Spaniard Fernando Alonso on Wednesday kicked off his quest for a third consecutive drivers’ title by walking the Albert Park layout with a posse of his McLaren crew.
At Renault, the 25-year-old ritualistically walked every track of his double championship success in 2005 and 2006, but the practice was not commonly done by his McLaren predecessors Kimi Raikkonen and Juan Pablo Montoya.
Indeed Finn Raikkonen could not be found anywhere at the venue.
“I like to do the circuits on foot,” Alonso, 25, told us on Thursday at a Vodafone event on St Kilda beach.
He explained: “Only this way can you spot certain things, like little bumps, things like that.
“You are not going to see these things in the single seater,” Alonso added, “and I think you can also miss them in a (road) car or on a bicycle.”
