After the Brazilian Grand Prix, Fernando Alonso leads the fight for the Overtake Award with two overtakes ahead of Sebastian Vettel . The Alpine rider is enjoying the fight they are both having and not like when they fought for the world championship in his day. And it is that Alonso has taken the opportunity to remember, with a joke, that at that time he had a car much superior to his.
It was precisely in the 2012 Brazilian Grand Prix when Fernando Alonso arrived for the last time with the mathematical options of being champion in the last race. Although the Asturian climbed from eighth position to second at Interlagos, Vettel was enough to be sixth to take what would be his third title. He won it with only 3 points of advantage over Alonso.
Red Bull thus conquered its third consecutive World Cup. Such was his superiority that, for having stood up to Sebastian Vettel , the team leaders of the teams chose Fernando Alonso as the best driver of the season with 71 points of advantage over the German. In total, of the eleven team leaders, eight opted for the Oviedo.
Alonso was chosen as the best driver
Fernando Alonso was also chosen as the best driver in the 2010 season, the year in which he made his Ferrari debut. That season Vettel won his first World Cup with only 4 points of advantage over the Spanish. Despite the fact that this feat made him the youngest driver in history to be proclaimed world champion, the team leaders considered that much of the credit lay in his car and decided to reward Alonso .
They could not award him in 2013, when he was again runner-up in Formula 1 behind Sebastian Vettel . Then the superiority of Red Bull was so overwhelming that the German prevailed with 155 points of advantage over Fernando Alonso. Still, the Spaniard had 43 ahead of Mark Webber, who was the other Red Bull driver.
With the creation in 2021 of the Overtake Award , which this season will reward the rider with the most overtakings, the fight between Vettel and Alonso has been rekindled. Although the current Aston Martin driver has led the classification for much of the championship, the Spaniard hunted him down in Mexico and managed to surpass him in Brazil.
The taunt of Fernando Alonso to Vettel
Questioned in Sao Paulo about the fight they are waging, Alonso stated: “ When we were both competing for the title, I was faced with a car seven or eight tenths faster . So I prefer the current struggles to those of then .
Sebastian Vettel , for his part, admitted last August that the return of Fernando Alonso to Formula 1 had returned his smile. “ I enjoy running against him . In the first race of this year, when Fernando returned, we had a wheel-to-wheel battle and I was in the cockpit smiling because I’m looking forward to seeing more this year and I think we’ve already had some. I think I always enjoyed fighting Fernando . At the Hungaroring in 2003 I was in front of the television and I remember watching it. I think his talent is undoubted, his skills on the court are among the greatest that this sport has seen ”, declared the four-time champion.
“Alonso did something that I thought was impossible to do, which was beat Michael Schumacher because when I grew up Michael was the best, number one, and he seemed impossible to beat and Fernando started to beat him , so I think it was a great achievement. And obviously he has had a long career and in many different cars, so I consider it a pleasure to race alongside him and fight him on the track, ”added Vettel.
“Honestly, there is a lot of respect between us. We have fought hard at times on the track and we have also fought for some championships . All of them fell on Seb’s side, from 2010 to 2013 , but even so, I think we show this respect when we meet on the track ”, Fernando Alonso said later to reciprocate Sebastian Vettel’s words.
Alonso and Vettel lacked a car at Ferrari
Fernando Alonso also recently exonerated Vettel for not having won the World Cup with Ferrari. “ We both tried it at Ferrari , we got closer, but in the end we didn’t succeed. Maybe Ferrari was not ready to have a world champion in the cockpit when we raced there, “he said.
“Ferrari is the most legendary team in Formula 1. It is special to drive for Ferrari. Although I did not win the title, it was a very positive experience for me. I think Sebastian will also have good memories of Ferrari, even if he was not proclaimed world champion with them. I think we both lacked the right car and the technical capabilities at the right time, ”added Alonso.
