Lewis Hamilton has won plenty of plaudits for his performance over the weekend in Brazil but Fernando Alonso has said that, on the flipside, it also shows that there remains a lack of competition in the sport in terms of through the field.
Of course, 2021 has proven an epic season with Max Verstappen and Red Bull taking the fight to Hamilton in his Silver Arrows but, had he not, we'd have been in for another processional campaign after years of dominance from the Brit.
That's not his fault, of course, and he still has to maximise the package he is given - something he's done better than anyone else in years gone by - but Sunday was a reminder that the sport can sometimes be a less than even playing field as Hamilton carved his way through the pack with a new internal combustion engine in the back of his Merc, though it was a fabulous drive from him nonetheless.
Certainly, that was something not lost on old rival and two-time champion Alonso who used a basketball analogy to explain his point:
"I was surprised on Saturday,"
"I mean, I think we were all surprised that a driver has 25 penalty places on the grid in one weekend and still wins the race," Alonso added.
"It is what it is."
"As a driver, it's like playing basketball, and there's one basket for you and one for the others. They (Mercedes) score their points with a bigger basket, and you have to score yours with a smaller one," Alonso said.
"So you always lose," he insisted.
"I am lucky to have won two championships, and I was privileged to have been in that position. I was also at Toyota in the WEC and had that kind of superiority in the car.
"But I just imagine young children watching this sport and seeing one car pass two others in the straight line. We shouldn't let them lose hope that they can be champions.
"We are all as committed to the sport," Alonso continued, referring to the drivers. "We train a lot; we work in the simulator, we risk our lives every time.
"But we're still one lap behind in every race, and we know before we even go to Qatar. It's really the only sport in which something like this happens."
Formula 1 has always been a mix of the best cars and the most talented drivers earning glory, and it's the constructors that mean we don't always have a level playing field.
That is nothing new, though, and the hope just has to be that in the final three races we see close-fought action that decides this title rather than anything else.
Certainly, whoever wins it this year will deserve it.
