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Fernando Alonso: Is He Really a Prodigious Talent or Simply Overrated?
Published: May 15, 2012
Currently, he is sharing the championship lead in the 2012 Formula One season and no one can adequately explain why.
Or can they?
Okay, a guy with two world championships under his belt is obviously not a complete dud, but I suspect we can all name drivers who secured a world championship more by virtue of the car they were in, rather than their ability to drive it.
Even Felipe Massa almost achieved it in 2008!
On the flip side, we can all name drivers who should have won a championship, but never did—Stirling Moss being the obvious example.
So world championships are not a perfect measure of driver ability although, to be fair, the best drivers do get the opportunity to drive the best cars.
A better measure is perhaps how they perform in a substandard car.
Ayrton Senna made his name wrestling his Toleman to points and podium finishes in his inaugural 1984 season thus securing his seat in a Lotus.
Michael Schumacher secured third place in the 1992 championship with a conventional Benetton-Ford against Williams cars with the superlative Renault engine, semi-automatic gearboxes and active suspension.
This year Alonso is doing the same with a car that arguably isn’t worthy of the prancing horse badge on its nose.
This season, he has finished every race in the points, a feat only equaled by Lewis Hamilton, and has managed to win the rain affected Malaysian Grand Prix and pulled a brilliantly driven second place in Spain.
The car that he is driving is far inferior to the McLaren and Red Bull cars and has been outperformed by Mercedes, Renault, Sauber and Williams. Ferrari made a big step forward in Spain, but still Alonso is not competing on a level playing field.
While his talent is on show for all to see, he is not without some rough edges.
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