When Fernando Alonso speaks about rivals, the paddock listens. Not because he is generous with praise, but because his sample size is unmatched. Twenty-four seasons, four different regulatory eras, more than 400 Grand Prix starts, and direct combat against every generational benchmark since the turn of the millennium. So when the two-time world champion sat down with Viaplay during the 2026 Dutch Grand Prix weekend at Zandvoort and identified Max Verstappen as the best rival he has ever raced against, it was not a throwaway line for a home crowd. It was a calibrated, career-spanning assessment.
Alonso’s words were simple and absolute: “He is the best rival I have ever faced on the track, mainly because he simply has no weaknesses.” Asked to put a number on it, he gave Verstappen a 9.9 out of 10. Asked why not a perfect 10, he smiled: “Because I only give myself a 10.” The last tenth, he added, is still to be found. Every driver has a weakness somewhere. Verstappen’s just hasn’t been fully exposed yet.
Why Alonso’s Verdict Carries Unique Weight
To understand the value of that 9.9, you have to understand the curriculum vitae behind it.
Alonso arrived in Formula 1 with Minardi in 2001 as a 19-year-old who had won almost everything on the way up. By 2005 and 2006 he had ended the most dominant run in modern history, beating Michael Schumacher’s Ferrari with Renault through relentless consistency, strategic intelligence and an ability to deliver results when the car was not the fastest. The defensive drive at Imola in 2005, holding off Schumacher for 12 laps with a slower car, is still taught to young drivers as a masterclass in race management under pressure.
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He then spent 2007 alongside Lewis Hamilton at McLaren, a partnership that pitted the reigning double world champion against a rookie who would go on to match Schumacher’s seven titles and rewrite the sport’s statistical record. He fought Sebastian Vettel for championships in 2010 and 2012 with a Ferrari that on pure pace had no right to be in contention, dragging it into the final race through sheer performance extraction. He raced wheel to wheel with Kimi Raikkonen, Jenson Button, Mark Webber, and a full second generation of talent.
No other driver on the current grid can say he has raced Schumacher, Hamilton, Vettel and Verstappen all at their peaks and in competitive machinery. Alonso can. That is why his ranking matters. He is not comparing highlight reels. He is comparing what it felt like to have each of them in his mirrors, on his gearbox, or on the other side of a championship fight.
The Meaning of 9.9: Humour, Self-Belief and Elite Standards
The number itself tells you as much about Alonso as it does about Verstappen.
The 9.9 was not a casual rating. It was delivered with the precision that defines Alonso’s own approach to performance. In his world, a driver is judged across a full matrix: single-lap pace in Q3, race pace on Sunday, tyre management over a stint, wet weather feel, race starts, wheel-to-wheel judgement, defensive positioning, attacking instinct, adaptability when the car balance is not perfect, and the ability to lift a team during a development slump.
Alonso reserving a 10 for himself was not arrogance for effect. It has been the operating system for a career that has lasted well beyond conventional limits. At 45, still driving for Aston Martin and still regularly converting difficult weekends into points, he maintains an internal standard that does not allow for self-doubt. You do not race at this level for 25 years without an almost irrational conviction that you are still the reference.
The joke about finding the final tenth is revealing too. Alonso does not believe in invincibility. He believes every driver has a limit, a pattern, a track or condition that exposes a crack. With Schumacher it was the pressure of having to overdrive a less competitive car in 2005 and 2006. With Hamilton it was occasional emotional volatility in wheel-to-wheel moments during their shared season. With Verstappen, Alonso is saying, that crack has not yet appeared under sustained observation. That is what makes him exceptional.
From Raw Energy to Flawless Execution
Perhaps the most insightful part of Alonso’s interview was not the rating but his description of Verstappen’s evolution.
He recalled the early years with clarity. Verstappen entered Formula 1 with Toro Rosso in 2015 at 17 years old, the youngest driver in the sport’s history, with a style that matched his age. Immensely fast, physically aggressive, constantly on the edge of the car and the regulations. Alonso remembered small details: pit lane speeding infringements, over-eager lunges, races where the pace was undeniable but the execution was not fully controlled.
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What impressed him is what happened after year two or three. The mistakes stopped. Not reduced, stopped. The driver who had once tried to win a corner at all costs learned to win championships by choosing which corners actually mattered. The promotion to Red Bull Racing in mid-2016 and the immediate victory in Spain made him the youngest winner ever, but it was the period from 2018 onward that Alonso points to as the transformation.
From that point Verstappen became what Alonso describes as a performing machine. No unnecessary radio traffic, no performance dips between tracks, no drop-off when the car is second or third fastest. The numbers since then support that view. Four consecutive drivers’ championships from 2021 to 2024, a record 19 wins and 21 podiums in 2023, including a run of ten consecutive victories that broke the sport’s previous benchmark for sustained dominance. By the time he arrived at Zandvoort for what is scheduled to be the venue’s final Grand Prix, his career tally had grown to 71 wins, 48 pole positions, 37 fastest laps and 131 podiums in more than 240 starts.
Even in 2026, a season that has deliberately reset the competitive order, that completeness has been visible. New power units with a near 50-50 split between internal combustion and electrical power, active aerodynamics, sustainable fuels and revised chassis dimensions have closed the field. Red Bull is no longer the default fastest car. Mercedes, McLaren and Ferrari have all led races. Yet Verstappen has remained a constant threat for podiums and, on weekends where others have struggled for tyre life or energy deployment, a winner from less than optimal grid positions.
Why Verstappen Edges Schumacher and Hamilton in Alonso’s Eyes
This is the question that will be debated the longest. How can a driver with four titles rank ahead of two drivers with seven each in Alonso’s personal list?
The answer lies in how Alonso defines completeness.
Schumacher, in Alonso’s experience, was the ultimate team leader and relentless worker who could build an entire organisation around himself. His dominance was systemic. Over a season with the fastest car, he was almost impossible to beat. Hamilton, in Alonso’s view, is the purest qualifier and a driver whose speed over a single lap and in changeable conditions is extraordinary, with a career that demonstrates remarkable longevity and adaptation to different car concepts.
What Verstappen offers, according to Alonso, is the absence of a trade-off. He does not sacrifice race pace for qualifying pace. He does not sacrifice aggression for tyre conservation. He can defend hard without incurring penalties. He can lead from the front and manage a gap, and he can recover from the midfield without damaging the car or the strategy. His wet weather driving, seen in Brazil in 2016 and 2023 and several other occasions, combines feel with risk calculation. His starts are consistently strong, his first laps are decisive, and his ability to drive around car problems is reminiscent of Alonso himself.
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Alonso’s phrase “he raised the bar for all of us” is not just praise. It is an observation about how a reference driver changes the paddock. When one driver stops making mistakes, everyone else has to stop making them too if they want to compete. The margin for error disappears. That is exactly what happened in 2023, when Verstappen’s average points per race forced rivals to take risks that led to errors.
The Setting: A Final Zandvoort and a Contrasting Weekend
Context matters for these comments. The interview was conducted during a highly emotional Dutch Grand Prix weekend. Zandvoort, back on the calendar since 2021, has become a sea of orange and is scheduled to leave the calendar after 2026. For Verstappen, the pressure of a home farewell is immense. For the sport, it is the end of a chapter.
The weekend itself was difficult for both protagonists. Verstappen, carrying the expectations of a nation and driving a car that in 2026 is fighting rather than dominating, crashed out early in the race. Alonso, who had qualified only 18th after a tricky Saturday for Aston Martin, executed one of his classic recovery drives to finish ninth, making an unconventional one-stop strategy work through tyre management and race craft that belied his age.
That contrast likely informed Alonso’s perspective. He knows what it is like to have to overperform machinery, and he recognises when another driver is doing the same. His ability to still score points from the back of the grid at 45, while Verstappen was left to process a rare DNF at home, gave the conversation a sense of two careers at very different stages but sharing the same code of measurement.
It was also a weekend where their futures were clarified in opposite directions. Verstappen had recently extended his Red Bull commitment through 2030, a long-term statement in a volatile market. Alonso, meanwhile, continues to race on a year-by-year basis, driven not by contracts but by continued competitiveness.
Mutual Respect Between Two Outliers
What makes this rivalry different from many of the great F1 feuds is the lack of animosity. Alonso and Verstappen have never been teammates, never fought for a title directly against each other, and never had a championship-deciding collision. Their respect is rooted in recognition.
Verstappen has been open about his admiration for Alonso’s longevity. He has said multiple times that Alonso is one of the very few drivers on the current grid he would actively want as a teammate in other categories like endurance racing, precisely because he knows Alonso would push him and because Alonso still operates at such a high physical level. He has praised Alonso’s race craft, his starts, his ability to be competitive even when the car is not.
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Alonso, in turn, has consistently described Verstappen as operating on a different level during the Red Bull dominant years, while also being careful to say that he believes he could have fought for titles with that same equipment. That balance, praising without conceding, is classic Alonso.
Breaking Down “No Weaknesses” in Modern Formula 1
When a driver of Alonso’s experience says another driver has no weaknesses, he is not speaking in generalities. He is referring to a very specific checklist that modern Formula 1 exposes ruthlessly.
In qualifying, Verstappen has consistently extracted the maximum from a car that has not always been the easiest to drive on low fuel. His pole lap record shows an ability to put together sectors even when the balance shifts between runs.
In race pace, his tyre management has evolved dramatically. Early in his career he was harder on tyres than his teammates. Now his degradation rates are among the best on the grid, often extending stints longer than engineers project.
In wet conditions, where feel and vision are paramount, he is consistently among the fastest, not through reckless risk but through an ability to find grip where others do not.
In wheel-to-wheel combat, the aggressive edge remains but is now channeled. The late braking moves are still there, but the contact that defined 2017 and 2018 has largely disappeared. His defensive positioning, using the full width of the track without weaving, has become a textbook.
Finally, there is the intangible ability to make a car look better than it is. Alonso has made a career of that, finishing on podiums with midfield Ferraris in 2012 and scoring points with an Alpine and Aston Martin that were not top four cars on pure pace. He recognises the same trait in Verstappen in 2026, where the Red Bull is no longer clearly the fastest and yet remains in the fight every weekend through driver contribution alone.
That is what Alonso means by completeness. It is not that Verstappen is the fastest ever in one specific area. It is that there is no area where you can say, we will get him here.
The Psychology of a Perfect 10
There is a final layer to Alonso’s answer that deserves attention. Reserving the perfect 10 for himself is more than a joke. It is a psychological necessity for an elite athlete who is still competing at 45.
Formula 1 is a sport that tells you every day that you are past your peak. The data, the simulator, the younger teammate, the media narrative all suggest that time must eventually win. Alonso’s answer is to refuse that narrative. By maintaining that his own standard remains the absolute, he gives himself permission to continue extracting maximum performance. It is not delusion. It is a deliberate mental framework that has allowed him to remain motivated through uncompetitive periods at McLaren-Honda, through his two-year hiatus, and through the current midfield fight at Aston Martin.
The 9.9 for Verstappen, therefore, serves two purposes. It is genuine, high-level recognition of a peer’s quality, and it is a statement of continued self-belief. It says, I see how good you are, and I still believe I can match you.
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For fans of the sport, that duality is part of what makes Alonso’s career so compelling. He is both analyst and competitor. He can evaluate Verstappen with the detachment of a world champion who has seen everything, and in the next breath remind you that he still sees himself as the benchmark.
What This Assessment Means for Formula 1 in 2026 and Beyond
Alonso’s comments arrive at a moment of transition. The 2026 regulations have done what they were designed to do. They have compressed the field, increased overtaking opportunities through active aero and energy management, and placed more emphasis on driver efficiency. Teams that mastered the previous ground effect era have been forced to rethink.
In this environment, the kind of completeness Alonso identifies becomes even more valuable. When cars are separated by two tenths rather than a second, the driver who has no weak session, who does not waste points on avoidable incidents, who can adapt to changing energy deployment lap by lap, becomes the difference.
For Verstappen, the 9.9 from Alonso will likely mean more than many trophies. It is validation from the one driver who has raced every great of the last quarter century and who is known for being unsparing in his assessments. For Alonso, it is another entry in a career defined by measuring himself against the best and finding ways to stay relevant against them.
In the end, the interview at Zandvoort will be remembered not just for the ranking but for the way it captured two outliers. One, at 28, already a four-time champion with a career that may yet challenge the statistical records of Schumacher and Hamilton, with a contract securing his future until 2030. The other, at 45, still racing with the intensity of a rookie, still extracting points from difficult positions, still convinced that the perfect 10 belongs to him.
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That is the essence of top-level sport. Respect is given, but nothing is conceded. Alonso’s 9.9 for Verstappen is perhaps the highest praise one champion can give another while still keeping the door open to beat him.
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