Formula 1 is currently gearing up for the 2024 Mexico City Grand Prix. Or, put another way, the ‘Fernando Alonso 400’.

The double world champion has held F1’s record for taking part in the most grands prix since he overtook Kimi Raikkonen back in 2022. In reaching 400, he’s the first human being to reach such a milestone.

“Not good for your back, for your neck, for your spine!” he half-jokingly replies when I ask him about the physical toll of that uncharted territory.

Classic Alonso. Who, on discussing his upcoming race start achievement in the Austin paddock last week, insists he would “would love to race half of the 400 and win one more championship or win more races”.

“Those are the important statistics that you want to achieve,” he adds.

Alonso’s drive for further F1 success is well known. But, as we’ll go on to see, there’s something far deeper and more human at play too. First, however, more stats. Because in four centuries of grands prix, plenty accrue. 

With Alonso having made his debut at the 2001 Australian GP, 36% of world championship F1 weekends have featured him plying his trade – as per data released by his Aston Martin squad this week, with assistance from Motorsport.com’s Forix guru, Joao Paulo Cunha.

Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen made their F1 debuts together at the 2001 Australian Grand Prix

Photo by: Sutton Images

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Alonso has completed more than 72,750 laps in F1 weekend action and test sessions – including 21,578 race laps. He’s done 735 F1 pitstops. His record against his F1 team-mates stands at 292:107 in qualifying and, with 20 double DNFs for the teams he’s raced for since starting out with Minardi, 262:117 in GP races.

His F1 sabbatical yielded two Le Mans 24 Hours wins – the last of which, in 2019, is his most recent race victory in any category – a World Endurance Championship crown and a 24 Hours of Daytona win.

There is, however, a certain stat that needs examining here. How, thanks to his long career, which included racing in an era where such things were more common, several DNS stats appear on his record.

Forix therefore has Alonso officially reaching 400 GP starts at 2024’s Qatar round next month, but he’s celebrating the milestone this weekend as he wants to count the three events where he turned up and put the work in, only to be thwarted. In the case of the 2017 Russian GP, this happened on the formation lap in his McLaren.

“[Reaching 400 grands prix] shows my love for the sport and the discipline of trying to perform at a very high level for 20-plus years,” Alonso explains.

“Hopefully I can celebrate a good weekend in Mexico. [I’m] not cheering for the next 400, because it will never happen, but at least 40 or 50 more with the next two years [at Aston] coming.” 

He outlines how “it’s not a problem of keeping up with the youngsters in terms of physical conditions” and that it’s “more mentally – travelling, events – and [other] pressure that is probably the thing that hits you harder and probably stops you racing at one point”. But amongst this there’s also something rather revealing. And very interesting.

“It’s that hope that next year is going to be your year,” he says of why he’s heading into his 22nd and 23rd seasons in F1, given his latest contract signed back in April. “That it keeps you alive and it keeps you motivated.”

Fernando Alonso won both of his F1 championships with Renault in 2005 and 2006

Photo by: Steve Etherington / Motorsport Images

After 21 F1 seasons so far across three distinct stints – where he took his world titles in two, fought relentlessly for another in three others – these words disclose the disappointment Alonso felt at the times he knew, almost immediately, that that third crown wasn’t happening in a particular campaign.

We know this from the words of his longtime friend and colleague, Pedro de la Rosa, who discussed Alonso’s achievements in an exclusive interview with Motorsport.com during the US GP last weekend.

“He always says to me, ‘the day I’m most nervous, the whole season, is the day of the shakedown’,” explains the 104-time F1 race starter, who first met Alonso when his fellow Spaniard first raced for McLaren in 2007, when de la Rosa was the team’s test driver.

“He says, ‘Because the day of the shakedown, I know what type of season is ahead of me’. He’s just phenomenal in feeling the car straightaway after two laps.”

The biggest change de la Rosa – these days an Aston team ambassador – says he has spotted in Alonso since 2007 is how “he has improved his English massively”.

“He has no language barrier anymore,” de la Rosa adds. “His accent is very bad, like mine – very Spanish. But actually his vocabulary is incredibly extensive. He’s not shy to use the English language in front of as many people as possible.

“And he has understood, from what I’ve seen, the importance of being a leader. The leader has to have the quality of saying the things that other people can only think about. And that’s where Fernando has realised that to become the true leader, he has had to improve on that area.

“Possibly in an unconscious way, just by experience. But he has become an extremely strong leader, always with the correct message to the people. Because to win in Formula 1, you need 800 people pushing every day, 24 hours a day. And I think that’s where Fernando is extremely good now, very complete.

Ex-F1 racer Pedro de la Rosa (left), has worked with Alonso several times during his career

Photo by: Mark Sutton

“He knows how to send a message across to all these people in English. His Italian is phenomenal as well and if he has to do it in Italian as well, he does it. But the basic difference from the Fernando I first met to the 2.0 Fernando – the latest Fernando – that from the one I have met in 2007, he has become a very complete leader.”

Much is made of Alonso’s self-aggrandisement. How, for example, when asked to pick the best drive of his first campaign with Aston in 2023, which bore eight podiums and a lost victory shot in Monaco, instead he picked his Monza race that year, where he finished ninth.

This was, Alonso said, because it was “one of those weekends where it seems that the performance from the car and myself – they were in a different dimension.”

But, from de la Rosa’s explanation, we can understand just how deliberately Alonso makes every point.

“Some people say he’s a negative driver,” de la Rosa adds. “He’s not negative. He’s critical. It’s different.

“Fernando is not a negative person. When the shit hits the fan, he’s the most positive person with inner strength you would ever see. But it’s the fact – that he’s very critical because he’s always thinking how he can be faster.

“His only main worry in motor racing is: ‘Is my car quick enough?’

This “passion”, as de la Rosa also puts it, explains much about why Alonso is still going in F1 after so long.

Why he spends his off-seasons taking part in 24-hour go-kart races – acting, per de la Rosa, as the “team manager” with “his Excel sheet, putting in all the lap times and just making sure that we do the best possible strategy”.

de la Rosa maintains that Alonso is not a negative individual, even if it can come across this way through his public statements

Photo by: Dom Romney / Motorsport Images

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His relentlessness can, however, be harder to understand at times. Take his spat with RB rookie Liam Lawson at Austin last weekend.

Lawson claimed Alonso threatened to “screw me” after they clashed in the Austin sprint event – with the pair snapped jawing at each other in parc ferme post-race. The main takeaway from the incident was how, overall, Lawson stood his ground – having forcefully had Alonso off the road in footage not aired on the main broadcast, which explains all the fury.

But Alonso then muscled his way by Lawson exiting the pits in GP qualifying later that day, which the New Zealander saw as him making good on his earlier word. Alonso said, amongst other things, afterwards of the incident: “Everyone on track is behaving as he wants and for me, today was unnecessary.

The incident highlights the marmite nature of Alonso’s character, which seasoned F1 fans will understand well. Some will never get why his drive leads him to act and speak in such ways. Others see the fire and admire. Many more focus solely on just the stunning racecraft and adaptability of an F1 legend, still producing highlights.

Yet that “hope” comment seemed to divulge something much deeper – around Alonso’s long-held and obvious desire to right the wrongs of those missing titles that inspire him seemingly ever onwards.

And perhaps it explains exactly why he’s still going, why he’s still fighting so hard and being ‘Fernando Alonso’.

In F1’s modern day uber-partisan, hot-take culture, many will disagree. But it’s a theory surely far more human – and therefore more interesting – that speaks to everyone’s inner ambitions and fears for their own lives.

Especially when they’ve found, as Alonso has at motorsport’s top level, and made a success of something they utterly love. An emotion, after all, that can lead to unpredictable places.

Liam Lawson and Fernando Alonso had a bust-up at the United States Grand Prix

Photo by: Motorsport Images

“His natural habitat is inside the cockpit,” says de la Rosa. “That’s where he feels strong, and I think the fact that he feels so strong driving, he doesn’t want to do any other things.

“Because sometimes I ask him, ‘why wouldn’t you do another sport or another job or anything? You’re still very young. And he said, ‘but I won’t be as good as what I do right now’.

“That summarises his way of thinking very much. He knows he has an advantage. He likes to exploit it. And he enjoys being the best. Of feeling the best. Because it doesn’t mean he has to win every race. But he has to feel that he’s the best.”

No wonder Alonso’s ride is still ongoing. One of F1’s best characters, who seems to never want it to end.

Good afternoon from Athens

Welcome to SunSport’s live blog coverage of the Conference League clash between Panathinaikos and Chelsea at Athens Olympic Stadium (OAKA) in the League Phase – Kostas here, and I will be bringing you all the action from Greece.

The Blues pose as the strongest favourites to win this European competition, which would seal a hat-trick of continental trophies after conquering the Champions League and Europa League in recent years.

However, the West Londoners will have to do it without Marcus Bettinelli, Wesley Fofana, Ben Chilwell, Romeo Lavia and star man Cole Palmer at least during the first round as they have been omitted from the squad list.

Chelsea boss Enzo Maresca has also travelled to Athens without Levi Colwill, Reece James, Malo Gusto, Moises Caicedo and Nicolas Jackson.who stayed in London to rest ahead of Sunday’s crunch Premier League clash with Newcastle at Stamford Bridge.

Panathinaikos manager Diego Alonso, on the other hand, is without Dimitris Limnios, Zeca, Tonny Vilhena, Erik Palmer-Brown, Hordur Magnusson, Ruben Perez, Alexis Trouillet, Lazlo Kleinheisler and Benjamin Verbic who are ineligible after missing out on the squad list.

Alonso is also deprived of Philipp Max who is nursing a sprain and star striker Fotis Ioannidis who has been sidelined with an adductor injury.

However the Uruguayan tactician has been given a boost with Andraz Sporar passing fit in time after overcoming a knock.

Nevertheless, PAO are in a time of mourning after the sudden death of star player George Baldock who tragically died two weeks ago.

Usman Nurmagomedov is a man with a plan.

Younger brother of UFC bantamweight contender Umar Nurmagomedov and cousin to lightweight GOAT Khabib Nurmagomedov, the undefeated Usman is currently the Bellator 155-pound champion. Recently, Usman Nurmagomedov successfully defended his title against Alexander Shabliy at in September, cementing himself as one of the best lightweights on Earth. But his ambition doesn’t stop there.

Speaking recently about his future plans, Nurmagomedov revealed he hopes to follow in his cousin’s footsteps by making the move to the octagon once training partner and UFC lightweight champion Islam Makhachev is done.

“I’m waiting for Islam to finish his career and then I will [go after the UFC title],” Nurmagomedov said on Gorilla Fighting’s YouTube. “I think if we get it right, we’ll be fighting in the UFC at 28. I’m 26 years old right now. Two years, I’ll get stronger and that’s it. Go into the UFC at 28 and compete until I’m 32.”

Undefeated for nearly a decade, Makhachev is currently the No. 1 pound-for-pound fighter in MMA, with three successful lightweight title defenses to his name. Before winning the belt, Makhachev found himself in a similar situation to Usman, serving as “the next man up” to Khabib Nurmagomedov. That played out exactly to the plan of the legendary coach Abdulmanap Nurmagomedov, who developed all of these fighters, and according to Khabib, that plan also extended to Usman.

“This is what Abdulmanap envisioned,” Khabib said. “He strongly believed in Usman and always said that he would be the future champion. I didn’t see the potential when he was 16 years old. I saw the prospects and I believed, and from the very beginning, my father believed in it all, believed in Usman’s future.”

Of course, Nurmagomedov’s intention to go to the UFC is not exactly great news for the Bellator or its owner, the PFL. However, speaking with MMA Fighting on Wednesday, PFL co-founder Donn Davis dismissed this as a concern for the promotion.

“How many of you have said you’re going to move to Florida and retire in four years, and how many of you do it?” Davis said. “One in 10? One in five? … People say things all the time, and then they don’t do it.

“So might he go? Might not he go? Might he go in two years? Might he go in five years? Might he be the champion? Might not he be the champion? My goal is to make my man Usman happy. My goal is to make my man Usman successful, financially rich, and a champion, so that in two years he forgets he said this today.”

Whatever happens in two years, for the time being, Nurmagomedov remains signed with Bellator, where his next fight is likely a title defense against Paul Hughes, following the Irishman’s win over A.J. McKee at PFL Battle of the Giants this past Saturday.

Four people have been arrested in Spain over allegedly conducting an online campaign of hate and racism against Real Madrid forward Vinicius Jr.

The campaign is said to have encouraged supporters to racially abuse the 24-year-old, asking them to wear black face masks to avoid being identified, police confirmed.

The Brazil forward broke down in a press conference earlier this year when talking about the racist abuse he has encountered, saying he felt “less and less” like playing football following multiple incidents.

The men were detained on 14 and 15 October and then released as investigations continue.

Spain’s national police did not name the four men who were arrested and questioned, with no immediate statement from any lawyers representing them.

They added the investigation remains open and could lead to more arrests after the online campaign raised “significant social alarm” by going viral.

The first detentions by police linked to the campaign happened on 29 September in the build-up to the La Liga derby at Atletico Madrid’s Metropolitano Stadium, with the hashtag translated in English to ‘Metropolitano with a mask’ reportedly used.

Though no racist incidents were reported at the match, officials did temporarily suspend the game after objects were thrown on to the pitch.

Three Valencia fans were sentenced to eight months in prison in June for abusing the Madrid forward at a match in May 2023.

In August, the Brazilian said he and his team-mates will leave the pitch if they face any more racism this season.

He added that the only way to drive racism out of football altogether may be by stopping matches.

Cyclist Sir Chris Hoy says he has been “blown away” by the number of men seeking cancer advice since he revealed his terminal diagnosis.

The six-time Olympic champion, 48, said at the weekend that doctors have told him he has between two and four years to live.

In a video posted on social media, external on Thursday, Hoy said he had received “incredible kindness and support”.

“I now have a deep resolve to turn this incredibly difficult diagnosis into something more positive,” he added.

“I understand that there has been a massive increase in men seeking advice in prostate cancer in the last few days and that’s been a huge comfort to us to know that hopefully many lives could be saved by early testing.”

Sir Chris also said that he has written a book titled All That Matters, which will be released in November, about his illness and the story of his life since retiring from professional cycling in 2013.

He described the writing experience as cathartic for himself and his family, and said that he hopes the book can provide understanding around how families deal with a terminal diagnosis and to “remind us that all we have is now”.

Check out these photos from the UFC 308 pre-fight press conference at Etihad Arena in Abu Dhabi, where Ilia Topuria, Max Holloway, Robert Whittaker, Khamzat Chimaev, and the rest of the main card fighters answered questions and took part in faceoffs. (Photos by Mike Bohn, MMA Junkie)