If someone said at the end of 2006 that Alonso would never win another title you would have thought them to be crazy .... and he is still as a great a driver as he was when he was winning titles (and in some ways he is even better) .... so lets not count chickens with MV ... and lets not place the bar ridiculously high for him for the rest of his career either.
As a fan ... I just am glad I get to watch him do his thing .... when he is finished, he will end with the stats he ends up with - and I agree with Austin... that the stats are not even close to the most important thing.
A kid joining F1 at age 16 and being safe and level headed is an absolute miracle .... he didnt burn out - he didnt make a wrong turn in life - he didnt get blinded by fame - he didnt end up in cars that sucked and lose motivation - he didnt sign a bad contract - he didnt fall out with his dad - he didnt hookup with the wrong girl .... a millions things could have gone wrong .... but here he is winning races and titles ... people are now behaving like this is only to be expected ..... they took the wrong lessons from what happened.
This is the most amazingly lucky story ever .... this is almost a fairy tale .... if you tried to repeat this experiment - you could never do it.
Amazing how the lucky drivers somehow get the good cars in the end. I do not think it was luck at all. He was, and is, pretty much of a machine. He gets his temper up but as far as I can tell he has never wallowed in self doubt. Picking the wrong girlfriend or falling out with is dad is not in his mindset. It was pretty clear to many early on (past the initial announcement of his F1 debut that started this thread) that he was something special. Brazil in the rain in particular stands out. I am sure that you could not repeat this experiment if Max wasn't part of it, but I am confident that no matter the starting point, Max would be where he is now.