he's had the car multiple times since 2006 and has failed to convert.
Wow that's incredibly harsh. He had a competitive car 3 times and was within the narrowest margin of winning the title 100% of these cases. Missing the title by the incredibly narrow margins. He didn't crash his rival out and benefit from dubious stewardship and and outright dodgy race direction so I rate these three seasons as better drive than the winners effort in 2021. What about years other drivers had dominant cars?
There were 14 'free kick for the best car' seasons (2009, 2011, 2013-2020, 2023-2025), would Alonso have won in those circumstances?
It's all hypothetical but based on how good he was in competitive cars and comparison to teammates, and his general consistent competitiveness, I reckon that Alonso would have taken the title in any of those seasons if he was swapped in.
Struggling teams rarely progress with him in them, McLaren, Alpine, Aston Martin, none of them progressed with his presence.
There are so many factors, sure a driver can help develop car and build a team, however the multitude of things that can prevent development just don't land on the drivers shoulders.
It is fate or the will of the universe the cars didn't improve a factor to say Alonso is overrated?
The conversation for Alonso has a much longer time period to call upon than any other current driver, sure there are other drivers in the sport who could have the overrated conversation, but none as pertinent as the Alonso one.
Yeh, maybe, but are you saying he is overrated because he has a long career?
I mean the value to the team is clear, if he wasn't still good he wouldn't continue a drive 'because he is overrated'
It's like Rubens Barrichello had an extremely long career and he is probably one of the most underrated drivers.
Unpopular opinion I know, but lets look at Alonso's carree since he won the F1 WDC last in 2006. Championship victory in WEC 2018/19, alongside 2 endurance racing stalwarts driving a car in a team that had no realistic competition whereby the only race Toyota as a team didn't win was by virtue of disqualification. What else? Handful of F1 podiums and some what ifs.
He almost won the Indy 500, which is extremely specialised case with same performance cars at extreme speeds. Max wins a entry/mid level GT race and everyone is losing their minds with greatest of all time of all time rhetoric, Alonso almost won one of the hardest races in the world to win and missed due to mechanical DNF - I guess that was his fault?
There are some mitigating factors throughout his career, like with any driver, but when does 'bad luck' and 'unfortunate circumstance' become more a problem with the driver?
I think this is joining too many variables and trying to join together, correlation does not imply causation.
