Fernando Alonso has had quite a strange Formula One career as he approaches yet another crossroads.

The Spaniard will come to the end of his current deal with McLaren at the end of the season, his second spell with the team after originally joining in 2007.

He'd joined back in '07 on the back of a championship win with Renault - his second in two years and what had made him the youngest double champion in the history of the sport.

But his move to McLaren was a disaster, so much so that a three-year contract was mutually brought to an end after just one and Alonso returned to Renault.

A four-year spell with Ferrari would follow before a return to McLaren in 2014, this time without the unfortunate controversies that brought their first partnership to an end.

But Alonso is still yet to add to the two world championships he won in 2005 and 2006 with Renault - something that no one would have predicted back then.

Although the man himself isn't too surprised.

"I think the last possibility of the last championship car we had was 2007," said Alonso. "The rest has been always quite far off from the performance of the top and the winning team of that season.

"We're now eleven years after that moment, so I don't think it's a problem but I think the biggest thing for me is to think about the direction Formula One is going and I don't think too much about how competitive we'll be next year as it is impossible to predict - it is just about the sport."

And that's the big factor when Alonso decides his next move at the end of the season: just who is going to be competitive?

"When you see again the grid in Canad," he explained, "there were two Mercedes, two Ferraris, two Red Bulls, two Force Indias and two Renaults in Q3.

"It is a constructors' world championship and not a drivers' world championship so it is something I need to decide."

And so, if he believes he can still do it, Alonso knows exactly where he needs to go in order to chase that elusive third world title - and we'll find out in just a few months time.