At 40, Fernando Alonso is in better shape than ever, and with his wisdom acquired from many years of Formula 1 and a huge amount of talented rivals, that have made him the great two-time World Champion he is today, he is still making motorsport dream.

This 2021 season's "Rookie" is bringing back spectacular and nostalgic moments to long time fans, and proving his worth to those unsure of his return to F1.

"I was expecting, let's say, three or four races," - he said to Motorsport.com when he was asked about how long he thought it would take to get to his best level - "I knew that Imola was the second race, that the guys were racing on in September, October last year, and for me it was new.

"And Portimao was race three, so I was thinking that until Barcelona or something like that, race four, I was on maybe 100%.

"And it took me two more races than Barcelona," he explained.

"I think when you are out of the sport and when you see races on TV, you think that you probably could do that overtake differently, or that performance or that start." he added.

"You have your self-confidence thinking that when you get back in the car you can improve certain things and maybe try to learn from others.

"And this is what I did in the first couple of races. I think I'm not 100% yet in the car. Silverstone was a good learning curve again, on tyre management, on strategy."

To the question "How long do you think you will still compete at this top level?" he said: "What I feel maybe it sounds opposite to the people outside, because it seems that the sport and also how social media is, we seem to get confused about the age and about the performance that a sportsman can do, you know.

"This is not the Tour of France, this is not the Olympic Games, this is not football where at 23 you are at the peak of your performance.

"If I race now against myself at 23, I will beat him with one hand, you know, it's not the same."

"It's not the younger you are, the quicker you are, this is not how the stopwatch works in motorsports.

"There are people that want to see new names, they want to see new hopes, they want to get rid of some of the normal names that they see every weekend.

"But I see myself [racing a] very long time, if it's in Formula 1, great, if it's not in Formula 1, I will try to pursue some of the remaining challenges outside Formula 1, to be hopefully the most complete driver in motorsport ever."

2022 will be the year of the revolution in the F1 Circus, the beginning of a new era with the change of regulations to ensure greater competitiveness even among teams that are struggling to get close to the top of the standings.

At Alpine they are giving everything to be a team that aspires to victories and podiums: "We are working on next year's project but it's very early days and no one knows what the numbers are because you have nothing to compare against," - Alonso declared - "We are all a little bit realistic and yet waiting for February because we will see many surprises when the cars are uncovered for everyone."

"I didn't negotiate too much, you know, and I was happy with whatever the team was willing to offer.

"There was no discussion on that, there was no discussion on salary, no discussion on anything.

"I'm here to perform and I'm here to help the team, not to ask for anything. I'm not in that part of my career." he concluded.