Fernando Alonso feared he might never stand on a Formula One podium again until the inaugural Qatar Grand Prix on Sunday ended a record seven-year wait and saw the double world champion hailed as driver of the day.
The 40-year-old Spaniard finished third at the Losail circuit for Renault-owned Alpine to cap his comeback season after two years out.
The last time Alonso stood on the podium was as a Ferrari driver in Hungary in 2014, when he finished second, and the 105 races between successive podiums made for the longest gap yet for the sport.
Photo: AP
To put the wait into perspective, the last time fans saw Alonso on the podium was before Red Bull’s 24-year-old championship leader Max Verstappen — second on Sunday — made his Formula One debut.
“Finally. We were very close on a few occasions and I was just wondering if I will get one podium again in my career, or not,” Alonso said. “You never know what is going to happen next year.”
Alonso won his titles with Renault in 2005 and 2006, and has 32 wins to his credit — putting him sixth on the all-time list — with the most recent in 2013 when he finished runner-up in the championship with Ferrari.
He moved to McLaren in 2015 in what turned out to be a nightmare partnership with Honda and left at the end of 2018 — going off and winning the Le Mans 24 Hours twice and competing in the Dakar Rally and Indianapolis 500.
He returned to F1 this year with renewed energy at the renamed Renault team.
While French teammate Esteban Ocon took a surprise victory in Hungary in August, Alonso’s fourth in that same race was his best showing so far this season.
He started third on Sunday after Verstappen took a five-place grid penalty and Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas dropped three from third.
Alonso made a strong start to seize second place from AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly, before ceding to Verstappen, and dropped to fourth until Red Bull’s Sergio Perez pitted and he stayed out.
An anxious late phase on worn tires was then eased by a virtual safety car.
“Seven years, but finally we got it,” he said before celebrating with former McLaren teammate Lewis Hamilton, now a seven-time world champion at Mercedes, who took his 102nd career win. “I was waiting so long for this. I am happy.”
A runner who stopped during a marathon in China to pose doing the splits and another who hoarded energy gels have been banned for two years, the local athletics association said yesterday. The incidents happened during Sunday’s marathon in Sichuan Province’s Chengdu and were widely shared online. Videos showed a female runner stopping suddenly and dropping to the ground in the splits position, holding up her arms in a heart shape as she apparently posed for a photograph. She “committed obstructive fouls during the race, affecting the safe participation of other runners,” the Sichuan Athletics Association said in a statement, which identified
Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli yesterday vowed to “keep raising the bar” after winning the Japanese Grand Prix to become the youngest driver in Formula One history to lead the championship standings. The 19-year-old Italian took advantage of a mid-race safety car to jump into the lead after a dreadful start from pole position, crossing the line ahead of McLaren’s Oscar Piastri and Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc. Antonelli’s Suzuka victory came two weeks after the first grand prix win of his career in China, and sent him top of the championship standings after three races, nine points ahead of team-mate George Russell. Mercedes are struggling to
Liverpool star Mohamed Salah on Tuesday said that he would leave the English club at the end of the Premier League season, marking an earlier-than-planned departure for one of the club’s greatest-ever scorers and soccer’s biggest names. The 33-year-old Egypt forward, who has scored 255 goals in 435 appearances for Liverpool, “reached an agreement” to quit the team a year before his contract was due to expire, the Premier League champions said. Salah’s form has dipped in his ninth year at Anfield, to such an extent that he was dropped for a stretch of games late last year — leading to the
There were some big games to be played yesterday in the NBA, with the Atlanta Hawks to play the Detroit Pistons in a matchup pitting a Hawks team who are rolling against a Pistons team trying to lock up the Eastern Conference’s No. 1 seed. The Oklahoma City Thunder were to play the Boston Celtics, a showdown featuring the two most recent champions, while the Houston Rockets faced the Minnesota Timberwolves, a game that could factor mightily into Western Conference seeding. Elsewhere, the Washington Wizards were to play the Utah Jazz, with the Wizards on a 16-game slide visiting against a team
RSS