F1: Why Alpine Lost Fernando Alonso?

Fernando Alonso is indisputably an F1 great, but at the same time, he’s known to be a polarising figure. Hyper individualistic, the Spaniard is known not to be a team player and is focused more on himself, but since his return to F1, in 2021, he has mellowed a little. But at the core, the fire burns the same way it did in 2001 when he first joined the Minardi F1 team. This was evident in WEC in 2019 when Alonso clashed with Toyota, the team with whom he won LeMans and the Daytona race.

With Alpine, Alonso was responsible for the Enstone team’s first F1 win since 2012 when his staunch defence denied Lewis Hamilton in a flying Mercedes to catch up to Esteban Ocon in last year’s Hungarian GP. He lifted an elated Esteban in the pit and it seemed like Fernando was being the leading statesman. But that was not it. It was a race Alonso couldn’t have won, but what he could do is irritate his former teammate Hamilton whom he clashed in 2007. Hamilton has gone on to become the greatest F1 driver in history statistically, while most people believe Alonso has underachieved despite tremendous natural talent.

This was Alonso’s way of telling the world, “ I may be driving this mid-field Alpine on worn tyres against a flying Mercedes with fresh rubber and Lewis Hamilton at the helm, but my race craft is so good that I can stall him,” And stall Hamilton Alonso did and Hamilton himself conceded that he expected Alonso’s defence to be the hardest to penetrate. Once he got past Alonso, Hamilton made quick work of Carlos Sainz jr who was in a faster Ferrari with fresher rubber. Alonso was the decisive difference.

Alonso has this unwavering belief in his ability which he has indeed proven time and again in cars that aren’t worthy of being on the podium. His performance in the 2012 Ferrari against Vettel in the dominant Red Bull is legendary. He decimated Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa when they were his teammates at Ferrari. But even in his McLaren days, he was impressive. He made short work of Jenson Button at McLaren who by the way is no slouch. Button who was also teammates with Hamilton rated Alonso as the greater driver. Even Hamilton was not able to score more points than Alonso in the one tumultuous season they were paired together. When Alonso, drove the Indy 500 for the first time, he almost won had it not been for an engine blow-up. He won WEC and Le Mans twice while he retired from F1 at the end of 2018 and even competed in the Dakar Rally and came P5. Alonso’s skill in the driver’s seat is mindboggling something that was even witnessed in Hungary last weekend when in wet qualifying his Alpine had a dangerous moment and his reflexes shone through.

So when Alpine CEO Laurent Rossi and team boss Otmar Szafnauer offered Fernando Alonso a deal that entailed a one-year contract with an option for a one-year extension contingent on his performance levels being satisfactory, to Alonso that would’ve been insulting. After all, Alonso has proven to have the measure of every great driver in the last 20 years apart from perhaps Verstappen with whom he has never really directly competed. This includes 6 of the 8 world champions F1 has had since his F1 debut — with the other two being Alonso himself and Verstappen. 

Alpine’s management was not only dealing with an egomaniac but also someone who had the goods to back up that ego with and had a cunning manager in Flávio Briatore who ironically used to be team boss of the Alpine team in its previous avatar as Renault when Alonso won his first two world titles in the mid-2000s.

Briatore was ousted when allegedly he doctored an Alonso win at Singapore in 2008 when Nelson Piquet Jr crashed. There is no love lost between Briatore and the Renault management even though the personnel have changed over the years. Could this be vengeance, considering Mark Webber who is Oscar Piastri’s manager was also managed by Briatore once and the three — Alonso, Webber and Briatore are very close? The situation at Alpine with regards to Piastri their reserve is unravelling in the light of the Alonso exit as he is angling for a seat at McLaren and is said to have signed a contract for a reserve role for 2023 and a drive for 2024 replacing Ricciardo.

Then there is the issue of pay. Despite being 39, Alpine offered $20 million a year as wages for 2021 and 2022. That made him the third highest paid driver on the market after Hamilton and Verstappen — the only two drivers to have won a world title in the last five years. In contrast, Vettel who won Ferrari on a $30 million a year deal had to take a 50 per cent pay cut to join Aston Martin and Alonso here was returning after a hiatus of two years was commanding a higher fee than a younger and more successful driver than himself.

The fact that Alpine offered him less money than Esteban Ocon who has been signed till 2025 would have been thoroughly insulting for the Spaniard. Compounding problems would’ve been the idea of him retiring from F1 after 2023  and joining the Alpine WEC programme something that Laurent Rossi told the entire world in an F1 press conference. Alonso would’ve wanted his F1 exit to happen on his terms and he returned to win a third title and had made it clear that he would want to be in the sport for more than 2 years.

He had joined a middling Alpine team in 2021 and while its competitiveness has improved in 2022, likely it will only be able to challenge for the title at best in 2024. Alonso probably wanted to be there when that happened and desired job security.

When Vettel announced his retirement, Aston Martin offered Alonso, job security with a 2+1 deal, they offered him more money than Alpine for sure and likely the same amount he makes right now which means more money than Vettel and also will be the undisputed no.1 at a place that is attracting incredible investment and technical talent like Red Bull genius Adrian Newey’s top acolyte Dan Fallows.

Laurent Rossi is new to F1. Last year he brushed heads with former 4-time F1 champion Alain Prost who was an advisor to Renault. His arrival also accelerated the exit of Marcin Budkowski, the long-time Alpine technical lead. Prost left this year and didn’t have nice words to say about Rossi. Rossi who also worked at Google for a long time perhaps is completely at odds with the passionate piranha club that is the F1 paddock that full of massive egos. F1 world champions are egomaniacs by default. They are the fastest humans on the planet, and they stake their lives on the line for the adrenaline rush. Rossi seems like the cold calculating corporate type — Alonso has the cold calculating bits, but he is fuelled by passion and Rossi and Szafnauer’s belief that his form would start waning eventually because of his age would’ve angered him.

The moment Aston Martin offered him all that he wanted, Alonso turned on Alpine. Rossi and Szafnauer’s biggest underestimation was underestimating Alonso and Briatore — two of the most cunning people the F1 paddock has seen in the last three decades. Remember, Briatore was also the man who triggered a young Michael Schumacher to jump from Jordan to Benetton in 1991 and he ended up winning his first two world titles with them in 1994 and 1995 in controversial circumstances. And then Briatore in concert with Alonso plotted Schumacher's demise with Renault in 2005 and 2006.

Rossi and Szafnauer were gobbled up by veteran F1 alpha operators — and by the time they realised what happened, it was checkmate.