Formula 1 is one of those sports where the machine has a lot to say, even more than the talent of the drivers. One of those who has suffered the most throughout his career is Fernando Alonso, considered one of the greatest talents in the history of F1 and yet only crowned twice, far behind the great champions of the grand circus, such as Hamilton and Verstappen. The Dutchman is now experiencing what it means to have a bad car, and the question that many people in the motor racing world are asking is: What would happen if Alonso and Verstappen competed in the same car?
Verstappen vs Fernando Alonso
There is no doubt that Max Verstappen is currently the best driver on the F1 grid, having won four world championships, being the current champion, and with a long career ahead of him to continue demonstrating his talent and, almost certainly, taste the sweetness of reaching the top of the World Championship again.
But this year, his weaknesses have been exposed, because he no longer has the best car and, although he achieved good results at the beginning of the season, each race is becoming more difficult for him. At the beginning of the year, he was even compared to Fernando Alonso in 2021, with Ferrari, when he lost the World Championship in the last race due to a mistake in the team’s strategy. At that time, the Oviedo native had the fourth car on the grid, as is now the case with Red Bull, but his results were superior.
Villeneuve once again praises Fernando Alonso
Jacques Villeneuve, 1997 Formula 1 world champion, has been campaigning for the Spanish driver for several weeks now. He has always been an admirer of the Asturian for his talent, tenacity, and for always competing, whatever the circumstances. Several weeks ago, he commented that he was better than Hamilton, and a week later that he believed he was still better than Verstappen, albeit with some nuances, praising Alonso’s hunger at 44 years of age and urging the Dutchman to maintain the same level of commitment for many more years.
Now that Verstappen does not have the best machine, Villeneuve believes it would be interesting to see the driver compete with the same car against his strongest rivals in the paddock.
“It would be good to see Leclerc alongside Max to see how good he really is,” “or it would be good to put Alonso next to Max now. It would be good to put Norris next to Max, to see if Norris is exceptional or just very good. We know Max is exceptional, but the drivers alongside him just haven’t been good enough, and there’s no point in saying, ‘Poor guys!’. No, they’re just not good enough. That’s it. They’re barely good.”
The same story in F1
The machine and F1 is one of the most recurring stories in recent F1 history. In the past, talent made much more of a difference, but in today’s F1, big budgets tend to dominate the Grand Circus. Hamilton won six of the seven world championships with a car that was far superior to the rest of the field, and even then he dropped one along the way, the one that was snatched away by Nico Rosberg, who left F1 after a very difficult season despite his final victory. Verstappen beat Hamilton to his first world title on the last lap of the last race, but in the other three, Red Bull was superior to the rest (except in the final stretch of last season).
Putting drivers in the same cars would mean knowing much more accurately who the best drivers on the grid are, and many have no doubt that if that were the case, the best would be Fernando Alonso.