The real reason Alonso has lost hope in F1

Fernando Alonso made it very clear that the predictability of Formula 1 has played a big part in his decision to step away from grand prix racing in 2019.

It sounds like a reasonable claim, even if it's clear the overriding factor is that he doesn't want to waste his time messing about in the F1 midfield and, as he has hinted, he would stay on were he to have a title-contending car. But has F1 really become that predictable?

Alonso made his grand prix debut for Minardi in 2001, and save for a season as Renault test driver in '02 has been an ever present on the grid since. So to interrogate Alonso's assertion, it's logical to look at his 18-season span in F1.

To do so, using our comprehensive FORIX database we've crunched the numbers to measure just how predictable F1 is, or isn't, in 2018.

Predictability of winners

This season, four drivers spread across three teams have won. The only drivers from the ranks of Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull not to win are Finns Valtteri Bottas and Kimi Raikkonen.

In Alonso's 18 seasons, the average is 5.1 drivers from 3.3 teams - and those numbers have happened in one third of his seasons.

There are a couple of dramatic outlier seasons. In 2003 (pictured), eight drivers from five teams won, while in '08 it was seven from five. The peak was 2012, when eight drivers from half a dozen teams won races - albeit in a season some criticised for being too unpredictable.

Winning drivers and teams by year

Another way to look at the predictability of winners is the average winning streak. This is created by assigning a number to each win streak - a one if it's one race, two for two etc, then averaging them out.

This season comes out seventh in this list, with an average streak of 1.27 - not far off the best of 1.17 in 2008. Nobody has won more than two in a row this year, which has happened three times.

The worst seasons by some margin are 2004 (2.78) and 2013 (2.89). The former was dominated by Michael Schumacher and Ferrari, the latter by Sebastian Vettel and Red Bull.

Average winning streak

Qualifying gaps

This season stacks up pretty well when it comes to the gap between pole position and second place in qualifying. Expressed as a percentage (to ensure each race carries equal weighting, which would not be the case if time was used), the average gap between first and second this year is 0.21% - the fourth best of Alonso's time in F1 and only 0.01% off the best figures - achieved in 2003, '09 and '07.

The biggest gap was in 2004, when the average gap was 0.38% - not far off double what we have this year. We should also add the caveat that 2014-16, the first three years of the current engine rules formula, are all in the bottom seven in this statistic.

But it's not just about gap from first to second. Much has been made of the chasm between the big three teams and the midfield this year that has created a de facto 'Class B' championship.

This year, the gap between first and seventh is the biggest it has been during Alonso's career. Manifested in the numbers is clear evidence that the gap between the haves and the have nots is getting bigger.

In 2009, the closest, the gap from first to seventh was, on average, 1.01%. This year, it's a massive 1.94%. Three of the last five seasons occupy the bottom three positions in this ranking.

Given the megabucks being spent by the big three teams, it's inconceivable to see McLaren turning things around quickly enough for Alonso

This is one area where there is a decisive element of predictability. In a normal dry qualifying session without mechanical problems, mistakes or driver underperformance the top six positions will be annexed by Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull.

This shows the average gap between various positions on the grid for comparison. In seasons where there are fewer than 20 cars, 20th position represents last place.

Qualifying gaps

One thing that is clear is that within the top three, the competition is fierce. The gap from first to fifth in qualifying is the fifth best of Alonso's time in F1.

The clearest problem grand prix racing currently has is the gap between the top three teams and the rest.

This also connects to the most valid argument Alonso points to: that while the battle at the front is close, it is self-contained. The top six is locked, and the rest are sealed off in Class B.

And we are seeing more stability from year to year than was once the case. When Alonso was in his first season with Minardi, the Renault team that held his contract (then in its final year competing under the Benetton name), was only 10 points better off in the championship - albeit under the previous scoring system with 10 for a win.

Yet when Alonso went to Renault in 2003, Renault had evolved to the point where he could win a race and take a couple of pole positions. Two years later, he won the world championship.

Renault (as Benetton) was seventh in the 2001 constructors' championship, the same de facto position McLaren holds now even though it is classified sixth thanks to Force India losing its points from the first half of the season.

As Renault's Bob Bell said recently, to get to the front for a team that isn't already there is harder than ever. His team is still some way off despite vast investment.

"My quotation of five years was based on historic evidence with what happened when Red Bull took over Jaguar, Mercedes took over Brawn, when Renault came in after taking over Benetton, and of course those were in different eras," he says.

"Formula 1 is significantly more complex, the teams involved are significantly bigger now than back then, so I would say now that five years is a minimum."

Regardless of McLaren's self-inflicted problems, given the megabucks being spent by the big three teams (Renault has invested heavily but still isn't quite at that level), it's inconceivable to see it turning things around quickly enough for Alonso because for any team to go from that midfield group to the front requires huge investment.

This means that, from year to year, not so many teams win. Three different teams may have won races this year, but it's the same three teams that have won every single race in the four and a half years since the 1.6-litre V6 turbos were introduced.

"Formula 1 has always been a sport that one or two teams dominate and the package is way more important [than the driver]," said Alonso recently.

"But there have been different seasons and different years where we had a little bit more freedom of strategy, of choices, or tyres. Even if one team was clearly dominant that season and world champion at whatever part of the year, there have always been some races with heat, with cold, with wets, with inters - it provides some action. The same with strategy.

"In 2004, I won zero grands prix but I was in a couple of pole positions because we chose to run light fuel on Saturday in a gamble for the race."

What's more, if Alonso did find himself up front in a grand prix now, it would be impossible to stay there unless some cataclysm had removed the top three teams from contention. Several times in recent races a Mercedes, Ferrari or Red Bull driver has found themselves at or near the back before breezing through the midfield up to the top six simply because there's no point anyone wasting time trying to keep them behind for a few more corners.

And the one time Alonso did try to fight, when Sebastian Vettel went around the outside of him at Paul Ricard, he spun.

To counter this argument, we should also highlight the fact that when Alonso won his titles in 2005 and '06, it was driving for a team that was tyre supplier Michelin's main focus. And while the Renault was, on average, the second fastest car in both seasons there was still a clear hierarchy on the grid. So there is an element of swings and roundabouts.

"If I was winning all the races, I would continue" Fernando Alonso

Williams chief technical officer Paddy Lowe has been around F1 for three decades and has no doubt the fact there are only three strong teams and little prospect of anyone - save perhaps Renault - joining them is the reason for Alonso's departure.

"Unfortunately, there are only six cars that can win races," said Lowe at Spa. "For the second year running, there is only one podium [finisher] outside of the top six. I suspect we'll go through the rest of the season with that statistic remaining.

"If you were Fernando, if you are not in one of those cars then you are literally making up the numbers. I've worked in the sport a long time and find that quite an upsetting situation and something that needs to change."

And while the regulations play a part in this, as does the fact large teams are able to better design and run their cars to get the most out of them, Lowe is in no doubt that the lack of what might be called 'social mobility' among F1 teams is the way payments are structured.

"It's because of the distribution of funds from the commercial rights holder [Liberty Media]," he said.

"It's completely distorted at the moment. Everything else drives from there. With income you generate more incomes because you attract more sponsors - it's self-fulfilling."

Of course, Lowe wouldn't have voiced that opinion when he worked for Mercedes - one of the driving forces behind the increasing budgets for the big teams, albeit only after responding to the expansion of other teams and realising attempts at resource restriction were an illusion. But he's a deep enough thinker to have held that opinion privately at the time even if it conflicted with the team he worked for.

As Alonso said in an interview with BBC Sport's Andrew Benson at Monza last week, he'd stay in F1 if he was winning.

"I read I am stopping because I am not competitive, which is partly true," he said. "If I was winning all the races, I would continue. But it's also true I would not be having the same fun as I am elsewhere."

Alonso has previously admitted the inevitable grind of going to the same tracks and doing the same thing year after year also played a part. But while it's true he'd have stayed on if winning, he's sincere in his belief F1 is too predictable.

Even if it's not necessarily that predictable in terms of who wins, or in terms of the midfield battle - his claim it's easy to predict the top 15 with only one or two mistakes goes a little too far - what F1 does not give to many is hope.

Regardless of how jaded he is by a long time in F1 and poor results in recent years, it's that lack of hope that is most concerning. Even if Alonso stayed in F1 with McLaren for the next couple of years, it's unlikely the results will change significantly. That's the definition of hopeless.

F1 has always had a degree of predictability and domination is an inescapable possibility if you want to have a genuine sporting competition without manipulation to level things up.

The problem is, things stay largely the same from season to season. Changing that is F1's biggest challenge.