Despite Humbling Schumacher in 2005, Fernando Alonso Pays Dream Compliment to the Legend: “That Didn’t Happen With Michael”

At 41 years of age, Fernando Alonso is the most experienced driver on the current F1 grid. In his long career, the Spaniard has fought against the best of the best, sharing rivalries with the likes of Michael Schumacher. Before Alonso finally stamped his authority by getting one over Schumacher in 2005, the German already held the reputation of being the greatest. As Fernando prepares to start a new journey with Aston Martin in 2023, he recalled what it was like fighting against Michael.

Alpine had a fantastic season in 2022, finishing in 4th ahead of McLaren. However, the car faced reliability issues, resulting in multiple DNFs throughout the season. As Alonso grew tired of the continuous failures to finish the race, he lashed out at his team publically on the team radio. Eventually, the relationship soured to the extent that he left for a seat at Aston Martin, partnering with Lance Stroll, a driver he considers worthy of winning the world championship one day.

While speaking about his move away from Alpine in an interview, he also touched upon the reverence he holds for Schumacher. As per Motorsport-Total, he said, “Michael didn’t have bad days. Michael never underperformed. That impressed me the most when I got into Formula 1 and especially when I was fighting for the championship with him.” [Translated using Google]

“Earlier, throughout my career and across categories, my competitors had some bad days and those were the days when you capitalized on that – you got a lot more points than they did. That didn’t happen with Michael. He and Ferrari were unbeatable most of the time.”

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Aston Martin finished 7th in the recently concluded season. Despite that, Alonso believes they can reach the top.

Fernando Alonso is still hopeful of winning the championship

Motor racing is something Fernando cannot get enough of. However, that does not necessarily mean that he will compete just for the sake of it. Unless he sees a chance to compete at the very top, he does not race. He recently revealed that mentality in an interview.

As quoted by Motorsport-Total in an article last month, the 41-year-old said, “I won’t continue if I don’t think we can have a chance.” [Translated using Google]

“I don’t know if the chance is 1 percent or 10 percent, but I’m just going on because I believe we’ll have a chance.”

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Aston Martin has a facility in the making at Silverstone. The state-of-the-art premises will have an in-house wind tunnel. It furthers the aim Lawrence Stroll has set for his team- to win the championship in the near future. Maybe that is what attracted the 2-time world champion to join their project.