It's no secret that Fernando Alonso isn't living his finest chapter as a racing driver — and yet, few careers in the history of Formula 1 come close to matching his. Two World Championship titles, decades of elite-level consistency, and a reputation that goes well beyond any trophy count.

Many within the paddock and across the fan base have long believed that those numbers simply don't do justice to just how brilliant the Spaniard actually is behind the wheel. After a break from the sport and a transitional stint with Alpine, the double world champion made the move to Aston Martin with a clear objective: one final shot at fighting for the Drivers' Championship.

The 2023 season gave fans genuine reasons to believe, but those early encouraging signs gave way to a steady and painful decline in performance as the seasons wore on. The important distinction, though, is that the fall-off has always belonged to the car — not the driver.

Season after season, Alonso has continued to extract points and put in standout performances in a package that, by most honest assessments, should be fighting somewhere near the back of the grid. That kind of output, sustained over years, is a testament to why he's still considered among the greatest of all time.

The 2025 campaign was particularly grim, with talk of retirement becoming louder and harder to ignore. And somehow, 2026 has managed to make things worse. The uncertainty surrounding the future of car number 14 — the man who once graced the garages of Ferrari and McLaren — has never felt more acute.

As already established, Alonso's skill set belongs to a tier that very few drivers from recent generations can access. It's no surprise, then, to find remarkable stats attached to his name even in cars that other pilots simply couldn't push to the front of the pack.

With the 2026 Canadian Grand Prix approaching, it's worth revisiting one of the most impressive numbers in his long résumé at this particular event. Alonso holds the all-time best head-to-head qualifying record against teammates at the Canadian GP — a milestone that underlines just how consistently dominant he has been on race weekends in Montreal.

His record stands at 17-2. Those two defeats came against Lewis Hamilton in 2007 and Jarno Trulli in 2004. In every other edition at this circuit, Alonso outqualified his teammate without fail. It's the kind of stat that puts his legacy into sharp perspective — and a fitting tribute to one of motorsport's most enduring figures as the season returns to Montreal.

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