Marcin Budkowski spent a major part of his career at Ferrari when Michael Schumacher was dominating F1. These days he is the executive director at Alpine where he is the man in charge of the development of the car. Alpine has a strange hierarchy but in the scheme of things, Budkowski is the equivalent of a technical director at the team and having the experience of seeing the great Michael Schumacher from up close, he said recently that Fernando Alonso has similar traits to the German great.
Alonso of course was the man who put an end to Schumacher's winning ways when he first joined the Renault team in the early 2000s. He won the world title in 2005 and 2006 and many have claimed that he has been the greatest F1 driver since Schumacher, despite his juniors Vettel and Hamilton having more success.
Till last year Michael Schumacher was the most successful F1 driver of all time
"I have worked with a number of drivers over just over twenty years in Formula One and he is extremely impressive. He reminds me a bit of Michael [Schumacher] to be honest when I was at Ferrari and he was the benchmark was in terms of professionalism and how meticulous he was in his approach. I see that similar trait in Fernando," he said in an interview with the Race.
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Alonso could've won 5 world titles by now. He lost the battle twice to Vettel in 2010 and 2012 in the last race of the season in inferior machinery and 2007 was battling with Hamilton and Raikkonen which was won by the Finnish driver.
In the last race at Hungary, Alonso was named driver of the day for his valiant defence against Lewis Hamilton who was in a faster car with fresher tyres. Alonso's defence allowed his teammate Esteban Ocon to win his maiden race.
Alonso has never been outscored by a teammate in F1
"He blows me away with his racecraft. It's almost mind-boggling. We are on the pit wall, have all the data and have full oversight of the race. He's in the car and driving at full speed and he has almost the same analysis of the race that we have with nowhere near as much data or the ability to step back," Budkowski added.
"That's the thing that impresses me the most. I think it might be his twenty years of experience driving Formula One car, but nevertheless there are not many drivers, even with twenty years of experience, who would be able to do that," said Budkowski highlighting the fact that Alonso's peer Raikkonen has not been as sharp with even mover experience.
