He’s considered the most naturally talented and aggressive driver in Formula 1, and yet Spaniard Fernando Alonso remains hamstrung by a sluggish Ferrari and a former powerhouse team unable to reclaim race-winning form.
It’s approaching a decade since Alonso won his first world championship for Renault. And at the time it looked as though he could rattle off a number of titles as the successor to Michael Schumacher, yet an ill-fated move to McLaren and unsuccessful return to Renault set him back.
Ferrari beckoned in 2010, though he has finished runner-up three times in a team lacking direction in the post-Schumacher era following the exodus of its dream team – Jean Todt, Ross Brawn, Schumacher etc.
Alonso sits in fourth in the championship standings heading into the team’s home event, the Italian Grand Prix, this weekend, a mammoth 82 points ahead of his fellow former world championship-winning teammate Kimi Raikkonen.
That gap highlights Alonso’s ability to ring out results from a car that simply doesn’t have the pace of its Mercedes-Benz and Red Bull Racing rivals; a fighting quality that has won him endless praise but little in the way of race results.
At 33 years of age, time is running out for Alonso to grab that seemingly elusive third championship. Though he insists he won’t be leaving Ferrari any time soon, it’s hard to see a drastic turnaround in performance from the team with new boss Marco Mattiacci still yet to convince he has the Todt-style ability to revive the prancing horse.
McLaren is reportedly sounding out Alonso as it gears up for the arrival of Honda as its new engine supplier in 2015, though it remains to be seen whether Alonso could work with boss Ron Dennis again following the acrimony of their previous stint together.
The McLaren-Honda option would be a risk given the inevitable teething troubles of a new engine partner, though the long-term reward could be building the team around him in what is likely to be the only challenger to the dominant Mercedes package in the coming years.
Meanwhile, Red Bull Racing could be looking for a new driver should Sebastian Vettel decide to move on with the team finding a new race winner in Daniel Ricciardo.
And what about at Mercedes, should the warring Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton be separated?
Alonso may not have won a title at Ferrari but his stock as a Formula 1 driver has certainly been raised during his spell with the team.
And you can sense the hunger in him to get back into a championship-winning position, after too many years of battling it out for the minor placings.
Given his age, though, his next move is key. Staying put at Ferrari in 2015 and leaving his options open for 2016 will allow him to survey the progress of McLaren-Honda from afar and let other developments play out and create some openings.
Facing his first winless season with Ferrari in 2014, looking elsewhere for that last chance at a third championship appears increasingly likely.
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