Alonso ‘doesn’t care’ what modern F1 fans think

The two-time world champion turned 44 last month, becoming the first driver since Graham Hill in 1975 to race in F1 at that age.

Already the most experienced driver in the sport’s history with 415 starts, Alonso has not won a grand prix since 2013 or a world championship since 2006, leaving many younger fans without first-hand experience of his past success.

With the release of the Brad Pitt-led F1 film F1: The Movie, which features an older veteran driver returning to the grid and winning a race, comparisons have been drawn between fiction and the reality of long-serving drivers such as Alonso and Nico Hulkenberg.

But Alonso rejected any suggestion that such portrayals could influence the way fans view older competitors.

“I don’t think Nico or I care too much about what the next-generation fans think,” Alonso said. “We only try to win races, try to work with our team the best we can, and deliver the performance.

“The fans and the people outside watching TV don’t have the full picture of what is going on and the difference in performance between the cars.

“So, if next year Nico and I have a winning car and we win eight consecutive races and fight for the championship, then they will think that we ate something different in winter or had a different training program and we learned how to drive in the winter.

“This is not really the reality. We train every day, eat every day, travel every day, go to the simulator every day. We try to be better and better every day with our teams.

“When we achieve the result, we just try to share it with them and our fans around the world — but they are not our priority.

“It cannot sound rude to anyone — we love the fans — but we don’t think about if they realise how good or bad we drive, that is more for the team.”

Alonso’s comments come in a season where Aston Martin has struggled to match the front-runners, with the Spaniard battling in the midfield.

He went scoreless in the opening eight rounds of the season, but has since scored points in five of the last six races, including a season-high fifth last time out in Hungary.

Hulkenberg, who celebrated a long-awaited first F1 podium at the British Grand Prix earlier this season after 239 attempts, also dismissed any link between Hollywood storylines and reality.

He argued there was “no correlation” between the film’s veteran success story and the results of experienced drivers on the grid, describing it as purely “circumstantial.”