HIS TIME IS NOW

FERNANDO ALONSO is confused and even a little puzzled, but still up for the challenge. “Yes. Why?” he wonders when GP Racing asks him to add together five numbers to each other. He leans over the table to glance at them in our notes and returns to his initial sitting position in three seconds with a playful smile.

“336,” he says.

Here’s your answer, Fernando. That’s the exact number of his grand prix entries (including three non-starts) before the 2022 season, as we speak on a cool evening in Bahrain during the last test before F1’s new era begins at the same venue in a week’s time: 17 with Minardi, 106 in two spells with Renault combined and 95 during another two at McLaren, plus 96 with Ferrari and 22 with Alpine last year.

Perhaps he knows these numbers by heart, but still acts surprised. Anyway, this is not the most difficult task for a guy who – as many in the paddock are convinced – can add up three-digit numbers while driving a Formula 1 car and, according to a former Ferrari sporting director Massimo Rivola, often left the team’s engineers “feeling like idiots” thanks to his ability to see races like nobody else can, including those sitting on the pitwall.

“I can do [it] faster,” Alonso insists, blaming – it must be admitted, not without reason – our handwriting for that three-second delay in supplying the answer.

Alonso is 40 years old and set to surpass Kimi Räikkönen’s record of most grand prix entries by the middle of autumn this year, and is still in great form. “Fernando is still one of the best on the grid,” said former F1 commentator Martin Brundle ahead of the season. “If he was in the Mercedes, I think he’s got world championship potential.”