# How Many Ways Can You Rank Fernando Alonso?
> One driver, fifteen rankings — Fernando Alonso tops some and barely registers in others. A tour of how the same driver changes with every question you ask.
*By YPB Team · Published July 26, 2026 · https://youpick.best/articles/how-many-ways-to-rank-fernando-alonso*
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Fernando Alonso — one driver, fifteen very different rankings. Photo: Ryosuke Yagi, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Fernando Alonso won back-to-back world titles with Renault in 2005 and 2006, took 32 grand prix wins and 106 podiums across six teams and 25 seasons, then won the 24 Hours of Le Mans twice and a World Endurance title when Formula 1 stopped giving him a winning car. On 29 July 2026 he turns 45, still racing — and still, by many measures, the most complete driver on the grid. That is a lot of ways to measure one driver. Below he turns up in fifteen rankings — sometimes at the very top, sometimes nowhere near it — each a different way of asking the same question: how good is Fernando Alonso, really?
> The catch is that the answer keeps changing. Pick a different list, and he becomes a different driver.
## The greatest Formula 1 driver of all time?
Start with the biggest question. Rival drivers, asked anonymously, have repeatedly voted him the best on the grid — yet two titles is a thin trophy count next to Schumacher's seven or Hamilton's seven. On the all-time list he lands among the immortals without topping them. An honest place to begin.
Among the immortals, but never the runaway pick. Play it →
## The best driver of the 2000s
Narrow it to his decade and the case gets much stronger. He was the man who ended Ferrari's five-year title run, winning in 2005 and 2006 while Michael Schumacher was still on the grid. This is Alonso at his peak.
The decade he broke the dynasty — his strongest era. Play it →
## The best world champion
Rank the champions themselves and the two-title haul stops helping him. He belongs in the club, but Fangio's five and Ascari's dominance sit above a driver whose talent always ran ahead of his trophy cabinet.
In the club of champions, but not at the head of the table. Play it →
## The youngest world champions
At 24 he was the youngest champion the sport had ever seen. Then Hamilton and Vettel came along and took the record, so on a list ranked by youth he now sits mid-pack — a record he once owned, quietly overtaken.
Once the youngest ever, since overtaken. Play it →
## The drivers who deserved more titles
Here is the one list he arguably tops. Ferrari's near-misses, the Honda-era McLaren years, a 2012 title lost by three points — few drivers have delivered so much for so little silverware. If the ranking is "most talent, fewest crowns", he is the headline act.
The poster child for what-might-have-been. Play it →
## The greatest rivals of Lewis Hamilton
As a rookie's team-mate in 2007, Alonso — already a two-time champion — pushed Hamilton to the final race in one of the sport's most explosive intramural feuds. Among all the men who have tested Hamilton, he ranks near the top.
The team-mate who took a rookie to the wire in 2007. Play it →
## The best Renault driver ever
At the marque where he won both his titles, there is no argument. Prost's turbo-era wins and a run of modern podium finishers all sit behind the man who delivered Renault its only drivers' championships. Number one, comfortably.
At the team where he won it all, the clear number one. Play it →
## The best Ferrari driver of all time
Five seasons at Maranello brought 11 wins and two agonisingly close title bids, but no crown. Against Schumacher, Lauda and Ascari, one of the sport's greatest talents slips to the middle of Ferrari's own list.
So close at Maranello, yet no title — mid-pack among legends. Play it →
## The best McLaren driver in history
Two spells at Woking — the 2007 feud and the winless Honda years — left little on the board. On a list stacked with Senna, Prost, Hamilton and Häkkinen, this is where Alonso slides a long way down.
Little to show for two spells — here he slides down a list of giants. Play it →
## The best Aston Martin driver
His current home, and a smaller field. His 2023 debut season brought eight podiums and dragged an unlikely car to the front — enough to make him the standout name in the marque's short grand prix history.
His current home, where his 2023 podium run makes him the standout. Play it →
## The greatest Spanish athlete of all time
Step outside motorsport entirely and the lens widens. Against Nadal's 22 majors, Gasol's NBA titles and Induráin's five Tours, a two-time world champion is one national hero among many.
Outside the paddock, one national hero among many. Play it →
## The best driver still racing past 40
He turns 45 on 29 July 2026 and is still scoring points against drivers half his age. On a list of the sport's great over-40s — from Fangio's title at 46 to Schumacher's comeback — his late-career longevity puts him near the front.
Still on the grid in his mid-forties — the timely lens. Play it →
## The best Le Mans driver of the 2010s
When F1 had no winning seat for him, he went sportscar racing and won the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2018 and 2019. Among the decade's endurance stars he holds his own — proof the F1 story was never the whole story.
Two overall wins prove F1 was never the whole story. Play it →
## The greatest LMP1 driver of all time
Zoom in on the top class of endurance and he is a World Endurance champion sitting among specialists who built entire careers in sportscars. A visitor who beat the locals — and still ranks.
A World Endurance champion among lifelong sportscar men. Play it →
## The greatest junior single-seater champion
Trace it all the way back. Before the titles came the karting-and-ladder years that make up his origin story — a lens where the question is not what he won in F1, but how much promise he carried into it.
Back to the karting-and-ladder days where it began. Play it →
## Fifteen lists, fifteen answers
Sometimes first, sometimes forgotten — it depends entirely on which question you ask. Winner at Renault, mid-pack among the all-time greats, an also-ran at McLaren, a champion of the over-forties: the driver never changed, only the lens did. It's the same trick behind every ranking here — judging things [two at a time](/articles/what-is-pairwise-comparison).
Got someone who turns up everywhere? Build a ranking and find out where they land.
## More rankings, more angles
- [Luka Modrić](/articles/how-many-ways-to-rank-luka-modric) — another late-career case that refuses to end
- [James Rodríguez](/articles/how-many-ways-to-rank-james-rodriguez) — one tournament that defined a whole career
- [Kevin De Bruyne](/articles/how-many-ways-to-rank-kevin-de-bruyne) — top of some lists, absent from others
- [Ferran Torres](/articles/how-many-ways-to-rank-ferran-torres) — the other Spaniard who splits every list
