Alonso reveals the ‘anonymous’ drive that he ranks as his best in F1 so far

Fernando Alonso has shared the untold story behind what he believes to be his best drive in Formula 1 up to this point, picking out an “anonymous” performance at the Malaysian Grand Prix a decade-and-a-half ago.

Alonso is the most experienced driver on the F1 grid, having made his debut back in 2001 and racked up 417 starts so far – scoring more than 2,300 points, 106 podium finishes, 32 wins, 22 pole positions and two world titles as of the 2025 Italian Grand Prix.

However, rather than any of those successes topping his list of greatest races across that period, the 44-year-old Spaniard would go back to the early-2010s and a particularly challenging Sunday afternoon with Ferrari.

Speaking in an interview with Maaden, a partner of his current team Aston Martin, Alonso instead made reference to the 2010 Malaysian Grand Prix, where race-long gearbox and clutch issues blighted his efforts to recover from 19th on the grid (following a shock Q1 exit amid changeable weather conditions).

“There are many races that people were not maybe aware of,” said Alonso, reasoning why he did not choose one of his legendary wins, such as the 2012 European Grand Prix in Valencia, which saw him charge from 11th to the top step of the podium.

“It was Malaysia, Sepang [in 2010], where I had a problem on the gearshift. The gearbox was broken, semi-broken, the clutch had a problem – the gears went up okay, but not down.

“Around halfway through the race I tried to downshift into Turn 1 and from seventh [gear] I went to only fifth instead of second, so I did Turn 1 in fifth, I lost time, and I realised in the following corner that there was a problem.

“Out of desperation, I tried to blip the throttle on a downshift, because if not I would retire the car in that lap. I blipped the throttle and the downshift went in, so on the next braking point I blipped the throttle four times and four downshifts [happened].

“I communicated to the team, ‘What I’m doing is right or wrong? I will break the gearbox within one lap?’ They said, ‘Keep doing what you’re doing, the gearbox is safe by doing that’.

“I did like 30 laps like that, so the upshift was okay, then braking I had to brake and, while having the pressure on the brake pedal, I had to blip the throttle a couple of times to do the downshifts that I wanted – obviously synchronising the throttle and the paddle shift.”

An engine failure a couple of laps from the chequered flag left Alonso 13th in the overall classification, without a point to his name, but even today he takes great pride from the performance he was able to deliver while managing so many issues.

“The engineers said [after the race], ‘I don’t know [how] you came [up] with that solution that fast, because that could be a solution, but you did it like in 13 or 14 seconds, the second corner after you had a problem’,” added Alonso. “I said, ‘I hate losing, I hate retiring the car, I will try everything before accepting that we have to DNF’.

“[It was] completely anonymous, no one will remember that race, but the level of energy that I had to put [into] that race, the level of concentration, focus, and [to] instinctively come out with a solution [to] a problem that was never tested or experienced… I think it was quite a race to remember.”