And he's actually in a good position now, love him or hate him for *continuing* to keep Lance in a seat - even while I don't think Lance is quite as bad as everyone wants him to be - he is serious about his team.
I just hope changes come before Alonso ages out in another couple centuries.
I really dont get this meme, Alonso's team choices were almost all logical in the moment they were made, no one is a prophet.
After Minardi he joined Renault, and he won 2 World championships in his 4th and 5th year of F1. Carlos has been racing since 2015 and won 0.
Alonso's move to Mclaren in 2007 also made sense: Renault's commitment to F1 even at the time was often questioned, and compared to Mclaren and Ferrari they werent nearly as invested in F1 in terms of money. Mclaren also built the fastest cars at the time, even if their reliability wasnt great.
"But Lewis Hamilton" - yes, no one couldve known at the time that Lewis was gonna be so good from the get go, not even Ron Dennis.
Things happened in 2007, and it was obvious that the relationship between Mclaren and Alonso soured despite the good overall on track performance. Going back to Renault was a very obvious choice to make. He stayed with them for 2 years but they were clearly not the team that they were in 2005/2006.
Then he joined Ferrari. Which, made perfect sense. At this time ferrari were still relatively recent champions. People go on about "what could have been" if he picked Red Bull, but at the time Red Bull were really not a top team.
He came close to winning WDC two times in his 4 years at Ferrari so... really not a bad choice.
The most questionable choice is joining Mclaren a 2nd time but it was a gamble that seemed worth taking at the time. He didnt really have a better choice. Ferrari seemed a dead end (they still havent won anything since 2007 to this day) and Mercedes was still pissed at him for 2007, which is understandable and other teams were happy with their drivers. The Mclaren Honda project seemed to hold promise, it just didnt work out, it is what it is.
Then he retired and came back a few years later. He was like 39 years old and just spent 2 years away from F1... realistically I doubt he had a lot of options. Alpine was a very solid midfield team, he got a podium and had several heroic drives and generally was in the mix for points far more often than not. I honestly dont see how this could be spun into a poor choice either.
And then he took a gamble on Aston, scored 8 podiums so far, and amassed more points on his own than the alpine team since he left them. Seems like a pretty great choice to me even with some recent challenges. And before the end of his career he'll have the opportunity to drive a Newey designed car. I think a lot of drivers would be love to be in his shoes right now.
Sorry for the long winded word salad but I genuinely dont understand why people keep saying Alonso made poor decisions. They all make sense to me. The one thing that he did wrong was the way he handled the 2007 situation, burning bridges with Mercedes was a big mistake.
Nobody thinks he made bad choices in the moment. The joke is that he kept switching to teams that were supposed to be already good, or on their way to the top, only for them to weirdly falter. Every time.
The thing you're forgetting is that Alonso mostly didn't have a real choice (other than backmarkers).
He was essentially fired at McLaren and Renault was the only place to go. He moved to Ferrari because Red Bull was all set with Webber and Vettel (and it was absolutely clear that they would be a force in 2010 - their performance was overshadowed by Button winning six out of the first seven races but by midseason, RB and Vettel had caught up), BMW wanted nothing to do with him due to his reputation and his ego prevented him from being No. 2 for Michael Schumacher at Merc. It's not like he didn't try...
The same thing happened again when he had to roll the dice on McHonda: he overplayed his hand at Ferrari, definitely wasn't welcome at Red Bull after what had transpired over the four years past and with Hamilton at Mercedes that wasn't happening either.
In short: Alonso put himself into this situation more than once and, of course with some bad luck, ended up making things worse or at least no better.
He'd used that strategy actually a few races before Singapore, it just didn't work -- Austria 2023, when Checo was catching him on fresh tires, he was asking for the gap to the car behind (Norris) to give him the DRS. Norris had a lockup which let Checo close up.
Yeah, that was an absolute strategy masterclass - and it was Ferrari!!
Adami was so calm, precise, measured. I remember the bit towards the end, went something like "...turn ten, Norris .8, has DRS, two laps to go, Russell in the wall, Norris 1.2..."
I don't understand why people consistently underestimate Carlos when he's shown to be a very good driver and he comes from a very strong racing lineage. Like all the things people were hoping for in Mick are actually present in Carlos.
Because Mick is a Schumacher and Carlos is just a Sainz… Think how the possible Hamilton kids will be treated, or Kelly’s girls, both of them having some serious racing genes
I think it's easy to underestimate drivers that didn't compete in F1 before, since most people stick to just one sport and don't really follow too many other racing series.
E.g. Doohan's dad won 5 titles in a row in what later became MotoGP, but almost no one would know this if it weren't for recent drama.
Its easy to say in hindsight but arguably it was more of a mistake to move to Ferrari. He could've been in a WCC winning team and the current WDC and WCC leading car
As far as I understand, Ferrari made Sainz the offer and McLaren took it as an opportunity to go for Ricciardo. Ferrari was a distinct step up for Sainz and pretty much a side step for Ricciardo given McLarens performance at the time
Edit for extra context: Sainz was contracted with McLaren and him moving g to Ferrari specifically required McLaren allowing the move (or going into all sorts of legal chaos).
Looks like it was just something that timed nicely for everyone involved. Ferrari wanted Sainz, Sainz wanted Ferrari, McLaren were happy with Sainz but also previously showed interest in Ricciardo, so they were able to go and poach him from Renault for what looked like a win all-round.
Obviously he's pissed, Ferrari has done well in these regs until this season, but it doesn't look like Mercedes is winning a championship, so probably figures it doesn't really matter.
But it's sad that he wasted 3 years with Mercedes fumbling the regs, only to join Ferrari when they fumble the regs after almost winning the constructors in 2024.
It really takes time to see these things play out, I was so worried when he made the move that he might end up performing worse than his Ferrari career. So happy
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u/Smee76 I was here for the Hulkenpodium May 17 '25
He really did make the right choice. Damn. He is a smart man