Fernando Alonso joked that he was the last deserving driver to win the Formula 1 World Championship, ahead of this weekend’s title-decider at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
The Drivers’ Championship will be clinched this weekend at the Yas Marina Circuit, with either Lando Norris, Max Verstappen or Oscar Piastri emerging as the victor.
Norris is in the driving seat with a 12-point advantage, with Verstappen four points ahead of Piastri, with everything all to play for in what promises to be a nail-biting finale.
All three title protagonists were grilled by the media on Thursday, and were quizzed by the collective throng, giving one the chance to play mind games with the other.
Alonso, a seasoned veteran of the F1 game both on and off-track, delivered his own verdict on the championship fight and observed this is exactly how the three men are playing it.
“Always a little bit of games,” Alonso told media including Motorsport Week. “When you see your low opponents on-track [during] FP1, FP2.
“Media comments from today, you try to put the pressure on the other side.
“You meet in the drivers’ briefing, there is a different body language for all three of them.”
The Spaniard concluded that whichever team will have the faster car this weekend, then that will determine who will come out on top.
“At the end of the day, when you close the visor and you drive, if the McLarens are going to be faster this weekend, they will have everything to win it,” he said.
“If the Red Bull is faster, there is then a good chance for Max. Again, it’s all down to the car performance.”
19 without victory – Alonso makes cheeky jibe at fellow drivers
Alonso was also in a three-way fight for the title back in 2007, when, as defending World Champion, he and McLaren team-mate Lewis Hamilton lost out to Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen – the outsider, a comparison some have drawn on in relation to Verstappen.
In 2010, Alonso was also part of a multi-driver finale, also in Abu Dhabi, when he lost out to Sebastian Vettel, who lost out again two years later, despite being in the inferior Ferrari.
Verstappen recently opined that he might have been World Champion by now if he were aboard the papaya-liveried MCL39, something Alonso was asked about
“You never know. It’s always a guess, difficult to answer,” he replied. “I think we all know that Max is an incredible driver and extracting the maximum from the car and some of the races he has won this year maybe it was not really up to the car, it was up to him and also last year.
“We all will say that we can win the championship with the best car. We all have that self-confidence. But this is a question that you cannot answer.”
When asked if, should Verstappen fail to win, there would be a World Champion who isn’t the best driver, Alonso quipped: “This has been happening for the last 19 years now, so we’ll be the 20th.”
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