Alonso: McLaren-Honda is a ‘different’ challenge

According to Fernando Alonso, one of the main reasons he left Ferrari to join McLaren was to motivate himself into becoming a better driver.

Alonso claims that at Ferrari he felt too complacent and when McLaren came along with their Honda-powered car in 2015, he was immediately intrigued by the project.

The two-time World Champion is regarded as one of the most rounded drivers on the grid, something he believes will benefit McLaren as they continue to develop and work to get to the top-end of the grid and challenging for podiums and titles.

“I switched to McLaren-Honda because I need this motivation and I need this challenge,” the Spaniard revealed in an interview at the McLaren Brand Centre.

“In Ferrari I was getting the possibility to win races and to be on the podiums but never to win the Championship and I had a new challenge, which was this McLaren-Honda project.

“I knew the difficulties, but it’s something that made me … happy. It’s made me a better driver, and a better person as well. You are working with different people and you are learning constantly different things. I think the philosophy in Ferrari and the philosophy in McLaren is quite different. Also, the Japanese culture is very, very different.

“So when you put everything together it’s a learning process that we are in. Being in the middle of all of that is quite good for myself and for my career, in terms of character, in terms of driving as well, because you keep learning things. But also as a person.”