Alonso: 'Boring' Formula One has passed its peak

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Two-time Formula One world champion Fernando Alonso has suggested that the sport hit its peak in the first decade of the 21st century, and that seasons before and since that period are 'boring' when viewed objectively.

"A lot of manufacturers came into Formula One in the 2000s - BMW, Toyota - and there were many people coming," Alonso told Autosport magazine this week. "Television figures and the spectators were at the maximum.

"We opened Formula One to new countries - we raced in Korea, we raced in India, we raced in Singapore, two races in Spain - and that was the maximum," the McLaren driver added.

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Alonso dismissed the widely-held opinion that the 1980s and 90s had been the sport's golden period, saying that those decades in Formula One had actually been rather dull without the tendency to view them through rose-tinted spectacles.

"Formula One at that time, it was very boring," he insisted. "If you see a race now from '85, '88 or '92, you will sleep through the race because it was two McLarens, the fourth guy was lapped, and there was 25 seconds between each car."

Alonso suggested that the problems that had made those races boring in the Prost/Senna era were much the same reasons why interest in the sport has been on the wane in recent seasons.

"Television figures, spectators are going down [today] like it was in these boring years in the '80s where Senna, Prost and these people were saving fuel, saving tyres and things like that. It's exactly the same boring as it was at that time.

"The resources, the budgets of these teams, the technology we are using allows these cars to be fantastic machines and probably beyond any physics that the human being respects.

"Now we don't have that feeling. We have a car that is way too slow with no grip," he concluded. "We are sitting in a single-seater, but with the feeling of a GT."

Alonso said that he was hoping the new 2017 rules would allow drivers to feel the car's grip which would allow them to once again push to the limit through corners and feel the "excitement of driving, and this joy of driving" as had previously been the case last decade.

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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.