Alonso wants to prove himself 'the best driver ever'

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Fernando Alonso says that he's made it his ambition to establish himself as nothing less than the best driver in the history of motorsport.

The first step of that is to become only the second man to achieve the Triple Crown of Motorsport. He's already won the Monaco Grand Prix and the 24 Hours of Le Mans, leaving just the Indianapolis 500 on the to-do list.

Only Graham Hill has complete the trifecta before. But Alonso wants to go further than that being the second to achieve the feat.

"I am more interested to be the first man in history," he told the media at Spa-Francorchamps on Thursday. "There are more challenges.

“I am studying the possibilities,” he continued. “If I do something, probably I will try do something that has been never done.

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"I am sure for some other drivers if they look outside they will find bigger challenges than the ones they have now here," he added.

If there are guys here with ambition they will need to find something outside Formula 1. If they don’t have ambition they can drive here [in Formula 1].

"What you have here is more or less what your car will give you the possibility to do."

Whatever his next challenge is, Alonso said that it was with the intention of positioning himself as "the best driver in the world - the best ever."

Alonso added that he wasn't discouraged from pursuing the immediate aim of the Triple Crown in the wake of Robert Wickens' horrific IndyCar accident last weekend at Pocono Raceway.

The Canadian driver is receiving treatment for a broken arm, two leg fractures, bruised lungs and spinal injuries after his car was thrown into the perimeter catchfence following a collision early in the race.

"Motorsport is dangerous," Alonso said. "We saw also here a couple of months ago [Pietro] Fittipaldi went into Eau Rouge straight away, he took a couple of months to recover.

"You don't feel that danger when you are driving, but time to time you discover that this sport is always dangerous," he added.

Alonso himself missed the first race of the 2015 F1 season after being injured in a pre-season testing accident. He was also sidelined from the 2016 Bahrain Grand Prix after crashing in the season opener in Melbourne.

"Motorsport will always be dangerous," Alonso insisted. "All kinds of forms, from go-karts to IndyCar."

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.