Was Fernando Alonso’s Era of F1 Dominance Truly Superior to Rival Lewis Hamilton’s?

Fernando Alonso is one of the greatest Formula One drivers of all time. The two-time world champion has 32 race victories and 22 pole positions. Unfortunately, for the past decade, he has been driving in subpar machinery that has not allowed him to fight for more world championships.

According to F1 analysis, Alonso has been the most dominant driver of this century. They did a deep dive into every driver’s performance in each season and how they have fared against their teammate. Does that mean that the Spanish driver has dominated the sport even in the era of Lewis Hamilton?

Fernando Alonso is the most dominant driver of this era

According to the model used by F1 analysis, the two-time world champion has been more dominant that the Mercedes driver. In 2007 when the Brit and the Spaniard were teammates, Hamilton beat Alonso in qualifying, but in races, it was the two-time world champion that got the better of him.

According to the model, the Spanish driver had been the top racer in the sport from 2003 to 2006 and 2008 to 2014, with 2007 going to Hamilton.

Interestingly, Alonso, who won his world championships in 2005 and 2006, has not really been in the best car on the grid since 2007. While Hamilton has won 7 titles since 2008, the Spanish legend has none.

Yet in these years, he has shown his true skills behind the wheel and gotten the best possible performance out of the car. In 2010 and 2012, he propelled his Ferrari to title contention in the final rounds. This is the reason, according to the model, he was the driver in F1 for 12 years.

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Hamilton and Alonso have continued to tussle in the sport ever since 2007. The Spanish driver once again showed his defensive skills against the Mercedes driver in Monaco.

Martin Brundle predicts some bad blood between the two world champions

Both world champions have not really been the best of friends on the grid. According to Martin Brundle, the Monaco incident may have brought up some previously unresolved friction between them.

“Fernando Alonso went into a steady, but necessary for him, tyre preservation mode with the rest of the field queued up behind him, starting with a very frustrated Lewis Hamilton.

‘That’s not my problem’ said Fernando, and you can’t help but sense there’s still needle between them after their McLaren season as teammates back in 2007. Fernando then bizarrely took off for a while and did the third fastest lap of the race to retain 7th place,” said Martin.

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It would have been certainly interesting to see if Alonso had gotten the car that could match his skills. Would he have won some more World Championships? We might never know. But we have been denied a chance to see the peak of the Alpine driver in a dominant car.