Is Alonso really getting back to his ‘2012’ F1 best?

"I'm ready to deliver something special from my side and I expect the same from them."

Never change, Fernando Alonso. Not that that’s likely from a 41-year-old Formula 1 mainstay still searching, relentlessly, for a third world title crown.

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‘Relentless’. It’s surely the word most associated with Alonso – a character famous for his demanding nature, which extends to those around him and is already turned to Aston Martin. It combines with his intense desire for success and pure hatred for losing, something he says extends to his life off-track and using any slight circumstances change to win even a friendly tennis game. And he doesn’t hold back in his assessments, particularly of himself.

It’s all made for quite the F1 story. And the next chapter in Alonso’s storied career will take place at Aston after his shock decision to abandon Alpine and his F1 return with the squad with which he took his two world titles nearly 20 years ago. Before he left to drive an unbranded AMR22 in the post-season test, he faced the media in Abu Dhabi – providing an update on how he sees ‘Alonso 2022’.

Or, at least how he wants F1 to see his progress two years on from his return from category hopping in the wider motorsport world.

“I happy with the year in terms of it being competitive,” Alonso began. “I think we were ok. Reliability was our weakest point – especially on my car. We lost so many points. But, if I don’t look at the standings and I look just at the feeling and the level that I think I recovered [since coming back to F1 in 2021], I’m happy.

“Last year, I was not 100% confident with the car or with my comeback. The season was ok, but I think this year I’m much more up to speed and much more proud of how it has been.”

Alonso felt he was more confident in 2022 than on his comeback in 2021 with Alpine

Photo by: Alpine

The next answer is important. Because it came from the question: ‘Are you now operating at your highest level?’

“I think so,” came the immediate reply. “Especially on Sundays, the last few races like Mexico or Austin or Brazil – I think I’m closer to the level of 2012 or 2010 or whatever, than last year. [Then] I was a little bit not in control of everything.”

The 2012 season. If Alonso mentions it, it’s worth paying attention.

The Spaniard, his iron-clad confidence core wrapped in cloak of rock-solid determination, has a habit of declaring everything he does to be on another level. But that year really resonates.

Alonso is now openly talking about staying on in F1 once his time is up, perhaps as a team manager, maybe expanding his A14 driver management company that this week announced its biggest-name signing in Formula E racer Maximilian Guenther

Because it was one of the greatest seasons ever produced that didn’t end with the crown, as Alonso lost out to Sebastian Vettel and Red Bull after hauling what was a pretty sub-par, in comparison to the agile RB8 or the fragile McLaren MP4-27, Ferrari F2012 so close to a famous triumph.

Indeed, Alonso’s exploits that year are why perhaps Vettel’s F1 legend can’t be considered amongst the ultimate greats – because he never took an off-the-pace car either to the title or within four points of one. Hamilton and Mercedes reversed Ferrari’s early season pace advantage in 2018, but things were much closer between the two squads than the contenders in 2012 – particularly once Red Bull fettled its machine so Vettel could reproduce his blown exhaust tricks of 2011 and overcome Alonso’s strong start with a slower car.

But back to the remaining of those two legends left standing, still, in F1. About to embark on his 20th campaign with a fifth different team.

Alonso last came close to the F1 title in 2012, when he thought he was at his best

Photo by: Andrew Ferraro / Motorsport Images

Alonso is still driven – here it comes – relentlessly by his desire to win that third title. He’s adapted and increased his training, and rebalanced his time management at F1 events because, as he puts it, “I’m not 20 anymore”. But he’s also rightly realistic to note Aston in all likelihood won’t be a contender next year.

The team’s Silverstone factory is being rebuilt and it acknowledges its new windtunnel won’t be in use in time to impact any car until 2025. And Aston is aiming for anywhere higher after finishing seventh the last two years, with Alpine ending up as best-of-the-rest in 2022 behind the leading three squads.

Alonso is now openly talking about staying on in F1 once his time is up, perhaps as a team manager, maybe expanding his A14 driver management company that this week announced its biggest-name signing in Formula E racer Maximilian Guenther. He’s not keen on stopping driving in F1 any time soon, though, which was a key part in why his relationship with Alpine broke down.

Reading between the lines of him discussing potentially stopping and moving into a new F1 role with “maybe 25 years’ experience” hints at a 2026 ending, perhaps just after he’s sampled the latest F1 rules reset. But while sits in speculation’s realm, it’s clear Alonso remains – and another one – determined to carve a unique place for himself in motorsport history by adding a Dakar Rally win to his glittering palmares rather than returning to sportscars.

But never rule anything out with a man who says he “will always be driving" and has laudable Triple Crown aspirations.

An outside assessment of Alonso’s 2022 can only agree that its going in the right direction – that he was indeed better than he was on his F1 return. Impressively, he kept up the qualifying speed gains he made against Esteban Ocon in 2021 even through learning the style required for the new ground-effects cars and was often a shot for a shock result.

This came off so well in Canada, but Alonso was genuinely in the hunt in Melbourne before his Q3 crash that hurt his right wrist.

Alonso's front row heroics in Canada this year showed some of that old magic really does exist

He rightly highlights the races that came at the year’s end as his best – particularly that stint at Austin after crashing with new team-mate Lance Stroll, after which Alonso was stunningly diplomatic in comments to the press.

But he also roared up to fifth after the second safety car in Brazil and feels, from an overall perspective in terms of race execution, Mexico was the best of the three – even though it ended with another Alpine reliability drama.

Max Verstappen was praised for his metronomic 38 laps in the 1m22s bracket in that race’s second half, but Alonso essentially matched that consistency in the 1m24s during his long opening stint, which had started with an attacking, successful opening lap after which he dropped Valtteri Bottas’s rapid Alfa Romeo.

It’s worth wondering if Alonso, with additional changes in the cockpit, could’ve made the finish despite losing a cylinder late-on, as Ocon successfully adapted to major lift-and-coast requirements to aid cooling as he also did in Australia, given how forthright Alonso is in highlighting the problems with ‘his’ A522 above. Not that it matters to Alpine now with his departure.

And then there were the late moves he made when passing Stroll and going airborne at Austin and hitting Ocon in the Brazil sprint, which Alonso told the Interlagos stewards was something he “slightly misjudged”.

Alonso did make the battle occasional mistake in 2021, such as hitting Mick Schumacher at Turkey, but these errors (even though Stroll was predominantly to blame for their Austin shunt) will now stay in the memory. Last year, it was Alonso’s sensational driving against George Russell in Austria and so famously in Hungary against Hamilton, a massive reason why Ocon was able to win that event, that stood out.

And so, we must conclude that Alonso isn’t back to his 2012 F1 best. One, because this is a central unfairness of motorsport – that what a driver feels inside isn’t always what comes across to the outside. And two, more importantly, because that season performance was just so good.

But if Alonso feels he’s getting anywhere near close, F1 is all the better for it and his rivals better watch out.

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Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images