Pat Symonds picks ‘very intelligent’ current driver in dream F1 team over Ayrton Senna

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F1 chief technical officer Pat Symonds has snubbed Ayrton Senna for a current F1 driver when assembling his dream line-up.

The late Senna won three drivers’ championships between 1988 and 1991.

However, speaking on the Beyond The Grid podcast, Symonds favoured one of the title-winners racing today.

The 70-year-old was an engineer at Toleman during Senna’s debut season in 1984.

The team subsequently became Benetton, delivering the first two of Michael Schumacher’s seven championships.

Senna took 65 pole positions and won 41 Grands Prix before his fatal accident at the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix at the age of 34.

Symonds picks Fernando Alonso over Ayrton Senna

Another driver Symonds knows well is Fernando Alonso, having worked as an executive director at Renault for the Spaniard’s title years in 2005 and 2006.

Podcast host Tom Clarkson presented him with three options from his career – Senna, Schumacher and Alonso – and asked him to pick two.

Symonds left out Senna in favour of Alonso on the basis that he isn’t sure if the Brazilian would be well suited to modern F1.

He said: “Schumacher – no doubt about that. Then I think Alonso.

“Senna probably really, really high on natural ability. How would he adapt to modern Formula 1? I really don’t know.

“So I’d probably go on the safer choice.”

When did Fernando Alonso last win a race?

Many in the paddock regard Alonso as one of the greatest drivers in F1 history, with Symonds describing him as ‘very intelligent’.

but he hasn’t won a Grand Prix for 11 years, when he took victory on home soil with Ferrari.

Ahead of the 2015 season, he jumped ship to the doomed McLaren-Honda project and didn’t manage to finish higher than 10th in the standings across four years.

To rub salt in the wounds, Ferrari became more competitive as Sebastian Vettel challenged Lewis Hamilton for the title in 2017 and 2018.

Alonso would retire at the end of 2018 but returned two years later to race with Alpine.

He subsequently joined Aston Martin at the start of last season as they enjoyed an upturn in performance.

That allowed him to score eight podiums and lift his overall tally to 106.

One journalist believes that Alonso is holding out for a seat at Red Bull or Mercedes next year.

Christian Horner apparently wants him to replace Sergio Perez, with talks at an ‘advanced’ stage.

There may still be a chance, then, for him to add to his record of 32 wins, 22 pole positions and, most importantly, two titles.