Reaction time faster than Usain Bolt, a trip to the moon, and an important date with Charles and Diana. As Fernando Alonso prepares to celebrate his 400th Grand Prix in Mexico City this weekend, we break down the notable figures from his incredible F1 career and reveal his time at the pinnacle of motorsport. Revealing the statistics and ultimate facts.
In mathematics, a constant is defined as a quantity or parameter whose value remains the same no matter what the value of the variable is under certain conditions.
In F1, the constant is defined as the 43-year-old from Oviedo, Fernando Alonso for short.
F1 is a constantly changing and unpredictable sport with little certainty. But there is something about Fernando that has kept him a constant presence at the pinnacle of motorsport for almost a quarter of a century.
23 years on from his F1 debut, and ahead of his incredible 400th Grand Prix weekend in Mexico, we reveal the astonishing numbers posted by F1’s ubiquitous star and take Fernando’s F1 career beyond the ordinary. We analyze the weird and wonderful facts and figures that characterize it.
top line numbers
From epic title battles with Michael Schumacher and Kimi Raikkonen to more than a century of podiums, Fernando’s F1 career has been a glittering one…
2 World Drivers Championships
32 wins
2,329 World Championship Points
106 podiums
22 pole positions
26 Fastest Lap
rewind a few years
Fernando is determined to defy the sands of time and continue running into his mid-40s.
Fernando has competed in more than a third of all F1 Grands Prix. Since the World Championship began in 1950, Fernando has appeared in 36 percent of Grand Prix weekends.
He spent half his life driving in F1. Fernando was born on July 29, 1981 and celebrates his 43rd birthday this year, his 21st season as a Grand Prix driver. As he approaches his 44th birthday, he will have spent half his life driving in F1.
Race with F1 drivers from the 80s. Fernando made his F1 debut at the 2001 Australian Grand Prix. Frenchman Jean Alesi, who made his debut in 1989, was also participating in this race. In other words, even in 2024, there will still be drivers on the grid who competed with drivers who were once active. Active in F1 in the 1980s.
go far
F1’s ultimate marathon man. Fernando has been logging kilometers since his first Grand Prix.
Fernando drove to the moon. The distance between the Earth and the Moon varies between 360,000 km and 405,000 km, and throughout every Grand Prix weekend and official test session, Fernando has driven a Formula 1 car over the 360,000 km mark and covered 107,949 km in races alone. I recorded it.
Over 70,000 laps behind the wheel of a F1 car. Across all official testing and Grand Prix sessions, Fernando completed over 72,750 laps driving the F1 car, including 21,578 race laps.
all over the world
In the most international sport, Fernando’s passport has more stamps than most.
He traveled around the world 50 times. This year’s F1 teams will travel approximately 120,000km during the 24-race F1 season, with the average distance traveled to a Grand Prix being 5,000km. Including the 2024 Mexico City Grand Prix, Fernando has competed in 400 Grands Prix during his career, totaling a staggering 2 million kilometers, equivalent to around 50 laps around the Earth. .
He has participated in races in more than 10 countries around the world. Fernando has raced in 29 countries on five continents during his F1 career. That’s 12% of all countries on Earth. Along the way, he drove on 36 different circuits.
direct confrontation
Fernando has been racing wheel-to-wheel with some of F1’s biggest names over the years.
Fernando’s record against all his F1 teammates is 292-107 in his favor in qualifying and 262-117 in Grand Prix, with 20 double DNFs in races.
He has raced with over 100 F1 drivers. To date, Fernando has raced with 118 drivers in his F1 career. This represents 15% of all drivers in F1 history.
Oscar Piastri wasn’t even born when Fernando made his F1 debut. Fernando raced in F1 with four drivers who were not yet born when he made his debut in March 2001. They are Oscar Piastri (born April 2001), Liam Lawson (born February 2002), Franco Colapinto (born May 2003), and Olly Bearman. (Born on the day Fernando reached the podium at the Spanish Grand Prix in May 2005).
in a race
Fernando has one natural habitat. It’s a cockpit.
His average speed is 186.634 km/h. Fernando’s average race speed during his F1 career.
The number of pit stops was 735. Number of pit stops Fernando made during his career.
5 hour pit stop. During his career, Fernando spent a total of 17,995 seconds in pit stops, including driving in the pit lane.
578 episodes of Drive to Survive. To match the amount of time Fernando has spent racing behind the wheel of an F1 car, you’d have to binge-watch 578 hours of Netflix’s popular F1 documentary series.
His reaction time is faster than Usain Bolt. The reaction time of the world record breaker in the men’s 100m final at the 2008 Beijing Olympics was 0.165 seconds. Fernando’s average reaction time at the start of the race was 0.16 seconds. By the time Fernando hits the gas pedal at lights out, the hummingbird flaps its wings just 11 times.
Faster than the blink of an eye. Fernando reached the famous podium at the 2023 São Paulo Grand Prix, finishing 0.053 seconds behind Sergio Perez in about half the time it took to blink.
motorsport royalty
A date with Charles and Diana. July 29, 1981. Fernando was born on the same day the world went wild over the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer.
triple crown. Fernando is the only active F1 driver to have competed in the Indianapolis 500 and the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Two wins, the Monaco Grand Prix and the Le Mans 24 Hours, put him just one step away from winning motorsport’s elusive Triple Crown. If he wins the Indianapolis 500, he will match the feat achieved by another driver, Graham Hill.
magic numbers
14. Fernando, synonymous with the Spaniard, chose his driver number when he became world karting champion on July 14, 1996 at the age of 14.
Thanks to Sean Kelly (@virtualstatman) and João Paulo Cunha from Forix for helping compile these statistics.
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