Stoddart: 22 years ago I knew Alonso would be F1 world champion

Now over two decades later, and with two F1 drivers' titles under his belt, F1 is experiencing an Alonso renaissance as "El Plan" took an upward turn with Aston Martin this year, the Silverstone team is second in the pecking order, and their 41-year-old veteran scoring three podiums in the first three races.

Thus ended a very lean period for him in F1 that stretches back to 2013 one could argue, the season in which he won his last Grand Prix - a period that included a sabbatical from F1 and a successful foray into World Endurance Championship (WEC) racing, winning that title and also a double win at Le Mans in 2018 and 2019 with Toyota.

However, Alonso always had unfinished business in F1 and returned with Alpine in 2021, but after less than two years with the team that took him to his two F1 titles (2005 and 2006), he famously defected to Aston Martin when Sebastian Vettel decided his career in the top flight was over. What transpired is well-documented history.

Now, 22-years-later, Stoddart, Alonso's first team principal, although no longer an owner as he was of Minardi, when a fresh-faced Fernando made his debut at the 2001 Australian Grand Prix, he still remains an avid follower of the sport at the highest level.

Recently, in Melbourne, we caught up with the aviation entrepreneur and asked him to reflect on his former driver, who was loaned to his nascent F1 team by Renault at the time. Stoddart recalled "Already at the time, I could see that Fernando Alonso was a future F1 world champion in the making.

"If you ever needed a signal of what was to come, his last race for us was Suzuka in 2001. I was in a Team Principal's meeting and for one reason or another, they didn't do...

"The engineers over-fuelled him [for qualifying], and he was pretty annoyed by it all," explained Stoddart. Alonso qualified 19th out of 22 but had expected to be higher up the grid.

"We had words afterwards, I said: Fernando it's your last race, go out and enjoy it. What he did was he went out and drove 53 laps of Suzuka in full qualifying mode, every lap was just different by tyre degradation and fuel load.

"That just showed you what was to come; the technical brilliance, the ability and the determination," Stoddart remembered. Alonso finished 12th on his Grand Prix debut that day.

Alonso's stats are jaw-dropping in terms of his longevity in F1; since his Melbourne debut all those years ago the Spaniard has 359 Grand Prix starts to his name, 101 podiums of which 32 were wins and two F1 world titles.

"He's earned every one of those podiums and been very unlucky to only be a two-time World Champion. He should have been a four-time world champion at least," declared Stoddart.

"Fernando is one of the greatest drivers of all time, and it shows even now because of his technical ability and determination. If you give him a sniff of something, he will deliver. That Aston Martin at the start of the year is very drivable and has good pace, so I'm not surprised at all to see Fernando where he is."

Stoddart also spoke of his own journey in F1, including a near purchase of Tyrrell, almost getting shares in Jordan before he purchased Minardi to promote his European Aviation enterprise before selling the operation to Red Bull billionaire Dietrich Mateschitz [for a reported $75-million at the time] who turned it into his organisation's Junior Team, aka Toro Rosso which today is known as AlphaTauri [worth probably ten times the selling price today!]

Although team ownership is no longer on his radar, Stoddart remains connected: "I never miss a Grand Prix and always stay up to date. It is in my DNA!"

As for Australia's latest F1 hero Oscar Piastri, Stoddart opined: "Oscar is one of the really talented young drivers that has come through, like Lando Norris, and Charles Leclerc. A lot of kids are very talented. Oscar is really really talented and he will go a long way.

"If you look how close the cars are Red Bull, Ferrari, Mercedes, and Alonso with Aston Martin, these are the four teams who have done a great job. Then you stop there after the top four teams and there are six teams which are only six-tenths off.

"You have to give credit to Ross Brown and Pat Symons for the F1 car they developed last year [for the extensive new regulations that began in 2022]. With the cost cap, the teams have levelled it up a bit. You get closer and closer racing, and this can only be good.

As for his next appearance in the F1 paddock this year, Stoddart said: "I'll go again to Silverstone and Abu Dhabi, if I am free or unless I have commitments in the US. I live for work. If I did not have to get up for work... I would not wake up!"