(born on
July 29 ,
1981 in
Oviedo ,
Spain ) is a
Formula One racing driver, currently living in
Oxford . On
September 25 2005 he won the
World Driver's Championship title at the age of 24 years and 59 days, thus breaking
Emerson Fittipaldi 's record of being the youngest F1 champion, and ending
Michael Schumacher 's run of five consecutive championships.
Born Fernando Alonso y Díaz (his full name includes his mother's maiden name according to Spanish custom) on July 29, 1981, in
Oviedo in the
Asturias province of northern
Spain . His mother worked in a department store and his father was employed as an explosives expert in the mining industry. The Alonsos and their two children, older sister Lorena and Fernando lived comfortably but were by no means a wealthy family. Fernando’s father José Luis, an amateur kart racer, wished to pass on his passion to his children. He built a pedal kart mimicking an F1 car. Originally the kart was meant for eight-year-old Lorena but she showed no interest in the sport. But her tiny three-year-old brother was eager to have a go. From the moment Fernando climbed into the tiny cockpit he immediately felt at home. And his determined and competitive spirit was already apparent at that young age.
From then on the young prodigy and his devoted father who also doubled as his mechanic, competed in karting competitions around Spain. While his entire family fully supported Fernando’s increasingly successful hobby, his progress would require more funding than his family’s limited resources could provide. It was difficult to acquire sponsorships and Fernando knew the only way to get the financial backings was to win races. Alonso won in almost every race he entered and was invariably the youngest. Age was never a hindrance as he easily won three Spanish Karting Titles (
1994 ,
1996 and
1997 ); he raced in the
European Kart championship, placing second and by his mid teens he was the World Junior Karting champion in
1996 .
In
1999 , Alonso made the jump to open-wheel cars, racing the Spanish
Euro Open MoviStar By Nissan (his first and last season in the series) with the help of former
Minardi F1 driver
Adrián Campos . Then only 18 years old, he became the series champion, immediately earning him a ticket to
Formula 3000 in
2000 . A win at the legendary
Spa-Francorchamps highlighted a very solid fourth place in the drivers championship, and Alonso was off for Formula One in
2001 .
Fernando Alonso has often been tipped as Michael Schumacher's natural successor. The personable young Spaniard does share some of Schumacher's most impressive attributes. Alonso is one of the few drivers capable of being on the pace every lap of every race and having a rare gift for driving around major problems while losing minimal lap time.
Nicknamed 'Magic Alonso', Fernando has a good sense of humor and is known as one of the paddock’s jokers — he tried out his card and magic tricks on Lord March at the 2005
Goodwood Festival , the inhabitants of the paddock delighted to see a driver that actually smiles for a change, someone who actually remembers that it's still a sport.
Alonso was the third-youngest driver in F1 history to start a race when he made his debut with
Minardi at the
2001 Australian Grand Prix . While the car was not highly competitive, Alonso did a sturdy job, occasionally out-qualifying better-equipped opponents, yet failed to score a point in his
Rookie season.
His driving talents earned him a spot with the newly-founded
Renault team in
2002 as a test driver (run by his manager,
Flavio Briatore ); the team groomed him to be a regular driver in
2003 . With a much better car than in his first F1 stint and in only his second race for Renault, Alonso became the youngest driver ever to win a Formula One
Pole Position at the
2003 Malaysian Grand Prix ; he also became the youngest driver ever to win a Formula One race at the
2003 Hungarian Grand Prix . At season's end, he was a solid sixth in the championship, with 55 points and four podiums.
Formula One team at the 2004
US Grand Prix ]]
Alonso remained with Renault for the
2004 Season but the difficult-to-drive R24 kept him out of the winner's circle. In the early part of 2004, though, questions were asked of Alonso when he was comprehensively out-qualified and out-raced by teammate Jarno Trulli. The situation would change towards the end of the year when Trulli suffered a mysterious lack of form after dropping Renault boss Flavio Briatore as his manager. Trulli's relationship with the team deteriorated to the extent that he signed for Toyota from 2005 onwards, and even left for his new team for the final 3 races of 2004. Though he had no wins, Alonso ended the year a career-best fourth in the championship standings, scoring 59 points and four podiums. He comprehensively outpaced his new teammate (
1997 World Champion Jacques Villeneuve , who replaced
Jarno Trulli for the final three races of the season.)
For the
2005 Championship season, he was joined by Italian
Giancarlo Fisichella . He finished third in the
First Race in Australia. In the
Second Race of the season in Malaysia he got pole position and easily won the race. Alonso repeated this form in the season's third race, winning the
Bahrain Grand Prix from pole position, and continued his good form with a close win over
Michael Schumacher in the
San Marino Grand Prix after an epic battle with the 7-time World Champion lasting about 13 laps. While he did not win his
Home Grand Prix he set the mark for the rest of the season, driving consistently to finish second after
Kimi Räikkönen .
McLaren's improving form saw Räikkönen win again at
Monaco while Alonso suffered from high tyre wear, though finishing fourth. One of the most memorable moments of the 2005 season was Räikkönen's spectacular exit from the
European Grand Prix at the
Nürburgring , granting the win to Alonso.
Alonso's run of good results came to an end at the
Canadian Grand Prix , when he made a mistake and crashed into the wall at the Villeneuve corner, damaging his suspension, after coming under pressure from the
McLarens of
Juan Pablo Montoya and Räikkönen. It was his first retirement of the year.
At the
United States Grand Prix , due to safety concerns over the Michelin tyres, Alonso, along with all the other
Michelin drivers, did not start.
Alonso took his third pole position of the season at the
French Grand Prix , and led the race from start to finish, winning his fifth race of the season. He followed this with pole position a week later at the British Grand Prix, where he finished a conservative second behind a
McLaren-Mercedes , as Colombian Juan Pablo Montoya took his first victory of 2005.
McLaren's poor reliability granted another win to Alonso at the
German Grand Prix when Kimi Räikkönen's car suffered a hydraulic failure. Alonso then celebrated his 24th birthday two days before the
Hungarian Grand Prix but qualified only 6th and finished 11th and out of the points after a collision with the Toyota of
Ralf Schumacher .
At the
Turkish Grand Prix Alonso took 2nd place from Juan Pablo Montoya after the Colombian collided with Tiago Monteiro in the closing stages of the race. At Monza, Alonso qualified third and drove consistently to finish 2nd behind Montoya.
At the
Belgian Grand Prix Alonso finished second, despite struggling with a car which was extremely difficult to drive due to a less than ideal set-up for the track conditions. He again made up a place in the closing stages after
Antônio Pizzonia crashed into Montoya.
The 24-year-old Spaniard qualified on pole, but finished 3rd in the
Brazilian Grand Prix to clinch the Driver's Championship title at the age of 24 years and 59 days old, thus breaking
Emerson Fittipaldi 's record of being the youngest F1 champion in history by about 18 months, and ending the 5-year dominance of Michael Schumacher. He had led the championship from the second race of the season.
Commenting on his victory he said:
"I just want to dedicate this championship to my family, and all my close friends who have supported me through my career. Spain is not a country with an F1 culture, and we had to fight alone, every step of the way, to make this happen. A huge thank-you should also go to the team as well - they are the best in Formula One, and we have done this together. It will say that I am world champion, but we are all champions - and they deserve this."
The Japanese and Chinese Grands Prix saw Alonso abandon the conservative style evident in Brazil when he was still chasing the championship title and Renault closed the performance gap considerably. Jordan's commercial director Ian Phillips described Alonso's overtaking manoeuvre around Schumacher at Suzuka as “one of the best of all time at this grandiose circuit”. Starting from 16th on the grid, he eventually finished third behind race-winner Räikkönen (who started from 17th on the grid, and clinched victory with a last-lap pass on Fisichella) and Renault team-mate Fisichella.
The
Chinese Grand Prix saw Renault and Alonso win to claim the 1st Constructor’s Championship for the Renault F1 team. It was one of the most well deserved chapionships in a while.
On
December 19 ,
2005 ,
McLaren announced that Alonso would be driving for the team in the
2007 Season .
Fernando's success has spawned "
Alonsomania " in Spain, as he has become the country's first Formula One World Champion. He is now as famous as
Real Madrid 's Galactico players.
Proponents of Kimi Räikkönen argue that he has been the best driver of the 2005 season despite having the same number of victories (7) as the Spaniard. Without the reliability issues Räikkönen might have won the Drivers' Championship. However most commentators agree that Alonso fully deserves the title, dominating the early part of the season while McLaren struggled and driving consistently since then to capitalise on Räikkönen's problems. Plus not haveing problams is part of the sport and Kimi did not full fill it, yet Alonso did.
Alonso started the season with a close win over Michael Schumacher at the
Bahrain Grand Prix ,with just 18 laps to go the Spaniered overtook th German comeing out of the pitlane. He had qualified fourth but was able to win after overtaking Massa and edging Schumacher out after his last pit stop.
He qualified a disappointing 7th at the
Malaysian Grand Prix due to a fueling error but was able to ultimately finish 2nd to team mate Giancarlo Fisichella after an excellent start, overtaking four cars, and with a better race pace than Jenson Button.
Fernando beat Kimi Raikkonen to victory in
Australia after he overtook Leading Jenson Button's Honda.
After a poor qualifying (by their past standards) for both Renaults at
San Marino , Fernando Alonso was unable to pass Michael Schumacher for the majority of the race due to the tracks lack of overtaking opportunities Renault attempted to sieze the lead with a tactical pitstop in order to pre-empt Ferrari but a clear in-lap for Michael, coupled with traffic for Alonso's out-lap, meant that the seven-times world champion was able to leave the pit lane seconds before Alonso could pass him. Faltering performance on Alonso car (attributed to the fact that it had already competed in the Australian GP) and the tightness of the San Marino circuit allowed Schumacher to win the race in a dramatic reversal of the 2005 grand prix one year previous. Although Schumacher won the race thier is some dought if Ferrari are back. Nick Fry principal of
Honda said 'Ferrari always seem to pull it out of the bag here no matter what happend in the top three races. We will have to wait till the Euorpean GP to find out thiere true speed.'
Even before the 2006 season started, Fernando Alonso and McLaren principal
Ron Dennis had already announced that Fernando will be moving to McLaren for 2007. For some, this immediately put some doubt on whether he would perform well with
Renault in 2006, given that they might not throw their full support behind a driver who they knew was ging to leave them at the end of the season. Others saw it as a sign that
Renault was pulling out of
Formula 1 at the end of 2006. However, Alonso's overall performance, and
Carlos Ghosn 's announcement that
Renault would stay commited to Formula 1 beyond the end of the year has just about put an end to those rumours.
He has been awarded the
2005 Prince Of Asturias Award of Sports, the youngest to receive the prize.
Also, recently before the closing of the 2005 season, retired three-times F1 title holder
Niki Lauda , hailed Alonso as:
"perfect, the most complete performer in Formula One today and thoroughly deserving of becoming the 2005 world champion. Yet I also have to say that Alonso is extraordinary. The more pressure he has the better he drives. I've never seen any driver of that age so completely composed and consistent. OK, so he made one slip at Montreal he hit the wall but, speaking for myself, I reckon that I would have made many more mistakes if I'd been in that position at that age. I cannot find a single weakness in Alonso from any viewpoint. He's obviously a huge asset to the Renault team but more importantly a huge asset to the sport as a whole. I think he is perfect."
While he was managing the Brazilian team in the inaugural race of the
A1 Grand Prix at
Brand's Hatch ,
Emerson Fittipaldi was asked to comment on his feelings about possibly losing the record to Alonso, to which he replied, ''"In him
{Link without Title} , I know that my record is in safe hands."''
- 2001 - Minardi - European - 0 wins, 0 points, 0 fastest laps (finished ''unclassified'')
- 2003 - Renault - 1 win, 55 points, 2 poles, 1 fastest lap (finished 6th)
- 2004 - Renault - 0 wins, 59 points, 1 pole, 0 fastest laps (finished 4th)
- 2005 - Renault - 7 wins, 133 points, 6 poles, 2 fastest laps (Champion)
- 2006 - Renault - 2 wins, 36 points, 0 poles, 2 fastest laps (1st; season in progress)
TOTAL = 283 points, 10 wins, 9 poles and 5 fastest laps.
