Fernando Alonso Rates Both his F1 Titles Higher than WEC Crown

Published 05/07/2019, 3:18 AM EDT

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Fernando Alonso and his WEC teammates, Sebastien Buemi and Kazuki Nakajima are close to winning the 2019 WEC title. However, the Spaniard admits that winning the WEC title does not hold a candle to his two Formula 1 world championship titles.

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Fernando Alonso clinched two successive F1 titles back when he raced with Renault in 2005 and 2006. Only recently, he won the 6 Hours of Spa alongside Buemi and Nakajima in a chaotic snow-hit race.

Alonso is poised to win the WEC title in his first attempt before leaving Toyota at the end of the season. After the race in Spa, he was asked if it was equivalent to winning his two F1 titles,

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Alonso said: “No, I don’t think so. I think Formula 1 is the biggest category in motorsport. That’s the way it is. Also it depends on the difficulty of the championship, how you rank all of the things.”

“This year, we have a very dominant car. I’m sure [Lewis] Hamilton doesn’t rank the championships the same in 2008 or the last four championships. I think it’s different.”

via Imago

The Number 8 car of Alonso is the championship elect, with teammates Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi and Jose Maria Lopez 31 points. So far, just 39 points are up for grabs at the season-ending 24 Hours of Le Mans.

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“Definitely it was a big hit in terms of points,” Alonso continued. “I’m thinking more of Silverstone [where both Toyotas were excluded] or Shanghai [where the #7 car finished ahead due to strategy], that probably we deserve a lot more points than what we have and with those points, we were already mathematically champions.”

“But now we [just] need to finish at Le Mans. It seems easy, because last year we finished one-two without any problems, but if I look back in the history of the race there, finishing the race is not that easy.”

“We need to be very, very careful, we need to be very sharp and very concentrated all through the race, because anything can happen in a 24-hour race.”

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“Obviously we are in the same position as our sister car, and they need a lot to happen to us and nothing to them. If we try to copy their race, we can be safe.”

via Imago

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Written by:

Dhruv George

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Dhruv George is a senior Formula One and NASCAR analyst for EssentiallySports, having authored nearly 12000 articles spanning different sports like F1, NASCAR, Tennis, NFL, and eSports. He graduated with a PG Diploma in Journalism from the Xavier Institute of Communications. Dhruv has also conducted interviews with F1 driver Pierre Gasly and Moto2 rider Tony Arbolino.
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