Why the F1 title-winning Alonso is back, both on and off-track

OPINION: Fernando Alonso's lacklustre start to his Formula 1 comeback in 2021 raised questions about whether the same Spaniard many argue is one of the best drivers of the modern era was still in there. But recent events have shown the fire still burns inside the double world champion and that he still has the belief in himself to do the job.

Jonathan Noble Jul 8, 2021, 9:28 AM

Upd: Dec 16, 2021, 9:55 AM

Fernando Alonso’s first steps back into Formula 1 this season had left a lot of people uncertain about whether or not he had returned like the Spaniard of old. A fairly low key first weekend in Bahrain, where he ran in the points before brake problems forced him out, was followed by an even trickier event at Imola as he paid the price for a lack of experience of current F1 machinery in damp conditions.

With teammate Esteban Ocon hitting a run of form that peaked with a fifth place on the grid for the Spanish Grand Prix, the cynics were quick to suggest that perhaps peak Alonso was long gone, and that maybe we would never see the brilliance that took him to back-to-back world titles in the mid-2000s.

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Author Jonathan Noble

Jonathan Noble is Motorsport.com’s Formula 1 editor. Having graduated from University of Sussex Jonathan worked for sports news agency Collings Sports reporting on F1, F3, touring cars and other sports, with articles appearing in The Daily Telegraph, The Independent, Reuters, Autosport and other publications. In 1999 he moved to Haymarket Publishing to become a senior editor at Autosport Special Projects, and one year later he became Autosport’s grand prix editor. In 2015 he moved to Motorsport Network, becoming the F1 editor for Motorsport.com. He is also a member of the Guild of Motoring Writers, and sits on the FIA Media Council.

Jonathan has won multiple awards for journalism - in 1991 he was the winner of the Guild of Motoring Writers’ Sir William Lyons’ Award for young journalists, in 2010 he was awarded the Outstanding Individual accolade for consumer journalism in the Haymarket wards, in 2011 he won Haymarket’s Scoop of the Year, and in 2018 he was awarded a prestigious Medaglia d’Oro at the Lorenzo Bandini Awards for his contribution to F1 journalism.