Fernando Alonso offers proposal to improve F1 after rules backlash

Fernando Alonso has offered some of his ideas to help improve Formula 1 after voicing his displeasure with the current engine regulations. 

Two-time world champion Alonso’s push to improve regulations is set to play a big role in whether he continues to race in F1 next season, with his Aston Martin contract due to expire at the end of the current campaign. 

Alonso has repeatedly voiced his criticism of the new engine rules and claimed they have “killed” some of the greatest F1 circuits ahead of this weekend’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix. 

The 45-year-old Spaniard believes F1 is now the only motorsport series in which “you need to drive slow to go fast”. 

“In every single car that I drive, it feels natural for me to go fast. You brake later, you go throttle earlier, you take more risks and you learn in the process. It's educating. Every lap, you go faster and faster because you know the car better and you know the limits better. It's pure instinct of driving,” Alonso said in Baku. 

“With the current regulations, it's not happening like that. You just need to think a lot before you drive because everything is programmed and set by the regs, set by the engineers and set by the simulations. So there’s a lot less fun to drive these cars.

“I think we all come from junior formulas, from karting, Formula 3, Formula 2. There we drive with this driver instinct to go fast, attacking the corners and taking risks. And then you get to Formula 1 and you need to rewind a little bit what you learned in the last 20 years of your career, and you need to use a different method. 

“That is only happening in Formula 1. There is no other series in motorsport that you need to drive slow to go fast.”

FIA’s president Mohammed Ben Sulayem recently said it would be “not acceptable” for Alonso to leave F1 in an uncompetitive place, but the Aston Martin driver has made it clear his enjoyment is a bigger factor than Honda receiving further concessions to improve. 

And Alonso has offered some suggestions that he thinks will help F1 feel “more natural” again. 

“For me, I think maybe reducing the peak power of the battery for longer periods [works]”, Alonso said. “You will have an increasing speed rate throughout the straight. Now we have a very fast acceleration and then it’s going down.

“And then you attack the corner in a weird way because you are lifting and coasting for the last 200 metres. I think if you have less power for longer, the speed trace will look like a race car. 

“You get to the corner at your top speed and not hit the top speed in the middle of the straight. Maybe that's something. I don't know, I don't have all the information, but we need to trust the sport in general.”