michael Schumacher?

In 2001, the year that Schumacher won his fourth championship, Alonso rose to the highest levels of the sport. The Spanish champion had no idea that he would soon succeed in challenging the great German driver. After defeating Schumacher to win the championship in 2005, the Renault driver faced Schumacher again and won the title in 2006.

Leaving us wondering what motivated him to give such a tough bout to the seven times champion. And According to Alonso’s statement on Crash.net, it sounded like, ” It’s true that you arrived to F1… when I got to F1, Michael was dominating the sport but I never thought that I was slower than him in a way.”

WATCH THIS STORY: When Fernando Alonso had a Mysterious Crash in F1 Causing Alleged Memory Loss

Do you believe the double champion has suffered a significant setback due to his narcissistic attitude?