McLaren driver Fernando Alonso has labeled Daniel Ricciardo the best driver on the Formula One grid in 2016.
While the Aussie sits third in the driver's championship, behind the unassailable Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton, double world champion Alonso believes Ricciardo's attitude puts him at the top.
"In the way (Ricciardo) approaches racing he's always very committed to everything he does," Alonso told BBC 5Live when asked who was F1's best.
"On the track, you cannot see any mistakes when you are together with him, in the overtaking manoeuvres probably he is the best out there."
Ricciardo has already locked in third place in the driver's championship with two races remaining.
His positive approach this season has won the praise of many, particularly given the negativity coming from the Mercedes garage.
Fernando Alonso says McLaren's best races are yet to come this year, highlighting Singapore, Suzuka, Austin and Abu Dhabi as the venues where he expects to score his best results.
A Honda engine upgrade at the Belgian Grand Prix saw McLaren take another big step forward this year, with Alonso scoring a seventh place finish after starting last. The team struggled at F1's power circuit Monza a week ago, but is expected to be more competitive this weekend in Singapore. Alonso is looking forward to the race and also sees several other opportunities for strong results at the remaining races.
"Not only Singapore, I think Suzuka, Austin, and especially Abu Dhabi, I think will be very good," he said. "Even last year we expected a lot in Singapore and we were OK but we were not as good as Austin and especially Abu Dhabi. For whatever reason Abu Dhabi was really strong for us last year so I think it can be the same next year."
Asked how good the races could be, Alonso said: "Let's try to be just behind Red Bull."
Alonso said the Honda update has unlocked a lot of lap through efficiency gains.
"The latest spec on the engine has some more power and some more deployment, so that helps us a lot on the straights. So if you have two or three tenths quicker on the straights you have two or three tenths less time at full throttle, so less consumption."
Fernando Alonso is 35 today as the German Grand Prix weekend begins - and his colleagues and rivals celebrated his birthday in style at Hockenheim.
Alonso has had a tough time at McLaren-Honda along with his team-mate Jenson Button, with problems riddling the car and wrecking their chances of points on multiple occasions over the past 18 months.
The pair's dry and sarcastic digs at the car's quality have been a regular highlight on Formula One in recent months - as was Alonso taking the opportunity to catch some rays when he was forced once again to retire from a race. There was no point in him losing his temper, it seemed - he was just going to enjoy what he could.
After a tough year with McLaren-Honda, Fernando Alonso has revealed that his Formula One days are numbered and that he expects to exit the sport sooner rather than later.
The 34-year-old made it clear that he will not carry on racing simply for the sake of it and that he is prepared to walk away from the sport as soon as he no longer enjoys racing.
"When the time comes, I will leave Formula One," he said in an interview with French newspaper L'Equipe.
"When you're not fast enough, when you no longer enjoy it and when you cannot meet the demands, you know that it is time to leave.
"I feel right now as if I'm approaching the end of my dream."
The Spaniard explained that it would be a fitting ending if he could retire with his current team.
"When I was a little boy, my father built me a kart with a design inspired by McLaren-Honda and now I am a driver for McLaren-Honda," he said. "I feel like I can come full circle in a romantic way."
The two-time world champion acknowledged that other older drivers have continued late into their 30s, but he believes he is different.
"You look at drivers like [Kimi] Raikkonen, [Jenson] Button or [Felipe] Massa and it seems like they could carry on forever, but I probably won't be like them," he admitted.
Asked about his post-Formula One plans, Alonso was not yet sure.
"It's still too early to discuss what I'll do after Formula One," he said. "The life of a Grand Prix driver is very demanding.
"When I retire from the sport I think I'll start by enjoying the return to a more normal life."
However, the Asturian did not completely close the door on a return to competitive racing.
"I'm sure I'll miss competing and the adrenaline rush," he said. "It's likely I'll keep racing in other categories, but one which takes up less time.
"Le Mans would be perfect, as you don't have to be away for the full year."
13 races remain for Alonso in this 2016 season, with the Austrian Grand Prix on July 3 the next one on the calendar.
Fernando Alonso had a difficult day in the McLaren Honda after he pulled over to one side on Lap 45 of the race. Despite running in the Top 10 for a large part of the race, the home hero’s race came to an abrupt end, just over the mid-way point.
“My car felt okay this afternoon, but I didn’t manage to make a good start and lost everything – so my race was effectively over by the first corner.
After that, I followed Jenson for 50 laps and had traffic all race long, so I wasn’t able to do too many laps in free air or show my true pace.”
When his McLaren stopped, Alonso was running in 12th position, on his charge for a Top 10 finishing position.
“At the end, I lost power somehow – we don’t know the exact cause. We weren’t able to capitalise on our reasonable level of competitiveness. With both Mercedes out, we had a good opportunity to score some points today, but we didn’t manage it, so we need to keep improving.”
Commenting on the retirement, was also Eric Boullier: “Disappointingly for the local fans, Fernando was unable to score points today, owing to a software command issue that stopped the ICE. Until that moment he’d been driving hard and well, and, but for the problem that ended his race, may well have also finished inside the top 10.”
“It was a bittersweet end to an eventful Spanish Grand Prix,” said Yusuke Hasegawa, Head of F1 Project and Executive Chief Engineer at Honda. “Fernando’s retirement was caused by a software command issue that stopped the ICE. We think that the power unit as a whole is not damaged from this incident, but we will continue to investigate the effects of this stop. Obviously we will work with the team to see how this kind of situation can be avoided in the races going forward.”
Former F1 driver and Sky Sports commentator Johnny Herbert has been quite vocal lately about McLaren’s driver lineup, suggesting that driver Fernando Alonso may want to consider retirement. So, Alonso butted into one of Herbert’s broadcasts from the Bahrain Grand Prix paddock and shut him down.
Alonso was not cleared by doctors to participate in the Bahrain Grand Prix following a high-flying accident at the season opener. Herbert said on-air that perhaps the 34-year-old two-time F1 world champion should use the opportunity to retire. As quoted by GrandPrix.com:
We don’t see that passion from him to want to drive and push himself to the limit when he is in an F1 car. The things he says, the things that have happened on track, his qualifying pace, and that error in Australia, to me they say it is time for him to hang up his helmet.
Because Herbert was speaking on television and not into a vacuum when he said that, Alonso had this to say when he saw the Sky commentary duo filming in Bahrain:
I will not retire. No, I’m world champion.
You ended up as a commentator because you’re not world champion.
Surprise!
According to GrandPrix.com, Herbert won only three grands prix in his twelve-year F1 career. However, if Johnny hadn’t been at a loss for words, perhaps he could have fired back with, “Yeah, well, let’s talk when you win Le Mans.”
Alonso is currently training in hopes of making his return at the Chinese Grand Prix on April 17, per the BBC. We think that’s what he was trying to say in this highly confusing emoji tweet, anyway:
Either that or it was a much harder hit than 46G. Get better soon, Fernando!
McLaren have seen their worst ever results in over 30 years, and Alonso his worst since he joined F1. But he's still got it, and here's why.
McLaren-Honda, or McHonda as they have now been christened by fans, have been the team for everyone to beat this season, with spectators worldwide making jokes centered on the British outfit. Things got bad enough that the drivers made fun of the team themselves, laughing off some of the worst results either driver has ever seen.
A look at their results would belie the fact that the outfit is in fact manned by two world champions with three championships between them. Marussia newbies Will Stevens, Roberto Merhi and their American driver Alexander Rossi, who started only 5 races this year and had minimal Formula One experience, were the only drivers below them in the standings apart from Sauber’s Marcus Ericsson.
Could this really be the same Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button who stood on top of the podium repeatedly in their wonder years?
Was this really the Alonso of old, the young, fresh-faced Spaniard who set a record in his first year with Renault? Alonso is regarded by many as a game changer in the sport, and in many ways, he was. The third-youngest driver to make his Formula One debut at the time, he impressed with his speed and clean lines.
Nando, Alo, whatever you'd like to call him, was a youngster on a mission – and he declared it in style. Making his way to top team Renault in 2003 after a year testing with them, he was, in what is now a funny coincidence, put into the drivers’ seat in place of now-teammate Jenson Button.
At 22, he became the youngest ever polesitter in Formula One. He was not excessively aggressive like Schumacher or Senna, but had – and matched – their speed with a clean precision few had exhibited before him.
He kept steadily winning races, proving to spectators he could outdrive the best – Schumacher among them – and it was obvious Alonso was building up to more.
And build up he did. It takes gumption to take on a driver who is not only reigning world champion but one fresh off winning the title five times on the trot. The 2005 Japanese Grand Prix played host to what many regard as one of Alonso’s best moments in Formula One. Schumacher by then had already won his seven championships – and at the high-speed 130R, Alonso moved on the outside of the Red Baron and took one of the best overtakes of the past 10 years.
Knowing he was driving with an impaired engine at the 2005 San Marino Grand Prix, Alonso was locked in an intense battle with Schumacher for the title that race – one that went on for nearly 15 laps with Alonso finishing on top – with nobody aware that the Renault engine had been on its last legs.
Rather than constant jarring speed, it was Alonso’s consistency that fans marvelled at. It was a consistency that won him two championships on the trot, a regularity that appeared to be the only thing able to put a stopper in the reign of the equally consistent, but more aggressive, Schumacher.
He drove for the entirety of the 2005 season the R25, which was not known to be the fastest car on the circuit by any means, outclassed in terms of speed by McLaren’s MP4-20 – then being driven by Kimi Raikkonen, and designed by one of the sport’s most iconic engineers – Adrian Newey, who later gained even more repute for his design of a Red Bull that dominated the sport for four years under the drivership of Sebastian Vettel.
It was Alonso’s own consistency and persistence that won him two championships in quick succession, despite Ferrari’s cars being faster and more powerful across the board.
After his short, ill-fated first stint at McLaren in 2007, albeit one where he finished half the year on the podium and third in the drivers’ standings, Alonso returned to Renault – this time, not to the results he would have either envisioned or desired.
Despite this, Alonso remained upbeat for the two years he was with the team, and to this day expresses gratitude for what they shared.
He came back with Ferrari, back close enough that he was on the verge of another championship title, which would end up falling through.
2015: Disastrous for both
Alonso at the 2015 Brazilian Grand Prix – his car stopped during first qualifying at Interlagos
...but the pair had a sense of humour about it all, posing on the podium – a place that is all too familiar to both of them
Even now, saddled with a worse car than he ever had in his second stint at Renault, Alonso manages not only to remain upbeat but positive about his future at the team. Button and Alonso have both consistently made themselves the butt of the many jokes that have been cracked about them all season.
Yes, McLaren got it disastrously wrong this year in many ways, primarily in terms of reliability – in that there was none. There was consistency in the team in the 2015 season, but that consistency was unfortunately in DNFs for both Alonso and Button.
The team struggled most with power in 2015, an issue team boss Yasuhisa Arai continues to say is an issue. But it has also been revealed that it is something they are rectifying – and something they need to, considering the gap between McLaren and polesitters and consistent winners Mercedes has been a staggering 2.5sec.
The car also saw McLaren – and Alonso’s worst results in a long time – 35 years for the team, and over a decade for Alonso.
It’s also to be noted, however, that 2015 was the first year of the McLaren-Honda partnership after the Woking-based outfit parted ways with long-term partners Mercedes, and as is the case with any partnership, the two had early issues in sorting out their relationship, as it were. Teething problems are inevitable in any new relationship, and it is evident that they existed.
Alonso himself, quizzed on multiple occasions, has been upbeat about changes coming in the future. McLaren have said they are looking to make significant aerodynamic changes to their cars.
In addition, after several publicized spats with the Japanese manufacturers, it appears the pair are ironing out their issues – and now a year into their relationship, it’s likely we will see significantly better results from a team that plays host to far and away one of the most talented drivers on the grid at this point in time.
So although they’re currently at the bottom and sleeping trackside as they make light of a horrible situation, McLaren are by no means done just yet – and neither is two-time World Champion and raw racing talent Fernando Alonso.
KEVIN Magnussen is poised to replace Pastor Maldonado at Renault for the 2016 Formula 1 season.
The team — then known as Lotus prior to Renault’s buyout in December — announced four months ago that Maldonado would be staying on.
But the Venezuelan, reputed to pay almost £20m for his seat, is believed by Sky Sports to have been ousted after backing from his sponsors dried up.
Renault, who will unveil their driver line-up as well as their new car at a media event next week in Paris, have refused to confirm or deny speculation that Maldonado has been dropped.
Magnussen was released by McLaren at the end of last year but is now set to partner English rookie Jolyon Palmer in 2016.
Reports first surfaced earlier this month that Magnussen had been at the team’s Enstone base for two days of talks with senior management.
The highly-rated Dane drove for McLaren in 2014, scoring a podium finish on his debut, but was subsequently sidelined when Fernando Alonso returned to Woking to partner Jenson Button.
Despite winning the 2012 Spanish GP, Maldonado’s five-year F1 career has been defined by controversy and collisions.
Prior to leaving the Williams team for Lotus two years ago, he accused the Grove outfit of sabotaging his car ahead of the 2013 US GP and, unable to shrug off the tag of being a ‘pay driver’, a website was launched to keep a timetable of his many crashes, followed by a sequel site tracking his many penalties.
Manor are the only other team still yet to confirm the identity of their driver line-up for the new campaign with pre-season testing commencing on February 22 in Spain.
