Summer over: Formula 1 is back on track for an unprecedented final rush in terms of pace, length, and delay in the conclusion. The World Championship will end in Brazil on November 25th: we are not on December 12th which saw the last race of the 1959 championship, but in terms of delayed conclusion it is almost a record. And at the end of an unprecedented litany of 20 Grands Prix, so that today, the end of August, the date on which until a few years ago F.1 often came to an end, we are instead halfway through the championship: 11 races run, 9 missing.
The 12th, the Belgian Grand Prix, is staged on what is a bit like the racing ladder: the Spa-Francorchamps circuit, between the hills and woods of the Ardennes. Traced from natural samples: its roll of honor is teeming with Fangio and Jim Clark; by Senna, Michael Schumacher and, more recently, by Kimi Raikkonen. Never by Fernando Alonso, world leader in 2012 at the halfway point and never a winner at Spa: neither at the time by Renault which earned him two titles, nor in his brief spell in McLaren, nor in the last two seasons as a Ferrari driver. But Alonso doesn't care about statistics like this. Alonso has a plan: to get to the title knowing full well that he doesn't have the best single-seater of the season in his hands. In short, to make a difference with the old-fashioned method: putting yourself, courage and very fast synapses, in command of the 900 horsepower and 600 kilograms of almost space-age technology. Being able to drive this ultra-refined ensemble beyond its overall technical value.
To get to this position of supreme leader, Alonso has gone through several steps. He knew Ferrari to the depths of its secrets and balances; he has woven a perfect weave of human relationships without flaws, managing to be accepted with a smile as the sole point (to use football jargon) of that complex mix that is an F.1 team of maximum weight and historical name. He has crushed any internal competition from Felipe Massa, his partner or first driver to beat, since the confrontation on equal terms recites usually unappealable verdicts. He was patient: never a word, a grimace, a doubt, an anxiety against the current with respect to the Ferrari system. And in doing all this, always in the name of optimism, he has cultivated his own image as a driver-machine. Not a week goes by without the web, the multimedia communication based on twitter and other various messaging, presenting an observation, a photo, a joke from Alonso about his professional but also and above all private life. He finishes a test and here is his comment. One qualification, and his balance arrives: usually sober, always positive. But also: he goes on vacation and here's a picture of him in the pool, or with his new girlfriend. Bike training: report complete with photos from the on-board computer that seals distance and time, almost always as an almost professional cyclist.
And this is the last aspect. Because the Alonso leader of the red Armada Ferrari, chatter with a multitude of enthusiasts even very young (and this F.1 that fascinates kids less and less, absolutely needs it), has also made himself an almost Olympic champion. The last step is his training program which he fixes in advance, season by season, programs and preparation in order to choose the moment in which to be at the top physically, mentally and therefore in terms of performance. Two years ago he was the one who said -always publicly- that with such a long racing season it is absolutely impossible for a driver to be at the top for the entire calendar. And this year, another novelty: tests, preparation, mental support (Alonso has two trainers, with different but perfectly synergistic tasks) and sports training aimed at ensuring not one but two moments of top performance during the year. The first arrived before the holidays, i.e. when the results that allowed him to go to the beach as world leader have matured. The second is scheduled for the end of September, when the final sprint will begin with no less than 7 races over 10 weekends, and scattered across Asia and North and South America, therefore with a massacre of flights and time zones that would overwhelm an experienced traveler from trade.
This is the 2012 version of the Alonso: the most perfect, calibrated, mature ever seen at the wheel of a Formula 1 single-seater. Luck is giving him a hand: a season with such record values has not been seen for a long time. divided among its competitors. Even qualifying in Belgium, which he finished in 6th place, should be read as a glass half full: Vettel and Hamilton, his main opponents for the championship, will start from behind him at the start of the race. Ferrari, who started with a limp, is assuring him of very serious technical support. He is doing the rest, even inventing something absolutely innovative: the total pilot, the pilot of the future.
