“He chased the money,” ex-F1 team owner blames Fernando Alonso’s greed for World title draught since 2007
Eddie Jordan has passed his verdict on why Fernando Alonso should be a tad bit regretful of his career decisions as he is still stuck with only two World Championship titles.
Follow Us
A Formula One driver’s life is filled with all sorts of luxuries, and they often get a paycheck worth millions of dollars. But even amongst the racers, there are some who have exorbitantly priced contracts with their teams while others have signed less expensive deals with their employers. As of now, Logan Sargeant of Williams is the least-paid F1 driver on the grid, and Nyck deVries is almost at par with the American as well. Both of them are expected to take about $1 million home at the end of the season each.
On the other hand, Max Verstappen, who is on a quest for a title hat-trick this year, will pocket a whopping $55 million fee for his 2023 Championship campaign with Red Bull, thus becoming the highest-paid racer on the current grid. At one point in time, Fernando Alonso was in a similar position as Max as he had won two World Championships by 2007 and all the teams were looking to hire him. But, in former F1 team boss Eddie Jordan’s opinion, Nando ran after money and chose a less competent team which failed to help him attain any further F1 titles.
Speaking on the Formula For Success podcast with former F1 racer David Coulthard, Jordan commented on Fernando Alonso’s career choices. He said, “You have to remember, Fernando Alonso chased the money. He went to teams where he was getting more money than what he would have got in another team that probably had a better chance of him winning the world title.”
Eddie Jordan reckons Fernando Alonso regrets never going for further World Championships in F1
It has been 10 long years since Fernando Alonso won his last F1 Grand Prix at his home race–the Spanish Grand Prix. Since then, plenty of things have changed in Nando’s F1 career as he failed to get a title hat-trick after his 2007 win. Finally, in 2018, he had to see the exit from Formula One because there was no plausible seat at any of the teams for him. And two years later, he made his comeback with Alpine. Fast forward to today, Alonso is with Aston Martin, and has done wonders by claiming four podium finishes in the first five races of this year.
Being a racer of his calibre, anyone would expect Fernando Alonso to at least make it to four or five World Championship wins, but he stopped at half the number. Speaking on this, Eddie Jordan said, “He probably now regrets that [going to a team for a massive amount of money and not aiming for the Championship] because he’s got so much money. Sometimes when you look back, you think that was a mistake.”
He continued, “And, if I was to say to Fernando if he was sitting there opposite me, I think Fernando, you made a mistake. You’ve still got a great legacy, twice World Champion. But you, in your heart, know it could have been an easy five or six.”
In other news, Fernando’s chance to shine at the Imola Grand Prix has been seized by terrible weather conditions in the Emilia Romagna region. For now, the race has been cancelled, and the next time fans will see the Asturian in action will be at the Monaco Grand Prix a week from now. It has already been revealed that Mercedes will debut some new upgrades at the next race, so it leaves the fans to see whether Alonso’s Aston Martin can still keep up with the Silver Arrows or if he succumbs to Lewis’ hammer time and fails to attain another podium win.
In case you missed it:
/techfirstnow/media/agency_attachments/kATjCXskQdJKkXN0OuqW.png)