Dimitri was Russian and wore a mane like Thor’s. He combined the profession of a bus driver with that of a Spanish guitar player in Helsinki. He admired Tomatito, Paco de Lucía and Manolo Sanlucar. When you asked him what he was doing there he would lose his gaze and very slowly pronounce three letters: KGB.
The fearsome and always expeditious secret service of the former USSR, current Russia and its former satellite republics, was the subject of jokes and pranks by the citizens of current Russia. They say that the saying started from there “Once it’s chance, twice it’s coincidence, but if a third happens it’s the KGB”. There are no secret services in Formula 1, but there are chances and coincidences. And one, and quite exotic, occurred during the Spanish Grand Prix.
The Earth has about 510 million square kilometers of emerged surface, but the Montmeló paddock occupies little more than one. Well, it just so happens that last weekend Luca de Meo, president of Renault, met there. Fernando Alonso, a rather deteriorated Flavio Briatore who used a cane to walk, and the much-disappeared Luís García-Abad for some time now. The latter, a man of confidence and road manager of the pilot for years, he disappeared from the scene when he re-signed for McLaren at the end of 2014. Since then he has left the forum although in the Spanish Grand Prix he was enduring the heat discreetly and hardly appearing in the media, photos, or television. And it’s rare that these four coincide, at the same time, and in the same place… right now.
His plan is 100 tests seen, five seasons in Christian… it is a plan for the future, not for the present
In Formula 1 the important things that happen off the track don’t usually happen in your backyard paddock, but sometimes these little details leave a trail like the light cloud Yogi Bear sniffed when spotting a sandwich. When someone saw Jenson Button at the end of 2009 walking into McLaren headquarters, with his Brawn title under his armpit, the Briton said ‘it is that he had gone to see some friends’and that there was nothing else. A few weeks later the signing of him by the Woking team was announced. When someone saw Michael Schumacher go in and out of the Mercedes headquarters – the brand in Stuttgart, not the racing team – someone tattled on and the seven-time champion said ‘I’m here to see some colleagues, as I have done many times’ . Weeks later, an already contracted Schumacher starred in Mercedes commercials, disputing curves and straights in brand cars against Mika Hakkinen himself. His return was far from being the desired one, but history says that from those visits, later multi-year agreements.
Fernando Alonso returned to Formula 1 because he wanted to win, and the best accommodation his bones gave was that of a commercially reincarnated Renault with the Alpine suit. The problem, already explained in another chip, is that the formation of Enstone was the same that had been fifth the previous year, fifth the previous, and fifth the previous of the previous. With similar wickers, personnel with few changes, without brilliant signings, or revolutionary mechanisms and inventions, it was assumed that the results would be similar at best.
After the sixth race on the calendar, the Alpine team is in sixth position, with Alfa Romeo five points behind… this is the reality. And reality says that they are more or less where they have been since 2019, (fourth in 2018). It may be fair, unfair, circumstantial, accidental, inappropriate, or whatever else they deserve. What there is consensus on is that nobody sees a team called to win races, much less world championships, in the short or medium term. Said to the four winds His plan is 100 tests seen, five seasons in Christian… it is a plan for the future, not for the present.
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No Formula 1 team signs up to lose, but not all do so with victories and titles on their roadmap. They know that for this they need some well-known ingredients and faced with the situation of not having them within reach, they vegetate in less lucid areas to give continuity to a project, work for many people, and maintain a livelihood for many; you can live well even in the basements of this building. If you want to win you have to put things that are proven to be expensive and then wait. Waiting, and it is not necessary to study at MIT in Massachusetts, means investing time and there are those who have it and those who don’t. In a five-year plan you need at least three pilots, maybe four. One that starts from at least the middle zone and makes an initial technical contribution that can be used when the team improves or not. Add a replacement for him if he runs out of steam along the way, and a good second driver who could just as easily disappear from the stage if the overall results don’t arrive visibly.
Five years is a long time and if you don’t win, even the most painted will burn. This observance is visible in the seasons prior to the chaining of Red Bull wounds in the 2010-2014 cycle, or the years prior to the triumphant Mercedes of the hybrid era. It is not a law, not even a rule, but it is a recognizable pattern. Nobody knows if Alpine will champion in, say, 2026 but if this happened, the role that Fernando would have played in the script is similar to that of Schumacher in the pre-winning Mercedes, or that of David Coulthard in the Red Bull cycle prior to the titles of Toto Wolff’s people.
These two careerists started with enthusiasm in their projects, but for Schumacher the silver star meant his sporting liquidation. In the case of the Scotsman, the energy soup choked him to the point of assuming his farewell from the category after getting off his blue RB4 at the Brazilian Grand Prix in 2008. It is possible that Alonso will see himself in one similar to that of these two, because Esteban Ocon and Oscar Piastri’s roadmap is full of future, while that of the Asturian is in the past. This is not to doubt its worth, but to frame the photo in its proper measure.
If in Alpine you want quality, experience, analysis and development capacity, prestige, prestige, and even some glory no matter how past it may be – Alonso hasn’t won F1 races since 2013 – the right choice is the existing one. But if in Alpine they scan the horizon, and want to draw up a solid project for years to come, the commitment to youth to grow hand in hand, the choice is another.
No, it is not about retiring the two-time champion from the comfort of our homes, but rather showing the pasté that the directors of the training have on the table, who are the ones who decide. They will already know what they have to do and assume its consequences. The one who may not know it or not at least today is the axis of all this diatribe, the one from Oviedo, old enough to be the father of many of those who inhabit a grill. F1 has a special predilection for fresh meat, and this 2022 shine guys like Max Verstappen (24 years old), Charles Leclerc (24 years old), Lando Norris (22 years old), George Russell (24 years old), Pierre Gasly (26 years old), Carlos Sainz (27 years old), or Alex Albon (26 years old). Alonso will turn forty-one on July 29 and this, let’s be clear, makes him less and less desirable for a medium-long-term project.
Fernando believed that Alpine would give him a competitive car this season and the reality is that this is far from happening. The driving of the Spaniard continues to be solid, he shows flashes of genius that he harbors, but with the car that there is, you get as far as you get. When you put all this together with phrases from ALO like “I can run in this or that team”, or from Luca de Meo “We have three riders and one will be left out” Well, observers can easily feel a certain coldness when it’s time to renew a contract that is coming to an end.
Alonso’s desired destiny is to race, race and race, and until he is accepted into F1 teams he will be dancing around the paddock. The doubt lies in knowing which team may want him… with a strange addition: Garcia-Abad and Briatore did nothing more than hang around the Ferrari hospitality. This does not mean anything, nothing at all, it does not even amount to cheap speculation. «But, it is that if once it is coincidence, twice it is coincidence, but if a third happens, it is the KGB, what?». The problem is knowing who the KGB is here. Dimitri, the Russian Paco de Lucía could perhaps tell you something else behind the wheel of his bus. Or playing his guitar.
Photos: Alpine F1 Team