Fernando Alonso admits his ILLEGAL start to driving career

Fernando Alonso

Alonso admits his ILLEGAL start to driving career

He didn't get off to the best of starts...

Sam Cook Digital Journalist

Sports Journalist who has been covering motorsport since 2023

Monday 21 August 2023 22:27

Fernando Alonso has revealed that he started his racing career at the age of just three, despite the legal age to get a racing license now being eight.

The 42-year-old Spaniard has had a stellar career in Formula 1, winning 32 races and two world championships across a 22-year career (minus a two year sabbatical).

This season, he has looked rejuvenated with his new Aston Martin team, stepping onto the podium six times in the first 12 races of the season.

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Now, Alonso has revealed that he didn't have the best of starts to life as a racer.

My first race was at the age of three, which at the moment is not legal anymore, the drivers license for a go kart starts at eight," he told the High Performance Podcast.

"It was a street circuit, I don't remember any of it but I have the videos and photos of that day. I think the race was 15 laps, and I completed two of them so I was lapped 13 times in 15! But they told me I won the race so I was happy after all and that's how I started."

Go kart originally created for Alonso's sister

Alonso won two world championships, in 2005 and 2006

Alonso's career in F1 may never have happened if it wasn't for the highly supportive family that he speaks so fondly of in this interview with Jake Humphreys.

It also may never of happened had his sister have taken more of an interest in racing. His first go kart was actually created for his sister Lorena.

"More for fun than anything else [my father] created a small go kart, handmade, for my sister that is five years older than me. My sister didn't like that go kart on the first couple of days, then my father tried and then, eventually he put me in the go kart and I liked it."