On the ninth anniversary of his last Formula 1 victory, Fernando Alonso is thinking about life, career, everything.
A driver who has won 32 grands prix and two world titles is in a constant state of competitive fire. In the past, he made questionable decisions because of this. Maybe it still will.
Alonso is in a reflective mood as he chats in his museum in Oviedo in the week of the Spanish Grand Prix, surrounded by the cars that have shaped his 20-year career. He relates his struggles in the past decade to his former team-mate Lewis Hamilton.
Hamilton is in a similar position to Alonso this season, held back by an uncompetitive car, after eight years of success.
Alonso says this is the nature of the sport.
The driver is important in F1 but not crucial.
Lewis is driving as well as he has in the last eight years. He was dominating the sport and breaking records. He is one second behind after doing a mega lap, as he said in Australia. Yes, welcome.
Alonso is expansive on a wide range of topics, and when asked about Hamilton, he is also referring to himself.
He says that it is not going to be a fair sport in terms of numbers. When we have success, we tend to forget that this is a team sport. Even if we share with the team, all the headlines are for the driver.
It happened to me when I won the two titles. I was beating him. This was a big topic, but my car was more reliable, had good performance, and you cannot praise enough the package because the headlines will still be the driver. It is the same with Lewis.
It is not possible to have more than 100 pole positions in F1. You need the best car and package for a long time.
How do you explain that we were P15 when we were doing magic laps? It will not be possible.
He deserves everything he has achieved in the past but this year is a good reminder that there is more to it than just the records and numbers.
Alonso applies realism to the fact that Hamilton is behind George Russell in the championship.
Ask Alonso if he was surprised that Russell had run Hamilton so close, and he said: "Yes and no." George has been very fast in the last few years and I think everyone was expecting him to be a tough competitor for Lewis.
Lewis will finish the championship in front. This is just a five-race championship, but eventually when things are more tricky or difficult, Lewis will have more experience and more talent.
This weekend, Alonso will be racing in his home race, which will bring with it a sobering stat for a driver of his legend. Nine years ago, he stood on top of an F1 podium.
Alonso admits that the period has been rough with uncompetitive seasons and difficult years.
He says that he is a very competitive person, and if you are not winning, you definitely miss that feeling.
He left Ferrari at the end of the year after scoring that Barcelona win.
The desire for a third world championship burned so strongly inside that it appeared almost to overwhelm him, as Alonso seemed to radiate a brooding intensity.
He was close to winning two more titles at Maranello. He left for McLaren because he lost faith in the ability of Ferrari to deliver his goals, and they were unaware of how far they had fallen as a team.
The years have passed and the impression is that Alonso has found a way to temper the effect of his ambition. I asked him how he felt about the idea of a third world title.
It is different, for sure, Alonso says. We were very close a couple of times and those missed opportunities were very heavy on the shoulders of everyone.
Even if I had two more years on my contract, I stopped the relationship because the atmosphere in the team was not happy enough.
I still want the third championship so bad, but at the same time I understand how the sport works, and you have only one car or maximum two when you can fight for the championship.
You try to build with the team that car, and that process is interesting - how to grow up together with the team, the facilities in the factory and all the resources just to be one of those two teams that can fight for the championship.
Alonso stepped away from F1 at the end of the year to focus on other projects. He competed in the Indianapolis 500 three times and tried his hand at the Dakar Rally, but failed.
The new rules being introduced this year were the reason he returned to F1 with Alpine.
The new era of F1 looks similar to the last. Even if Mercedes are replaced by Ferrari, the two teams are still in front.
In Australia last month, Alonso was on course to qualify on the front two rows, among the Red Bulls, but a car failure stopped him, for example, but five races into the season he finds himself with just two points.
Alonso says it was a good comeback for him. It is never a guarantee that I felt competitive.
After two years out of the sport, anything could happen.
He mentioned that the great German was struggling after the sabbatical years and that he was happy that he felt competitive.
The first five races of last year were rough for me. I am proud of what we achieved, and this year we have been more competitive than last year, but we didn't score many points yet because a lot of things were going on in the first five races.
The rules? I was expecting more balance between the teams and more possibilities for different teams to perform well. Only two teams can win races.
The two teams were good enough to achieve those results. They did a better job than others, so at least they took that opportunity, but we didn't take that full opportunity.
Alonso will be 41 in July.
He says that age is not a factor in the sport. I would rather have one new front or rear wing than three years less than I have, because you have to rely on your physical condition and things like that. I would get more performance from that.
The two years out of the sport was enough to completely reset my mind and make me happy to be training and preparing for the races. I'm as good as I was when I was 25 or 30.
Is he really? At times he has looked at it.
He jumped from 11th to fifth on the first lap of the sprint race at Silverstone last year. Team-mate Esteban Ocon won the Hungarian Grand Prix after keeping Hamilton at bay for 11 laps. The trophy for his third place finish behind Hamilton and Verstappen in the final race of the season takes pride of place at the entrance to his museum.
I mentioned the most recent race in Miami to him, as he may be not always achieving the consistently outstanding level of performance that he displayed during his time at Ferrari. He was demoted out of the points for a collision he had with Pierre Gasly.
I think it is hard to imagine him having that race 10 years ago. Is it fair to say that? It makes a rare public admission of fallibility.
Alonso says that when he is fighting for the championship, he has a sixth sense of things that are going around him.
Sometimes when you are fighting for seventh and eighth, you go into different moods or different maneuvers that are more risky.
You don't have a package that allows you to drive 99% and think on a picture of that race when you have to fight every single millisecond on every corner.
Maybe you are more prone to make mistakes. I think I did not do many mistakes so far, and Miami was not helping.
In terms of the speed, I could be happier in a couple more races but we are working on that.
What does he mean by that?
He says his thing is the driving side. Sometimes I make mistakes, but I am still not fully comfortable with the system and procedure.
There are things I need to improve myself and also with the team working in things that can help me get that consistency back.
It is always with a sense of what might have been when one thinks back over Alonso's career.
He and McLaren could have handled things differently in 2007. If he had taken up Red Bull's offer instead of rejoining Renault, what would he have done? What if he had left Ferrari and driven their cars instead?
Does he have any regrets?
Alonso says that if you do something at one point in your life, it is because you felt it was right and that other opportunities will come.
I don't think I could have a chance of winning because the sport was very dominated by one team and I didn't have the chance to go.
I never talked to Mercedes. To finish second in a red car or an orange car or a blue car is not much different than finishing first. You are second.
The decisions made me try and fulfill a lot of dreams, like the 24 Hours of LeMans or the Indy 500. I am happy where I am.
Alonso left F1 at the end of last year with a new ambition - to follow in the footsteps of Graham Hill, who won the Monaco Grand Prix, Le Mans and the Indianapolis 500.
He will probably not return for another attempt at Indy.
His debut there was outstanding, and he contended for victory driving a McLaren- branded car for the team.
He says his return in 2020 was not as enjoyable because his McLaren-run car was uncompetitive.
Alonso says it is less of a goal now that the car has an aerodynamic screen. It is less enjoyable.
There were a lot of overtakings in the race. There was less love in the last couple of years.
There is a danger factor. There are a couple of crashes in the Indy 500. I am focused on F1. I don't know if I will try again when I stop F1. It is not a complete no, but it is less of a project.
Alonso wants to continue his F1 career with Alpine, his contract runs out this year. The team has not made the step forward they wanted in 2022, but he wants to continue, so they asked if he wanted to continue.
Alonso believes he will be able to continue, despite the fact that the team has a choice between continuing with him or promoting Oscar. The topic has been broached with the Alpine chief executive.
Alonso says they did not talk officially. I think the possibility will be there.
Even if we know how difficult it will be, the motivation is still there to win and close the gap.
We know we can do a few things. The first year of the new regulations is when you learn a lot from other cars and other philosophies, so there are a lot of shortcuts in performance you can find very easily.
Next year or the next two years I would love to continue driving because I feel at my best right now and it would be wrong to watch F1 from home and from the living room while I still feel 100% of my abilities.
I will be the first to stop racing if it is not that way, because F1 is very demanding and you have to sacrifice a lot of things in life to keep racing. It is still worth it at the moment.
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