Fernando Alonso looks back on the changed perception of Spanish Formula 1 fans. According to the Spaniard, motorsport was not yet so popular at the start of his career. The two-time world champion is therefore also proud of how he has helped make Formula 1 so popular in his home country that there are several Grands Prix on the calendar this year: ‘That is my greatest legacy’.
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Fernando Alonso stood on the starting grid in Formula 1 for the first time during the 2001 Australian GP. The Spaniard is now the most experienced driver on the grid, and looks back on how Formula 1 has especially changed in his home country. When Alonso started, motorsport was not yet so popular in Spain.
“In my debut year, my family even had to watch Formula 1 via a German channel to follow me,” Alonso said during the press conference for the first race in Madrid. “That tells you how small F1 still was twenty years ago. A lot has changed. There are more Spanish drivers in the top class, and even around five percent of the people behind the scenes are Spanish. Many more Spaniards want to be part of Formula 1.”
That Alonso is partly responsible for the increased popularity of F1 in Spain is therefore what he is most proud of. “I have been very lucky to have been able to win both Grands Prix and championships, but my greatest legacy is the change in how F1 is viewed in Spain.” For Alonso, every time he races in Spain is therefore ‘a unique experience’.
‘Simulator does not detract from the sense of danger’
Madrid is the third city in Spain where Alonso gets to race this weekend, after previous Grands Prix near Valencia – ‘that was a very special race’, he says – and Barcelona. That new circuits can already be practiced on simulators beforehand does not detract from the novelty of the track for the Spaniard. “I love it when a new circuit is added and you then need five laps on the simulator to get to know it,” he explains. “That does not detract from the first laps in FP1. Because if you crash tomorrow, it’s immediately over. The sense of danger is impossible to replicate in the simulator.”
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