Chris Harris on… Fernando Alonso’s latest F1 career move

Fernando Alonso is one of my favourite racing drivers. His raw speed is still mesmerising nearly two decades after he landed in F1. He is also a very, very strange dude. Most people would be horrified by the inner workings of any racing drivers’s mind, but Alonso’s must be the most terrifying of the lot. I’d rather spit in Mike Tyson’s coffee than tangle with ’Nando – because he bears a grudge like no one else.

Remember the 2007 Hungarian GP? Alonso and Hamilton are teammates, Lewis doesn’t play ball in qualifying, Alonso allegedly tries to blackmail Ron Dennis about McLaren possessing stolen information concerning Ferrari’s racecar. Seems a bit strong given the main issue was his teammate was annoyingly quick, but that appears to be his way. Small problem, massive response.

His departure from Alpine was a carefully choreographed s**t-o-gram to its team boss Otmar Szafnauer. Now I have no idea how that relationship worked, but it would seem Fernando decided to coordinate his exit with Mark Webber, who manages Piastri, so that once he was certain Alpine’s option on a driver it has invested many millions of euro in had expired, he pulled the pin. And then Alpine was left with not much. And all of this came to pass because Alpine didn’t want to offer Alonso, 41 years of age, a multi-year contract. Moderate problem, enormous response. Moreover, the day this mess became public, Alonso posted an arch Instagram post that demonstrated he was not only fully aware of what most people at the time assumed was just a communication error, but that he found it hugely amusing.

And this is where Flavio Briatore has to be mentioned. He was and remains hugely influential in the sport. Alonso has always been Flav’s boy, and it is clear the former has learned his trade from the latter. It’s earned Alonso vast amounts of money and afforded him the protection of one of the paddock’s big beasts.

But how much has Flavio’s way of operating actually benefitted Fernando? Most people accept that Alonso is one of just a handful of epochal talents in modern F1. He’s a driver with no obvious weaknesses, a match for Schumacher and Hamilton in the same career. And yet he only has two world titles. The statistics make cruel reading: Alonso is actually only eight points away from having five world titles to his name, and most of that shortcoming had nothing to do with him firing it off under pressure, it came from poor decisions and career moves. What would Alonso’s career have looked like if he hadn’t been managed by Flavio?

All those team changes made at the wrong time, all those weird comments – the underlying sense, as a fan of the sport that we could see why things often weren’t working, when he seemed unaware. It really has been a soap opera rollercoaster for Fernando, as Lewis calmly hoovered up titles. I suppose it proves that if we waste too much time playing games, we lose focus on the real goals.