F1 Blog

Road to the Title

With everyone talking about how the baton has been passed from Senna to Schumacher to Alonso, it might be interesting to look at how each made his way to his first title.

Senna joined F1 in 1984 with the uncompetitive Toleman team, but immediately impressed with his pace and car control. He progressed to Lotus in 1985, then to McLaren in 1988, where he clinched the title at the age of 28. At the time he clinched the title, on his 79th race, he had 14 wins to his name. Senna will probably always be a legend of qualifying, so it is no surprise that he dominated his teammates early in his career. How his qualifying/scoring dominance went during those 79 races:

1984 (v Cecotto): qual 8-2; pts 9-0
(v Johansson): qual 2-0; pts 4-3
1985 (v deAngelis): qual 13-3; pts 38-33
1986 (v Dumfries): qual 16-0; pts 55-3
1987 (v Nakajima): qual 16-0; pts 57-7
1988 (v Prost): qual 14-2; pts 90-87


Michael Schumacher also impressed with his pace from his first moment in an F1 car. He had only a single race for Jordan, at Spa 1991, before being snapped up by Benetton, where he stayed until he won the title in 1994. At the time he clinched the title, he was 25 years old, and had won 10 of the 52 races he had entered. Michael will always be known as a better race driver than qualifier, but his sheer pace ensured that he almost always out-qualified his teammates:

1991 (v. deCesaris): qual 1-0; pts 0-0
(v. Piquet): qual 4-1; pts 4-3.5
1992 (v. Brundle): qual 16-0; pts 53-38
1993 (v. Patrese): qual 16-0; pts 52-20
1994 (v. Verstappen): qual 8-0; pts 50-8
(v. Lehto): qual 4-0; pts 36-1
(v. Herbert): qual 2-0; pts 6-0

Fernando Alonso’s claim to fame has always been his youth. He was the youngest driver to win an F3000 race, the youngest to be on an F1 podium, the youngest at everything. And now he is the youngest F1 champion, having clinched the title at the age of 24, on his 68th race, with 7 career victories. He, like several other exciting young drivers, got his start with Minardi, in 2001. After sitting out 2002, he moved to Renault for 2003, where he has stayed. Alonso has never been thought of as the absolute quickest driver in F1, but he has shown the ability to pick up championship points by the bunch. Even when he doesn’t out-qualify his teammate, he is likely to finish ahead. His qualifying statistics aren’t quite as impressive as Senna’s or Schumacher’s, but that is primarily due to being paired with a qualifying demon like Trulli for two years:

2001 (v Marques): qual 12-2; pts 0-0
(v Yoong): qual 3-0; pts 0-0
2003 (v Trulli): qual 8-8; pts 55-33
2004 (v Trulli): qual 8-9; pts 59-46
2005 (v Fisichella): qual 13-4; pts 117-45

There isn’t much point in using these statistics to compare these three drivers to each other, because the circumstances are different, the times are different, the teammates are different, the opposition is different, etc. But there is a definite pattern that is in stark contrast to virtually every other driver: each of these three immediately made his mark on joining F1, and progressed steadily to the championship. Notice that, while on his way to his first title, not once was one of these three out-scored by a teammate over a season. Many other drivers have legions of fans who will swear that their favourite driver would win the title under the same circumstances, but it never happens. These top drivers fight their way into a top car, and then waste no time taking home the title. Each of them won the title the first time his car was close to good enough.

Maybe this season will be the only championship Alonso wins in his entire career. Maybe in a few years we’ll be talking about how Kimi finally started winning titles in 2006 and never looked back. But Alonso has earned respect. He wasn’t dropped into the best car on the grid; he worked his way to the front by making sure he was never beaten by a teammate.

Tags: Fernando Alonso, first, schumacher, wdc