McLaren-Honda driver Fernando Alonso believes Formula 1 is “thinking forwards too much” rather than concentrating on each specific race weekend, a situation he feels is down to the championship's predictable nature.
Alonso has returned to Formula 1 in Canada after skipping the preceding race in Monaco in order to compete at the Indianapolis 500, in pursuit of the Triple Crown.
Alonso qualified in fifth place and ran competitively – including a couple of stints in the lead – before retiring due to engine failure, and, having faced several questions on his future during Thursday's Press Conference at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, criticised the prevailing attitude.
“Formula 1 is the biggest motor sport category in the world for a reason,” he said.
“Whatever that reason is, maybe it’s all about this thing as well.
“An example is this press conference: there has not been one single question about this race weekend.
“Not for me, not even for Lewis [Hamilton], not for him [Jolyon Palmer]. If the future will be OK, if the upgrades will be OK, or not.
“There is always thinking forwards too much: about next year, about September, about whatever, so, there is not enough focus on this race weekend, because also, the positions, more or less, we know.
“We can put in a paper the first 15 positions for qualifying and the first 15 for the race. 99 per cent we will match ever single position.
“This lack of unpredictable racing, generates a lot of… too much thinking forwards, too much guessing.
“Obviously, it’s a good for some part of the sport that will benefit from that, because we will generate a lot of talks in the media and a lot of fan-interaction – but you miss a little bit what is going to happen this weekend.”
Alonso added: “When you come here you focus with the engineers, you prepare the race, you prepare the strategy, the tyre temperature, whatever.
“You come to the press conference and it’s all about next year, about what Zak [Brown] said, about Toto [Wolff] said, you freeze a little bit the emotions that you have about racing this weekend.”
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