The Spaniard debuted in the sport in 2001 and will now compete in his 19th full season with Alpine after making a comeback in 2021.
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Fernando Alonso has revealed that F1 has cost him in unexpected ways in his everyday life, while also claiming that he has never understood what it’s like to have a regular existence. The Spaniard debuted in the sport in 2001 and will now compete in his 19th full season with Alpine after making a comeback in 2021. While Alonso is aware that his career has influenced his personal connections and other aspects of his life outside of racing, he finds it difficult to pinpoint which areas have been the most affected.
When asked whether Formula 1 has cost him in ways he would not have anticipated when he made his debut, Alonso told the Beyond The Grid podcast: “I would say yes, but [I’m] not clear on if I go in detail [on] what I missed or what it cost in my normal life.”
“I will not be able to say exactly what I missed or what I lost. For sure, when you are in the paddock when you are 19, and now I’m 40, I’m sure I lost a few things in life, and obviously you are away from your family for most of your life and friends [too], and maybe you lose some of them,” the Spaniard added.
Alonso, on the other hand, admits that he and others in his situation are willing to make compromises in order to pursue their dream of racing in Formula 1. He also believes that F1 drivers have no past experience of what a regular life is like because they have been concentrated on their careers since they were children.
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“When you enter here [in F1], you are just living a dream that you started when you were a go-kart driver, and you aim to become a Formula 1 driver,” he explained. “Then you arrive here, and you are ready to sacrifice whatever comes with that dream. But, because we didn’t have a normal life, [because] even from 10 years old or 12 years old, we’ve been racing internationally in go-karts, etc., we don’t know exactly what it means to have a normal life. So [there is] a mismatch.”
Since he was preoccupied with competing in other racing categories during his two years away from Formula One in 2019 and 2020, Alonso does not believe he was able to live a more normal life. “I tell you, those two years, they were so intense,” the two-time World Champion said. “I was changing cars every weekend. I was driving for Toyota in the World Endurance Championship, but the following week I was in Doha with the Dakar car, surfing the dunes, learning how to drive in [the] sun. And then the following week, I was in Indianapolis with the oval racing, and this was a very, very intense two years [of] switching cars and always having a steering wheel in my hands. So again, I didn’t have a normal life, let’s call it.”
