You can blame Fernando Alonso’s career moves and accuse him of not realising his full ability in Formula One.
But are you doubting his racing style? That’s really insulting.
Fernando Alonso: F1’s King of Dirty Air
However, at the 2024 Australian Grand Prix, the FIA stewards effectively punished Alonso with a 20-second penalty – and three penalty points on his licence, if you please – for an incident with (by which we really mean ‘near’) George Russell in which the two cars did not even make contact.
The verdict, with an explanation that was one “sort of” away from reading like a Johnny Herbert hit piece, that the two-time World Champion was guilty of “potentially dangerous driving” was an attack on his entire identity, because Alonso has always used turbulent air as his secret weapon in warfare.
Alonso has long been the master of dirty air, whether it’s providing a stream of fresh air to his front wing to give him a decisive advantage in attack or leveraging the wake from his own vehicle in defence to disrupt the one behind.
And how much did his three trips to the Indianapolis 500, where running in traffic alters the car’s balance and behavior, contribute to his understanding of how turbulence may be used in wheel-to-wheel battles?
As Alonso faces criticism, here are three instances where he used foul air to his benefit during his F1 career.
Spain 2013: Art Meets Science
Few moments this century have more exemplified Formula One as an expression of art and science than Alonso’s maneuver on the first lap of the 2013 Spanish GP.
It had it all: Alonso’s awareness of the chance, combined with his courage in pursuing it, paved the way for physics to take over and propel him past Kimi Raikkonen and Lewis Hamilton.
If you watch the footage enough times, you’ll notice the exact moment – to the very split second – when Alonso lets go of the baton and downforce takes over.
Of course, the fact that this maneuver laid the groundwork for his final F1 victory just added to the excitement.
As the four cars ahead of him poured into Barcelona’s Turn 2, Alonso had the foresight to dance his Ferrari to a different beat by selecting an offset line, easily outpacing Raikkonen on departure.
With Hamilton pinned to the inside of Turn 3’s long right-hander, directly in the tracks of Sebastian Vettel and Nico Rosberg ahead, Alonso used the open expanse in front of him to swing around the Mercedes’ outside – his hands jockeying at the wheel as he hung on for dear life, his right thumb pinned to the KERS boost button – and into third place.
It appears to be a simple matter to park his automobile in a location where others cannot.
But if it were so simple, so clear, wouldn’t everyone be doing it?
Hungary 2021: Showing Lewis Hamilton a trick or two
This takes us to Exhibit A, when F1’s ancient warrior clashed with the Big Bad Wolf for 10 laps at the Hungaroring in 2021, stalling Hamilton’s Mercedes just long enough for Alpine teammate Esteban Ocon to win.
After the race, Alonso claimed to have taught Hamilton a few tricks, stating that his old rival “learned a couple of different lines in the last three corners after the 10 laps behind me.”
Hamilton and Alonso raced inches apart at Turn 2 and had scuffed tyres approaching Turn 4, but the penultimate corner was always going to be crucial, as DRS and Mercedes’ innate straight-line advantage would both come into play on the pit straight.
As long as Alonso was flawless through that sweeping right-hander, he would have him covered.
And so, lap after lap, he would find a way to keep back the tide, creating a forcefield with his own turbulent air into that final circuit and preventing Hamilton from coming close enough to try his luck in Turn 1’s braking zone.
What is the most stunning part of this conflict over three years later?
How long it took a driver of Hamilton’s caliber to A) understand what Alonso was doing and B) figure out how to counter it.
Only after he realised and began adopting an offset line to avoid the filthy air through Turn 14 did Hamilton begin to put Alonso under severe pressure, resulting in a lockup into Turn 1 and the opportunity to finish the move on the exit.
Hamilton was bound to win this duel, as the differences in technology and tyre compositions (Alpine hard, Mercedes medium) made it unavoidable.
However, after making his great foe look out of ideas for so long, Alonso was able to claim moral victory.
He truly did school Hamilton that afternoon.
Qatar 2021: Feeding the ravenous front wing
Normally, the best overtakes are only seen in their full glory through the lens of an onboard camera, allowing the rest of us to see a fraction of what the driver sees in the heat of the moment.
Not this one.
Alonso’s overtake on Pierre Gasly at the start of the 2021 Qatar Grand Prix can only be truly appreciated with the logic-defying trackside film.
Consider Alonso’s front wing a hungry pet that needs to be fed at precise moments. The more you feed it pure air, the more it will repay you.
The front wings had never been hungrier than in the final races of the previous era of extreme-downforce cars, when the teams had nearly exhausted their development potential over five full seasons.
So the drivers who gave their front wings that delicious, sweet clean air when they needed it would naturally be the ones rewarded most generously, especially on circuits lacking slow-speed bends, such as Qatar.
Cars of that sort, and circuits of such qualities, demand the kind of imaginative thinking for which Alonso is famed.
So, as second-placed Gasly followed Max Verstappen’s wheeltracks into Turn 2’s left-hander, Alonso adopted a wider line.
The gap between two cars – one in foul air and the other in clean – had never been more clear, as Alonso, who was at least a couple of car lengths behind Gasly’s AlphaTauri on the approach to the bend, managed to get ahead by the exit.
Again, it was so straightforward – a matter of savvy car location rather than some act of superhuman genius – so how come so few of his contemporaries followed his lead in similar scenarios?
It’s all about personality, with Alonso being one of the few who is daring and creative enough to experiment with new lines and trajectories while the rest play by the leader’s rules.
To put it another way, he is a lion surrounded by lambs.
All hail the King of Dirty Air.
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