Fernando Alonso may have some people convinced he is the ultimate team player – but one Formula 1 veteran claims he can see through the Spaniard's act.
At the age of 41, Alonso's renaissance has been one of the stories of the season so far. A move to Aston Martin was undoubtedly a risk, but so far it has more than paid off as he is back where he wants to be – fighting at the front.
The Silverstone team has made enormous performance strides in the last 12 months and has arguably the second quickest car on the grid in these early weeks of the season, behind the Red Bulls. As a result, everyone associated with Aston Martin is in dreamland right now.
Alonso hasn't always got along well with team-mates in the past, but even that seems to have changed. Not only has he been heaping praise upon Lance Stroll at every opportunity, but he has even been heard over the radio offering in-race setup advice to the Canadian.
But Peter Windsor, a veteran F1 journalist and former team manager at Williams and Ferrari, is not convinced by the Spaniard's personality shift. He is of the opinion that it is little more than an act from Alonso, who is aware of the situation he is in as team-mate to the owner's son.
"I think he’s as good as anybody on race day," said Windsor of Alonso in a YouTube stream. "I don't think he's as great a qualifier as four or five other guys out there at the moment but very, very good on race day.
"A very difficult driver politically to run in the team and you can see that already at Aston Martin, the way he's over the top [with] comments about how good Lance is and helping Lance – none of which the true Alonso would really be interested in at all.
"You can see he's just trying to build up a whole sort of, 'We love Fernando' thing at Aston Martin – one day, it'll all come crashing down, probably, knowing poor old Fernando. We'll see how that goes... maybe it'll work? Maybe the Stroll and Alonso tie-up is the strongest bond ever in the history of humanity."
Meanwhile, after finishing third in Miami, Alonso declared that he is looking for more in the coming weeks. He said: "The Red Bulls are always unbreakable and super fast. Maybe Monaco, Maybe Barcelona, we will have a possibility."
