Has Alonso exposed exactly what F1 is missing?

The buzz surrounding Fernando Alonso's R25 demonstration laps over the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix weekend reminded me of a conversation I had with a Formula 1 colleague a few years ago.

Jonathan Noble Dec 17, 2020, 12:14 PM

Upd: Dec 17, 2020, 5:00 PM

He suggested that F1 was a sport that was always at its worst in the present. No matter what era you lived in, it was never quite as good as it was in the past, nor as brilliant as it was going to be in the future.

That is definitely true of now. For F1's current generation of amazing cars – that produce more downforce than ever, are faster than ever, and have the most powerful engines in the sport's history – are not universally loved.

Share Or Save This Story

Related video

Author Jonathan Noble

Jonathan Noble is Motorsport.com’s Formula 1 editor. Having graduated from University of Sussex Jonathan worked for sports news agency Collings Sports reporting on F1, F3, touring cars and other sports, with articles appearing in The Daily Telegraph, The Independent, Reuters, Autosport and other publications. In 1999 he moved to Haymarket Publishing to become a senior editor at Autosport Special Projects, and one year later he became Autosport’s grand prix editor. In 2015 he moved to Motorsport Network, becoming the F1 editor for Motorsport.com. He is also a member of the Guild of Motoring Writers, and sits on the FIA Media Council.

Jonathan has won multiple awards for journalism - in 1991 he was the winner of the Guild of Motoring Writers’ Sir William Lyons’ Award for young journalists, in 2010 he was awarded the Outstanding Individual accolade for consumer journalism in the Haymarket wards, in 2011 he won Haymarket’s Scoop of the Year, and in 2018 he was awarded a prestigious Medaglia d’Oro at the Lorenzo Bandini Awards for his contribution to F1 journalism.