Alonso Turned Down Ferrari in 2001

Fernando Alonso insisted that his new life with Ferrari is everything he could have hoped for in Formula 1. The 2-time world champion joined the Scuderia at the end of a struggling 2009 campaign and threw himself back into title contention in his first season in red, scoring 5 wins in the process and ending last year as the second best driver of the field.

Talking about his stay at Maranello, the Spaniard made it very clear that driving for such a historic team doesn't make him think of race classification, but only at the fact that he'll probably end his career as a Ferrari driver.

“I expected a team of legend and magic and it has been a pleasant surprise, even better than I expected,” said the 29-year old driver in a recent interview with Spanish sports daily Marca. “I am in no hurry to go; here, I even enjoy finishing second, eighth and twenty third.”

In the same interview with the aforementioned publication, Alonso revealed that he had an opportunity to join the Ferrari-powered Prost team back in his first years in F1, but turned it down for a better shot at F1 stardom with Renault.

“The offer was to go there (Prost) and then maybe be a Ferrari tester, or maybe not and I'll have to return to F3000,” added Alonso. “It did not guarantee anything, while Renault were giving me a better opportunity.”

Indeed, only one season after he joined Renault as a tester in 2002, Alonso was given a race job with the Enstone based team, for which he won back-to-back titles in 2005 and 2006.