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You can just see how happy he is this season. I bet he feels 10 years younger fighting the top spots.

He is known for dethroning dominant World Champions… ^(*sniffs hopium*)

As someone a smidge older than alonso, I can definitely appreciate his enthusiasm given his new lease of life with Aston. Wasn't always his biggest fan, but old man nando is best nando.

There something about drivers getting into a certain age and being competitive while knowing that being competitive is not everything. Happened to Seb, now it has happened to Fer (there were a lot others, I like just to point this last two)

Happened to Schumacher also in 2010 - 2012. In fact, Michael said that while fighting with the drivers in the mid grid he claimed he was "learning things from the youngsters" When the reporter scoffed at the suggestion, Michael cut him off: "This is Formula 1. You can learn from anyone who has proven they can drive at this level. Do not belittle them just because they do not seem to have a lot of experience yet."

Fuck. He is the king and reading this quote makes me sad.

This and the "records are made to be broken" thing he said are my favourite Micheal ever said. I wish he was here because there's such a lack of respect running around in the way people talk about these drivers he'd call them out

For real.

I got into F1 in 2010, and I feel very lucky that I got to see a few years of Michael race in a car that was becoming competitive. Even as an American, that was one name I knew coming into the sport. I can't imagine what would have happened if he had been able to stay just one year longer.

The thing about Michael was that he was considered one of the best lead driver if you are developing a team. Just check out what he says here about his 2nd year with Mercedes: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIW6N55bLOM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIW6N55bLOM) There is no arrogance. There is no complaining. No talking down of the team and so on. If you see an old interview with Ferrari in 1996, he says very similar things. But Ross Brawn has said that if there was something wrong at the team, Michael would call it out, but only in private and behind closed doors. And he always insisted that before the doors were re-opened that the team members involved had considered a way of not making the same mistakes again. I guess this is why sometimes some of the current drivers can sound disappointing to me. They chide team members in public or say things like "The team don't listen to me". Michael was never like that and I miss that about a lead driver.

I do miss the time where drivers can push all the time instead of managing their tires or killing them after a few laps if of attack. That was one of Michael's weakness during his return.

Racing in all types has always been largely, about managing tires. Always has, always will be, I can’t see that changing.

Oh man. Hearing him talk about KERS and the F-duct. And how he was excited about DRS. Really cool video, thank you.

tbh Michael was hired specifically to help build a winning car, rather than to win championships himself. He never expected to be fighting for championships in his second stint, and his skills had declined noticeably enough for that to be a chance anyway. I don't think it's fair to compare regular drivers to him, because most of the drivers on the grid are fighting for the best positions they can achieve, not to build a car for someone else.

People particularly interested in this aspect of Mercedes AMG and Schumacher history should look up this set of BEYOND THE GRID episodes: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xG8pt7YLi9I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xG8pt7YLi9I) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t15tKnsUJrk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t15tKnsUJrk) That sheds a lot of light on how things were at the time.

I think Pirelli should listen to the bit of this interview where Michael was talking about tyres.

Michael of course knew he was really pointing out things that weakened him in the post 2010's F1 formula. Again, it's almost impossible now to find 2010/2011/2012 "soundbyte clips" but Michael was constantly bringing up these tyres and tyre management. You could tell he didn't like it. But again, he never got angry about it. He'd just point them out and keep on trucking.

Of course like you said he is pointing at changes in the sport that put him at a disadvantage but I think we can all agree that the "Bono my tyres are gone" of Lewis years and the "Just stay on track" we saw yesterday make the racing a bit boring.

I definitely miss the time when sometimes drivers would go faster than qualifying or you would see the Top 2 just trading fastest laps repeatedly almost without stopping. Those were incredible times. Of the current grid it's Alonso and Lewis who can trace their careers back to this time. In his rookie year Lewis actually once wore a tyre all the way down to its canvas. That's kind of an indication of how extreme it was. Nowadays the tyre would "fall off" and be useless way before getting down to that level.

...and I'm back to missing him again.

Was already there from rewatching the Top Gear “Stig reveal” moment earlier today, reading this made me miss him twice as much

Did you read the article about how that came to be? A writer from the show talked about the meeting with him and how he added to the whole thing. The whole thing was magic. I can’t seem to find it. If anyone finds the link, please post!

Wasn't it for the debut of the Ferrari Enzo and they didn't let anyone else drive it except Ferrari's people and so TG went along and had Michael be The Stig

Something like that. But they had the pitch meeting with him where they explained the basic idea of him walking in and taking the helmet off. He apparently was silent the entire time, just like staring. When filming time came, they weren’t that optimistic about it, but he really hammed it up. Walking slowly through the crowd and being resistant, then shaking his head when Jeremy asked him to take the helmet off.. all of that was improv. The writer dude concluded that the silence was just Schumi absorbing and listening or what they wanted. Basically he’s a really intense study of anything he’s doing, and he nailed it beyond their wildest dreams

Not the Ferrari Enzo, the black FXX. It was also the fastest lap around the TG test track, slick tyres though. The Enzo was a lot longer ago on like Series 2 or 3 iirc. It's "twin" the MC12 was also on TG and even beat it by a little later on, just something i remember even if the results can't be taken fully serious.

Yup. They used Nick Mason's Enzo for that episode, along with the hilarious references to Pink Floyd songs and the plugging of his book.

It was in a book 'And on the bombshell'. There's a whole chapter on that.

I don't know what it is honestly. I'm usually fairly neutral with celebrities going through rough patches (whatever that patch may be). Of course I dont wish I'll on anyone, but beyond a point it doesn't affect me. With Michael, something actively hurts inside when I'm reminded of him. Especially after Mick's section in the documentary. I actively, genuinely wish that entire family the best.

This is something I've always thought. Even if you're in last place in an F1 race, **never forget** that you're in the top echelon of race car drivers in the world.

What do you call the medical student who graduated last in his class? - Doctor.

My Doctor

Link please. I wanna hear this.

Alas. This one was a long time ago. But I believe it was Pre-Race interview for the Australian Grand Prix of 2011 or 2012. Michael was walking into the grounds with some of the younger drivers which is how the conversation went with "Michael, you are among the kids again".... Pretty sure it was Melbourne.

It's even better the younger drivers heard his comments, that's amazing!

I'm jogging my memory I think he was talking with Paul di Resta (Force India) and another driver. They were entering through the turnstile/ID gate thing. I remember because I recall feeling like "What can 7-time WDC learn from Paul di Resta?" But there you have it.

Rocket powered Mohawk will have an opinion on this surely

It’s wisdom that you can always learn from unsuspecting places and people. It’s the people who think they know everything who close themselves off to learning new things.

I was thinking about him aswell, also Coulthard and many others. Just chose to pick seb and fer because they are the last two

Seb at Ferrari got to me at times, especially after he gave his announcement he was done, they both just got pissy and bitchy with each other. Seeing him at AM, even with reduced success made it a much finale to his career than would’ve happened with Ferrari

A lot of what’s happening to Charles now happened to Seb at Ferrari. Same as it ever was…

Except, a bit sooner and at a quite young age.

Yeah and minus 4 WDCs :(

Ouch. That hurts. Tbh, In his defence, Ferrari was incompetent for a few years and his rival was the Lewis Hamilton in a dominating Mercedes and now an untamed Max Verstappen in a beauty of a Redbull.

Oh absolutely. I honestly don’t see anyone beating Max while he’s in a dominant car, same as I felt about Lewis, Seb, and Nando. Give them the right support with a car and team and no one else stands a chance. (I feel the same about Charles, but we may never find that out…)

Never been a fan of Nando, but I believe if the Aston gets a bit better, he is the only one capable of beating Max. Nando has raw talent, experience and a bull's attitude.

I agree with you. I love Lewis, but he can be really cautious these days (I guess we can call it he only knows how to win from first? Ha). Nando has no fucks to give when it comes to being *thisclose* to a win.

Winning in F1 takes a lot of luck, not just skill. If skill was all you need, Alonso would have 15 championships in his shelves (don't @ at me). Instead we saw him fight for 12th in a GP2 engine-powered GP2 chassis. Just like Ricciardo before, Leclerc simply has never been in a position when he could realistically fight for a championship. His car has always been sufficiently behind the top one (either Merc or RB), and his team has made plenty of bad strategic calls that were beyond his control. If Leclerc was driving for RB and Verstappen for Ferrari, maybe the fight would be closer, but Leclerc would have one championship and Verstappen, zero.

And what happened to Alonso before Seb. It starts to look like a Ferrari problem.

Ah, the alternate universe where AM talks Seb into staying one more year _and_ hires Alonso anyway. Lance gets told, sorry son, but we've got two world champs here. Daddy gets him a place at Williams. Alonso and Seb both so happy they don't attack each other but join forces to go after Max. Max wins WDC anyway because ALO and SEB are splitting points, but he only wins 10 races and Aston takes the Constructors'. Seb then retires and Alonso wins WDC the following year on momentum and the strength of the windtunnel development advantage.

I'd argue the only reason he is so cheerful at the moment is because his car is finally competitive again. If that car was a shitbox he'd be back on his deckchair moaning about GP2 engines and the like....but that's why I like the guy, he's super fucking passionate about what he does.

Have to agree. Never was a big fan of Vettel or Alonso in their early days (altho I did appreciate the talent) but I did love the older Vettel and now Alonso as well. So much fun to watch. I miss Vettel. Never thought I'd say that :)

Might have something to do with being a multimillionaire and having already achieved most of his career goals.

There are others sportsman and women out there that never stop being badly competitive. I think the difference is that while they'd like to win, they learned to lose, which is harder and takes more time.

As someone who's been a fan of Fernando since 2010, I can tell you he's always been like this when he's happy. It's just that there were hard times for him in the past and the media loves nothing more than angry Alonso so that is what headlines will always be whenever there an opportunity. In 2012 when he was fighting for the title in a subpar car, he was like this. He gave credit to the team whenever he could. 2023 in many ways feel like 2012.

Been following him since his debut in 2001 and I couldn't agree more. I pray that there won't be a falling out with AM if the car becomes less competitive as the season goes on. Now that they have the floor pictures from the Red Bull, I hope they can improve the car and at least stay second fastest throughout the season. It's insane to see how many points Alonso has compared to Stroll. I understand that Stroll hasn't had the easiest start to the season, but just imagine how many points AM *COULD* have if it was Alonso and Vettel. I really hope the season turns around for Stroll because they really deserve P2 in the constructors.

Everyone's memeing about the floor pictures. Just out of curiosity will they actually be useful for the other teams in development and make a significant difference? Or is it just something everyone's making a big deal out of?

It might be a bit of an "Aha" moment regarding some specific things RB has done that others may have missed. That doesn't mean they can just straight up copy the design to their cars as it has to work in unity with the whole, but there is a nonzero chance that some of the teams get some benefit out of it.

That floor only works in conjunction with the entire aero package. Other teams can't just copy it and then gain half a second per lap. It even might be detrimental to the developmental progress if it doesn't suit the rest of the aero stuff. Even in 2022 their floor was revealed like this but it hasn't made an impact to the pace of either Red Bull or other teams. The best way to 'copy' data of Red Bull is to hire their engineers, like Aston Martin have done

I think it was James Vowles, or another team boss, who said the pictures from Monaco are not that useful because the light plays tricks over the black floor surface and you may see contours and bends that do not actually exist.

And also that while it’s nice to be able to see the width and layout of the channels under the car, there’s no way to know how deep they are, which is a huge part of it. They’re 3 dimensional tunnels under the car and you can’t just replicate them from a 2 dimensional photo in less than ideal lighting

I mean, other teams will try to minimize the importance of the photo. No one will come out and say "yeah, we'll spend next week studying Red Bull's floor to see what we can copy". Everyone will deny all charges and pretend the photo is useless.

You know what.... You may be right!

Sure it's useful, bit probably not this year. The floors are so instrumental to the entire design of the car, even if you could replicate it exactly, the chances that it works with the rest of the car beneficially is basically zero. The floor is extremely important, but so is everything else and it all has to work together. Not to mention with budget caps teams may not be able to spend the money required to completely overhaul their current design. But definitely teams will study it for their future designs and maybe learn to make some slight improvements in the short term simply by analyzing the philosophy behind it

Huge exaggeration. If they find something by any chance they still need to go thru months of testing. Even then, you’re still hoping to hit the lottery and with the cost cap do teams really want to go that route is the question

AM has something better than the floor pics: they have the engineer who led the design of that floor (or at least an earlier version of it, and the evolution that’s happened since wouldn’t necessarily be that hard to figure out for someone who’s already so familiar with the Red Bull package). That’s a huge part of why they had the big jump this year: they poached some top talent from Red Bull and Mercedes. For everyone else, the pictures don’t give them that much help, since they still wouldn’t know much about the full 3D structure, just some vague ideas about some visible edges and lines. A team might try to reverse-engineer it for a CFD sim to try and understand what Red Bull are doing, but especially in the cost cap and limited CFD/wind tunnel era, I’m not sure how much effort teams will really put into copying the Red Bull floor, unless they’re planning to just show up next year with a full copy of this year’s Red Bull, like Racing Point did with the Mercedes towards the end of the last regs.

> That’s a huge part of why they had the big jump this year: they poached some top talent from Red Bull and Mercedes. Just like all teams do all the time lol. Red Bull came into F1 stealing Newey from McLaren, and they've been doing so ever since. idk why people are remarking so much that AM did things this year that all big teams do all the time.

If you have engineers who can replicate it correctly, it's definitely useful to see the underbody of the fastest car of the season. It's a fine balance because they have to make it work for their own car.

It will be useful. You can't copy their floor and expect your car to be as fast as theirs (and it's definitely not that easy to copy the exact details from a photo like that); but you can study how that floor works and, with the knowledge you already have from the rest of the car, theorize what tricks Red Bull may be using and try to implement them in your car - or, at least, learn the theory behind it and use that theory yourself. So, will all teams turn up with a Red Bull next weekend? Nope, not at all. You can't build a RB with that photo. Is it a big deal? Yeah, it's valuable info the best car engineers in the world got to freely analyze and learn from. It should push some teams a little bit in a few months. It's one big grain of salt in the mountain of salt you need to build to win a championship. In a bit of a stupid comparison, it's like trying to buy a $300k house and finding a $15k stash of money somewhere. $15k won't buy you the house, but it's still money and will still get you closer to that house. It's far more than finding a 50 cent coint under the coach.

He's always been supportive of Max and as such it's super cool to see them fight at the front.

Nando is having such a blast this year. His enthusiasm is so infectious!

Dude is just living his best life. Even though the humor is not the same he's a good character replacement for Kimi

Yea young nando and seb were dicks but old versions of them are much more likable

He has always been like this, an example is him photoboming the 2003 championship contenders photo https://i.pinimg.com/originals/26/97/c9/2697c990376576aff85afbb27f62e8f5.jpg

This. Alonso has always been the goofy dude, just that the media didn't showcase it until now. Anyone who's been a fan and following him knows. [This is the dude who took a little anime figure with him everywhere he went for photos for a while...](https://grandprix20.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/fernando-alonso-hideo-baba-incontro-gallery-005.jpg?w=900) Even Alonso himself said "for some reason the media loves me this year"

Yes exactly, now they all kiss his @ss in the media, kind of funny while before he was treated by them so badly. Fernando is smart enough to see the hypocrisy they display suddenly, lmao! He's taking the piss out of them masterfully with a big smile and enjoys every little bit of his time in F1 now, while smelling and rearranging flowers everywhere in the meantime, what a boss!

The vast majority of people here didn't experience the Crashgate ordeal when it was happening, I was quite young but I already had a few seasons under me and for me (and from what I recall) that was the tipping of the scale when it came to Alonso. Prior to his championships when he got to Renault he was percieved as a good driver with WC potential and was favored by the media, as opposed to Räikkonen who was himself and not really in tune with the media. However after his championship and with the emergence of Hamilton he started to get villainised by the very anglo-centric media (way worse than it is today). The team switch to McLaren, his prior dominance, the rivalry between him and Hamilton (and to a degree with McLaren) all were contributing factors as to why Alonso got a bad reputation and was villainised by the media. Then Crashgate truly fucked Alonso and his reputation was stained until only a few years ago when F1 became more global and only then he got the role of the "entertaining veteran".

tbh I can track the anti-Alonso narrative as far back as 2004 where everybody collectively decided to celebrate his freakishly unlucky first half of the season and proclaim that Trulli had 'destroyed' him.

> However after his championship and with the emergence of Hamilton he started to get villainised by the very anglo-centric media (way worse than it is today). Back then the internet wasn't as big. And British media controlled the narrative. Today there are many reporters with their own Twitter accounts that can call out any bullshit

I definitely see that hes goofy, Jimmy who is one of the Aston's Martin social media creators said all the jokes and memes are lead by him, as in they are mostly his idea. The whole flower thing was definitely his idea, he saw the meme and ran with it. He has ideas he gets the team to execute and it speaks to how comfortable he is at AM he's doing it a lot. The flip side is that his bitterness that he took out on other people (Lewis seems to get targeted) was also real. That BS he said about Lewis championships not counting was straight up disrespectful. Credit to Alonso he is himself, good or bad.

His celebrations at Renault show he’s always been a character

Indeed. The problem is that the media has always focused on his shitty comments and attitudes - but he has always been goofy and light-hearted most of the time. It's one big reason why he's so ridiculously big in Spain: he's not just some serious, out-of-touch rich guy killing it in his sport. He's a world champion but still relatable for the average guy. It's just that this year, the international media is showing the moments the Spanish media has been showing since 2001.

They were never dicks you just didn't like them

Agreed. Same could be said about me an all my friends in my twenties vs thirties/early forties. At the end of they are just people.

I never saw them as dicks- just the very best trying their very best to get an edge. They’re often still kids and the pressure the public put on them to be perfect human beings is wild. The racing world is all they’ve ever known and they get caught up in the vortex for 5-10 years, happens to most racers / athletes, they aren’t there to make friends.

Same here , I can’t help myself but root for him now

Alonso having a good year is making me enjoy this season. Love hearing his joy and team radio

I dunno, I think old sea wolf Nando takes the cake.

Aston Martin Honda Red Bull Racing

Aston Martin Red Bull Racing Honda

Thanks Perez

Fernando is getting to be himself now with Aston, and being on the podium in Monaco is just icing

Jimmy the AM media creator said most of the stuff they do on socials with him, particularly the meme bait they post to tiktoks are Nando's idea. It strikes me as far more creative and risk taking than I ever credited Nando for. Like he loves a meme. It never occurred to me that Fernando had to be comfortable to express himself but AM seems like a good team environment for that, at least inside their comms department the way it was also for Sebastian who felt comfortable and was backed for all kinds of causes. Aside of does seem like Mercedes and Redbull is the gold standard for encouraging drivers to be comfortable and themselves and use their platforms for stuff that they enjoy/like but Aston has something of that in their DNA. Very curious what a driver like Charles would be outside of the Ferrari image factory

> It does seem like Mercedes is the gold standard for encouraging drivers to be comfortable and themselves... I'm not too sure, take a look at Bottas. Mercedes Bottas and Alfa Romeo Bottas are so, so different, it's like night and day. Is that because Bottas changed? Maybe, but I find it more likely that Mercedes had certain things they wanted from him. Lewis gets a long leash, but is that because of Mercedes or is it because he is Lewis?

True, I think it was the contract insecurities and the performance pressure Bottas put on himself, all problems Lewis doesn't have. Unfortunately being behind Lewis messed with Bottas so much he didn't have bandwidth for much else. I think it's telling Bottas reinstated Toto to his management team. If he felt that way it wasn't coming from the top.

> It never occurred to me that Fernando had to be comfortable to express himself but AM seems like a good team environment for that Fernando has always expressed himself, for good and for bad. Heck, he runs his twitter himself, and the reason he gives is 'I don't see the point on having social media if I'm not the one saying stupid shit there' (not literal quote).

There's expressing yourself and leaning in on cheesy memes with zero shame. Nando is really going for it.

Ok, let me reword it: Alonso has always leaned on cheesy memes with zero shame. From him photobombing Schumacher, to his celebrations with Renault, to sunbathing on the track after his McHonda failed once again, to El Plan.

[удалено]

Someone stop this man. No one is safe from his trolling era.

I can’t wait for this man’s trolling when he finishes P1. hopefully Spain. I’m loving his energy this season.

If Nando gets P1 on his home track to break the decade-long hiatus, I'll shed a tear or two for sure.

Same position, same track, same Nando, 10 years later.

I'll cry no matter where he wins

Seb retired and passed the baton to Alonso lol

His trolling era started in 2003. The media just didn't care to show it before now.

> his trolling era. [So practically his entire career?](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/26/97/c9/2697c990376576aff85afbb27f62e8f5.jpg)

Made me smile as intended.

Checko 👀

He’s like, “hey Christian, picture this!”

Had that same thought

Rumor has it there was flowers at the Red Bull garage he wanted to smell

It's rumoured these last days in Spain that he's just started a new relationship with Dazn Spain reporter Melissa Jiménez. Great taste this time.

"I was number two!"

He's saying Max can be number two

Fernando went from being the villain to going full Seb

AM seems like a good team environment for people to express and be happy as themselves

So he just went full Seb!

Even filled his seat!

Following the great!

DTS director: I'll ignore that.

Nah we'll get dramatic music playing in the background as Nando approaches the Red bull team photo and right before the photo is taken it cuts too Will buxton in a chair looking away from the camera pausing for only a second before he looks into the camera and mutters "You just don't put yourself in another teams photo" Then it cuts to Perez crashing in qualifying for some reason.

Followed by Fernando voiceover saying "sometime, you take a risk and it go wrong." Then it fades to Horner's face looking disappointed or constipated.

My bet is that DTS will play the "villain redemption arc" where suddenly Hitler becomes Martin Luther King Jr and they'll show all of Alonso's wholesomeness, and sell it like the least toxic driver in the history of motorsport while claiming his bad image is all a misunderstanding.

I’m simple person. I see Nando wholesomeness. I ⬆️ vote

Hugging tight the RB guy on the podium to now even in celebrations. Nando to RedBull 24' confirmed

The bad guys gotta stick together :) Disclaimer: I am a huge Verstappen fan and have big respect for Magic as well.

Also, while I’m at it - how fucking cool is it to have your childhood legend photobombing your race wins. Damon, if you are reading, I still do some karting….

Immediately jail

*que grande eres*

F1 2023 is the year Alonso saves boring F1 season

I just realized he has a chance of winning the race I’m attending and that makes me HYPED

what the fuck is that username

I mean, I died so debris could live 🤷🏼‍♀️

Definitely. New era specs lasted one year before it all just settled down to same same. Can follow close but not pass etc.

Summer of Alonso!

Alonso is amazing! I’m back seeing formula 1 because of him.

Dude is just having a lot of fun. I love it. Hope he gets to fight for a championship next year. Wish to see him get 1 before hanging up the boots.

I wonder if Max and Nando could coexist on a team, hmm...

There has been some talks of Nando pitching a WEC stint together in the future

There's a big difference between coexisting in endurance and coexisting in F1 though. In WEC, when you're sharing a car, your teammate's success is your success. Max wins a race, Fernando wins too. If Max is champion, Fernando probably is too. If Fernando is asked to sacrifice for Max's benefit, it probably still ends up benefiting him overall. There's no way that the two crash because they're competing against one another, etc. In F1, you don't have that. If Max wins a race, that might mean Alonso only finishes second. If they're close together and one pushes the other too far, causing a crash? They just have to deal with it. Your teammate in the WEC is just that - a teammate. Maybe there's another car but that's not what Nando is proposing. Your teammate in F1 is a rival.

Honestly, I like to think that the two of them actually could. Max loves racing more than winning and so does Fernando. I think if there are two drivers on the track who could fight wheel to wheel for wins in the same team, it's these two.

That’s my first impression, feels like they could have some incredible battles and come out the other side well

If there's one person on the entire grid who wouldn't be intimidated by Verstappen then it's Alonso.

I think they could because they are the same type of driver who's brain is just 100% racing, I think Max would like it if there was someone to push him and not make any non-Monaco circuit feel like he's driving alone.

The small shit kicker in me is wondering if he is angling for Checos spot. Mostly because that would be legendary. And obviously never happening lol.

Oh he 100% is. Alonso knows what he's doing talking about what a great pairing they'd make.

alonso turned down countless offers from redbull over his career already. maybe he changed his mind tho…

Alonso has been saving the 2023 season and not just on the track, his enthusiasm is infectious, I love it! El Plan has been unleased!

2023 Alonso is the BEST thing about this season.

PADRE

I'm so happy for Nando. I honestly had no faith AM would produce a competitive car.

dude is filling the void danny ric left. Hes winning hearts and minds.

He is filling both Danny Ric's and Seb's void.

You can feel the joy from Alonso this year and it's amazing to see. He's definitely the highlight of what is otherwise a predictable year.

Get in there Nando

Get this guy in the 2nd RB seat please. I don't think he'd beat Verstappen as he's no longer in his prime but I'm sure Fernando would still be fairly competitive against him.

This would actually be a fantastic pairing except for the fact that their driving styles are entirely opposite. Max prefers a loose rear end (oversteer) while Nando prefers understeer. The red bull appears to be the fastest with oversteer so I think verstappen would definitely have the advantage. In ny opinion, Nando has re-entered his prime and is showing us why he is one of the best to ever do it. In my opinion he's #1, the best of the best

Fernando is still prime IMO. It'd be 2007 McLaren all over again if he was at Red Bull with Max.

Fernando is one of the very best drivers of all-time for sure but I'd say he's still not the same as he was during his first F1 career (until 2018), I mean he was faster than Ocon in 2021-2022 but not by much.

> I mean he was faster than Ocon in 2021-2022 but not by much. He was like 0.2% faster than Ocon on Sundays. That's not a small number, that was more or less the advantage Seb had on Webber during his WDC years.

Disagree. Fernando is still at 99% of his abilities, but 2010-14 Fernando was peak human performance. He's the sole reason why people believe 2012's Ferrari was a good car, because he finished like 3 points behind Vettel. In reality, that Ferrari was a tractor who was, arguably, the 4th best car on the grid. I think that, today in 2023, Alonso can school any driver in the grid... other than Max. Max pulls off the same miracles Alonso does when needed, just look at what he did this saturday in Q3.

I think that's arguable. Fighting someone like Verstappen in his prime is definitely a challenge, but I don't think Alonso would need to get his "prime" performances in to be close to him. I honestly think that if they were in the same team they'd be just be exchanging wins and poles from race to race. It's just a shame that Verstappen really has no competition, not even from his teammate in the same car...

Might need to take Max out of RB. Slightly dated, but in 2021 Fernando said: "At the moment, he's the only one that I will not be happy to maybe compete [with]," Alonso said. "I respect Max a lot. At the moment, in the Red Bull environment with his team, with his experience there, I don't think that many drivers can join Red Bull and beat Max. If you took Max out of Red Bull, maybe you [would] have a better chance."

Oh don't get me wrong I absolutely think current Alonso would be close to Verstappen, just hard to see him having the edge over the full season. Fernando was 'only' slightly faster than Ocon in 2021-2022 which suggests to me he's not exactly at his fantastic 2003-2018 level.

Fair enough. I guess he had his own magic with the way the older cars drove around a circuit. Nonetheless extremely impressive what's he's doing at his age, not only does he still have the speed, he has that movitation and hunger. Really glad AM got him a good car.

Yeah he's absolutely amazing. Another thing I'd mention is how Fernando seems to (almost) never make mistakes, his consistency over the years is unreal.

Max is great, but he also knows Red Bulls by heart, which compounds the advantage. Put them in a car new to both of them and I wouldn't be sure about result.

I would pay all of my money to see Max vs Nando both in RB cars. I mean I only have like $20, but I’d pay all of it.

I mean he part of the same team 😉 if you know what I mean

Alonso’s just that dad that gets along with everyone

His Netflix interviews are gonna be awesome He's just thoroughly enjoying this shit lol

He’s gonna get in so much fucking shit…

For what? He’s the sportsman F1 needs.

Oh no! It’s a reference to an interaction between a Red Bull person and Martin Brundle during the grid walk before the race. I was just being silly.

My bad. As you where.

Master of photo bombs!

..and your friend Steve, Do do dodotodo Steve.

Freaking love Nando.

This is honestly the best version of Fernando Alonso

Legend

Good Guy Alonso

Todo parte de EL PLAN

God imagine RB20 with Max and Nando. They'd win the constructors before the halfway point of the season.

Would he have done this had Lewis won?

Chad*lonso*

It's pretty hard to dislike the guy at this stage of his career. He's just such a great guy.

Love that man! I just hope he can win at least one race this season now that the car seems very capable finally

Competitive AM has brought out the best of Nando's personality. Guy's having a good season after so long.

Thank you for the photo, u/ICumCoffee

He is scheming something. Just know he will mind fuck max if it's his only option.

Aiming for that checo seat next season

Would be amazing to see alonso on redbull and replace checo

He's trying to pony up his way to be Perez' replacement and no one can convince me otherwise!

I love it!

ALO to RedBull confirmed

„Older“ Nando is wonderful!

Who is this Alonso?!?! I dont know who this guy is, but I love it.