Did Fernando Alonso make the biggest mistake of his career when he left Ferrari for McLaren two years ago? He insists he did not.
After five years of trying to win the title with Ferrari, Alonso ended his contract with the team two years early to drive for the newly-formed McLaren-Honda partnership in 2015. Since then he has scored just 65 points in two difficult seasons while Ferrari has slowly returned to strength and has started the 2017 season challenging Mercedes for the title.
When Alonso was asked if he had any regrets now that Ferrari was back in championship contention, he initially brushed the question aside before opening up on the decisions that have led him to his current position.
"I didn't have a [Ferrari] contract for this year so ... even in 20 years Ferrari will keep winning and hopefully they won't still be asking if Alonso was right or not to leave Ferrari when I am 75 years old!" he said. "I drove five years there and they won in the past, they won in my time -- we were fighting for world championships until the end -- they won a couple of championships the last few years and they are winning races now and they will win races and championships in the future. So it's not always about if Fernando did well or not.
"We would like to be more competitive here, that's for sure. At least in the years that I had a [Ferrari] contract in 2015 and 2016 I still think that I took a good decision to come to McLaren. I've learned many things, I've worked with one of the best engineers that I have ever worked with here in McLaren -- who currently we have in the team -- and I learned so many things.
"And there [at Ferrari] I arrived the time that it was too stressful not to keep winning. When you are in your first or second year [at a team] it's OK, but when you are in your seventh or eighth year then it's very difficult. So the quality of life improved for me in the last two years despite the results.
"But, yeah, now they are winning, like Mercedes are winning, every car that is winning you would want to be on it because you want to win races, but it doesn't change what I did in the past. Even when I left Renault [in 2006 after winning two titles] I was told I should never leave Renault but they never won any more titles.
"Probably you ask this because it sells some covers of magazine and you can talk about a 'wasted talent', but I am super happy with my career and I was in a competitive car [in the past], thank God, and I had an opportunity to reach certain things. There are some very talented drivers here who have never been on the podium. I think we will see what the future brings, but at the moment I'm quite happy with what I did and what I am today."
McLaren is not expecting to improve at this weekend's Russian Grand Prix, but Alonso said there were some positives from the recent in-season test in Bahrain.
"Definitely every test is important now," he said. I think it's going to be a better situation here with the things we learned in Bahrain. I think, nevertheless, this circuit is a power effect circuit -- I think the fourth most on the calendar -- so we think it is going to be tough no doubt.
"Barcelona will be better in that respect, so we will see if we can at least start feeling a little bit more competitive and finish the race with both cars, hopefully in the points. There are small steps at the moment and we would like to have bigger steps from one weekend to another, that's definitely not the case here, but hopefully to see these small steps and start putting this 2017 season on the proper path."