“At 95%” – Fernando Alonso Makes a Brutally Honest Admission Ahead of Turkish GP

Fernando Alonso made a return to Formula One in 2021 driving for the Alpine F1 team after sitting out for the previous two seasons. In 2018, Fernando Alonso last raced in F1 for McLaren, finishing 11 in the driver’s championship with 50 points. He was quite vocal about his frustrations with the team and their car and wasn’t happy about the results. Coming back with Alpine this year, Alonso has put in stellar performances, with points finish being a regular thing. However, Alonso revealed that he isn’t 100% satisfied with his performance, and he isn’t performing at the level at which he was performing in 2018.

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Fernando Alonso is not totally satisfied with himself

Fernando Alonso sat down with Auto-Motor-und-sport.de and revealed that he doesn’t feel that he is performing at his full potential. When asked if he is as good as he used to be when he left the sport for a hiatus, Alonso said that he feels he is at 95 percent. “I would say I’m just as good or a little worse than 2018. I’m not 100 percent satisfied with my performance, especially on Saturdays.”

The two-time World Champion explained, “It’s still difficult for me to understand where the tire’s performance is. If you do a different preparation on the out-lap, or if you encounter traffic, the tire seems to behave differently as soon as you push and start the lap. I haven’t fully understood that yet. I would say I’m at 95 percent. Other than that, I’m okay.”

Not being involved in the development of the car might have had a bad effect

When probed further by the journalist as to if the 95 percent is because Alonso wasn’t involved in the development of the car from the start. He said that it might be one of the reasons.

“I think so. Part of the 95 percent is the amount of time I’ve been away from exercising. I miss two years where the tires have developed further. Second, there is a lack of trust in the feedback from the steering.”, said Alonso.

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However, Alonso has high hopes for next year because the cars will be completely different to drive, and so every driver will have to start from scratch and realign their driving styles. Alonso hopes that he can take advantage of this, and shoot himself up to the top.