#mr v's garage

All those corners with multiple different French names got you down? F1 YouTuber and resident corner nerd connoisseur Mr. V has a short but excellent explainer!

So this guy.

Fernando Alonso of Spain is currently the oldest driver on the Formula One grid. Born on July 29, 1981, he celebrated his 43rd birthday in the middle of last season.

He entered F1 in 2001 and raced until 2018, then joined back in 2021. So 2001-2018, 2021-2025 (and beyond). That's 22 seasons of F1 at 43 years old, so 51% of his life. And let's not forget, he didn't just take a little siesta while he wasn't in F1. This man is a true multi-disciplinary-athlete:

While in a full F1 season No full F1 season

2017: - One race with Mclaren-Honda-Andretti in Indycar

2018: - Full season of WEC (World Endurance Championship) with Toyota Gazoo Racing, together they earned 1st place in the Championship (due to a strange schedule shift, this championship straddled 2018-19, so I'm just going to mention it in the 2019 bullet) - 24 Hours of Le Mans with Toyota Gazoo Racing (which he WON) - One race with United Autosports in IMSA (American endurance racing)

2019: - WEC 2018-19 season - 24 Hours of Le Mans with Toyota Gazoo Racing (which he won AGAIN) - One race with Konica Minolta Cadillac in IMSA

2020: - Dakar Rally (even after 2 crashes he ran the second fastest time of the event) (he reportedly wishes to go back to Dakar after his F1 retirement) - One race with Arrow McLaren SP (Indycar)

So yeah. The guy can race. And he's been doing it for over half his life. With as long of an F1 run as he's in, you get some ups and downs.

And boy has he had them.

For instance:

In the 2004 Monaco Grand Prix, we were treated to this gem of a shot:

Yep, that is Alonso flipping off a Williams.

Man, that looks like a nasty crash. I wonder if the Williams hit him? I mean, a reaction like that would be warranted by a collision-

Oh.

He just.

Hit the wall.

In his defense, the Williams effectively attempted to defend by hugging the inside of the tunnel section, where Alonso's Renault was obviously faster, and the Williams, driven by Ralf Schumacher, was about to be lapped. This wasn't a fight for position. If passed, Ralf remained in 11th place, as Alonso was in second.

Alonso accused R. Schumacher of dangerous driving. Nothing much came of it, aside from the fantastic screenshot that is Alonso giving Ralf the bird.

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There was also the bit where he passed Michael Schumacher at 130r: because Michael had kids. Here's the clip, then I'll explain.

Alonso, a young driver, had the boldness that most young drivers tend to have. At 24 years old, Alonso wanted the win, and in his way was seven time world champion Michael Schumacher. Something to note is that Alonso had already won the championship. He didn't need the win so badly that a pass as dangerous as this would be considered necessary.

While badass, it should be known that this was incredibly dangerous. Had Schumacher understeered or not backed out, this would have been one of the fastest crashes in Formula One history, and considering the safety innovations that were missing back then, they both likely would have died.

When asked about the pass, Alonso dropped one of the hardest lines in the history of the sport: "I knew he'd brake; he has a wife and two kids at home."

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Mr. V (who I credit and will continue to credit a lot on this blog) made an ELO engine to rank F1 drivers. ELO engines are used to calculate a chess player's skill, and Mr. V coded one for F1 using data against other drivers in equal machinery (teammates). You should watch the video, but long story short:

Alonso is the highest ranking driver in the history of the sport (according to the program, which isn't exactly perfect but still is a cool measure and fact) (at the time of publication, he has updated the ELO engine, although admits it has a host of new issues he's attempting to fix).

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Alonso has also had some really nasty crashes over his career. At 2003 in interlagos, he and Mark Webber were involved in a post race incident leading their cars to look like this:

This crash was so high impact that Alonso wasn't on the podium despite finishing top 3, because the medics were still investigating and hadn't cleared him. Luckily, he and Webber survived (relatively) unscathed:

Start at 1:13 for the Webber/Alonso crash.

That bit left over, the "cockpit" Alonso and Webber sat in, is designed like that on purpose: it's known as the survival cell, and as seen in the crashes above, it's the part that stays together. The car spins apart at high impacts, dispersing the energy from the crash in every direction but the driver themselves.

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He also had a mysterious crash during testing with McLaren in 2015 that was largely… quieted? There’s not a lot of details about how the accident happened — what we do know is that that year’s McLaren was plagued with issues, technical and mechanical. There’s stories of a small explosion, an electrical current shock, memory loss, etc.

The explosion idea is largely chalked up to be a shadow on the side of the car that some people took to be a burn mark. The electrical shock I think has something to do with telemetry or the nature of the accident, not sure exactly where that came from. The memory loss is actually founded in truth: Alonso suffered a concussion from the accident resulting in temporary memory loss — he was reportedly confused to be in a Formula One car, and told doctors that the year was 1995, saying: “I'm Fernando, I'm in karts and want to become Formula 1 driver.”

Here’s some forums from around that time discussing the accident. And yes, you’ll see all kinds of theories on here — F1 has its own conspiracy theorist community and some of them are wild.

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In 2016, Fernando Alonso and Esteban Gutierrez came together down a fast stretch. Alonso mispredicted when Gutierrez would hit the brakes, and the resulting contact at 189 MPH (305 KPH) caused a 45 G rollover crash. Thankfully, though the crash looks terrible, the rollover-nature of the accident meant that the forces exerted upon Alonso were minimal, and he walked away from the accident with little assistance. He later said that he got out of the car as fast as he could so that his mother, who he knew watched his races, would know he was okay.

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And finally, some of my favorite pictures.

After the 8th round of the 2012 season, the European Grand Prix in Valencia, Spain, this is what the scoreboards looked like.

Alonso with 111 points, Ferrari with 122.

Alonso raced for Ferrari. 90.98% of their points were from HIM ALONE.

Going into this race, the season had seen a different winner every race for the first seven races. The race saw Alonso's 19th victory and second of the season, Sebastian Vettel and Lewis Hamilton retirements, and Michael Schumacher's first podium since 2006 (six year gap, although he was on retirement during the 2007-2009 seasons).