Fernando Alonso has won two Formula One World Championships and been a part of several other championship battles throughout his career. The Spaniard has been thinking about one in particular that has inspired him to improve his performance.
Fernando Alonso has discussed how his championship clashes with Sebastian Vettel pushed him to reach new levels.
Back in Vettel’s championship-winning years with Red Bull, the Spaniard went head-to-head with the German twice for the title, but both times he lost to the German.
Alonso believes that his battles with Vettel brought out the best in him, despite the fact that his Ferrari was not as powerful as the Red Bull.
“We didn’t have the same package to compete wheel-to-wheel, but we still fight for a few championships until the last race,” Alonso told the Beyond The Grid podcast.
“And [in] those championships in 2010 [and] 2012, you have to perform at your best if you want to beat a, let’s say, slightly superior Red Bull package that I think they have in that moment.
“But they have a couple of issues, some reliability [issues], races as well that they didn’t finish, and we still fight for the championship, and we have to nail every single weekend to be in that position.
“So they are part of my career, and they will always be, so I respect them a lot.”
Battling with “legend of the sport” Hamilton
Alonso enjoyed fighting against Vettel, but he also enjoyed fighting against Lewis Hamilton when the occasion arose.
“He is a legend of the sport,” the two-time World Champion explained.
“And he, like Michael [Schumacher], pushes you to the limit, because if you want to beat Lewis, you need to perform at your best.”
In 2007, Alonso and Hamilton had a difficult year as teammates at McLaren, when they were both in contention for the championship but were beaten by Kimi Raikkonen by one point.
Since then, there has been some wheel-to-wheel action between the two drivers, notably a spectacular battle in the 2021 Hungarian Grand Prix, but those bouts have not been as common due to the performance differential between the cars they were driving at various points over the years.
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