Many pundits believe that Fernando Alonso’s Formula 1 career is littered with bad decisions, among them leaving Ferrari when he did for McLaren, but the Spaniard believes he made the right call and hopes people stop questioning his departure from Maranello.
Speaking to media ahead of the Russian Grand Prix weekend, Alonso said, “I didn’t have a [Ferrari] contract for this year so … even in 20 years Ferrari will keep winning and hopefully they won’t still be asking if Alonso was right or not to leave Ferrari when I am 75 years old!”
“I drove five years there and they won in the past, they won in my time – we were fighting for world championships until the end – they won a couple of championships the last few years and they are winning races now and they will win races and championships in the future. So it’s not always about if Fernando did well or not.”
“We would like to be more competitive [at McLaren], that’s for sure. At least in the years that I had a [Ferrari] contract in 2015 and 2016 I still think that I took a good decision to come to McLaren. I’ve learned many things, I’ve worked with one of the best engineers that I have ever worked with here in McLaren — who currently we have in the team — and I learned so many things.”
Alonso’s start with Ferrari was the stuff of legend as he won in his debut race for the team at the 2010 Bahrain Grand Prix, and won five more races that year including at Monza – hallowed ground for the Italian outfit.
But he lost the title at the season finale in Abu Dhabi thanks to a strategy gaffe by the team. During the next three years he won another five times, but the Reds were no match for the dominance of Red Bull during that period. Alonso joined McLaren in 2015.
He explained, “I arrived [at Ferrari] the time that it was too stressful not to keep winning. When you are in your first or second year [at a team] it’s OK, but when you are in your seventh or eighth year then it’s very difficult. So the quality of life improved for me in the last two years despite the results.”
“But, yeah, now they are winning, like Mercedes are winning, every car that is winning you would want to be in it because you want to win races, but it doesn’t change what I did in the past. Even when I left Renault [in 2006 after winning two titles] I was told I should never leave Renault but they never won any more titles.”
“Probably you ask this because it sells some covers of magazine and you can talk about a ‘wasted talent’, but I am super happy with my career and I was in a competitive car [in the past], thank God, and I had an opportunity to reach certain things.”
“There are some very talented drivers here who have never been on the podium. I think we will see what the future brings, but at the moment I’m quite happy with what I did and what I am today.”
Currently McLaren are struggling with their Honda power units, rendering the Spaniard uncompetitive, but he remains positive, “Barcelona will be better, so we will see if we can at least start feeling a little bit more competitive and finish the race with both cars, hopefully in the points.”
“There are small steps at the moment and we would like to have bigger steps from one weekend to another, that’s definitely not the case here, but hopefully to see these small steps and start putting this 2017 season on the proper path,” added Alonso who is being linked with a move to Renault for 2018.
Big Question: Did Fernando make the right choice to depart Ferrari for McLaren?
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