Fernando Alonso was struck again by a historic ‘curse’ after retiring from his 400th Grand Prix race in Mexico City.
Alonso became F1’s first quadruple centurion in Mexico, making his 400th entry and 397th start, missing the 2001 Belgian, 2005 United States, and 2017 Russian Grands Prix.
He is set to make 400 F1 starts in Qatar.
Alonso, who started 13th on the grid, was the third driver to retire from the race due to braking problems after Alex Albon and Yuki Tsunoda crashed at Turn 1 on the first lap.
The DNF represented another Alonso retirement in a historic race, following failures to finish in his 200th, 300th, and now 400th entries.
“By lap 13 or something, the temperatures were a little bit unsafe,” he told RacingNews365.
“So we took some actions on the steering wheel to protect the temperatures, but then they told me that there was some debris or a tear-off in the brakes, so it was destiny not to finish the race.”
Alonso’s historic curse
Alonso made his 200th racing appearance for Ferrari in the 2013 Malaysian Grand Prix, which was infamous for involving Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber.
While the ending overshadows the race, it began in damp conditions, with Alonso third on the grid behind Vettel and teammate Felipe Massa.
On the first lap around Turns 1 and 2, Alonso tagged the back of Vettel’s Ferrari, damaging his front wing, which did not fail immediately but did run askew, but he did not stop.
The wing failed on the pit-straight to begin lap 2, causing Alonso to skate into the gravel and retire.
Fast forward five years, and by the 2018 Canadian Grand Prix, Alonso was back at McLaren, feeling increasingly irritated by a lack of development with Renault power units as the team realized that it was not just Honda to blame for the failed 2015-17 relationship.
Alonso qualified for his 300th race in 14th place and then retired due to an exhaust problem. He would depart Formula One at the end of the year after 314 races, only to be coaxed back by Alpine in 2021.
In case you were wondering, Alonso’s first entry at the 2001 Australian Grand Prix resulted in a 12th-place finish for Minardi, and his 100th was a third-place finish from fourth on the grid at the 2007 Turkish Grand Prix, his first with McLaren.
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