Fernando Alonso will continue to race in Formula 1 with Aston Martin next season after the team announced that the two-time world champion has signed a fresh deal to keep him onboard into 2026 and the sport’s next regulatory cycle.
The only attractive thing about Merc is that they did once nail a new engine regulation and subsequently dominated. I’m not sure Alonso even wants to take the gamble on them repeating that, and everything else about them currently doesn’t inspire confidence. They’ve clearly struggled to understand the current regulations, and three years in a row with constant grave correlation errors is a huge red flag.
As for RBR, they probably aren’t interested, honestly. They don’t want someone challenging Max, they just want a stable number two. If anything, they’d also probably want someone younger than Checo to hopefully have a stable nr.2 for the rest of the duration of Max’s contract.
Also, I’m not even sure Alonso would want to go there. I think he knows Max is better than him, and I don’t think he would want to go there and be consistently beaten. He needs to luck into a car that is better than Max’s, and of the options open Aston is really the best. They’ll be a Honda works team for 2026 and Honda is the reigning constructors champions’ engine provider. That’s got to be the year he’s essentially gambling on with this contract.
Would he have a chance for the championship at red bull? No.
McLaren isn’t even an option? Mercedes? Number 2 driver. No room at Ferrari. Aston best case scenario. Maybe they nail it.
Hate to say it but at his age he’s probably just glad he gets to keep racing. Even if he had to drive a backmarker I bet he’d just keep doing it for the hell of it.
Say what you want about Alonso but he is pretty die-hard for the sport.
I dunno, Kimi was like that for a long time up until he finally retired, but I get the sense being competitive is much more important to Alonso. The last couple of years he’s repeatedly said he’ll bow out once he feels he can’t perform anymore, and I believe him.
The only attractive thing about Merc is that they did once nail a new engine regulation and subsequently dominated. I’m not sure Alonso even wants to take the gamble on them repeating that, and everything else about them currently doesn’t inspire confidence. They’ve clearly struggled to understand the current regulations, and three years in a row with constant grave correlation errors is a huge red flag.
As for RBR, they probably aren’t interested, honestly. They don’t want someone challenging Max, they just want a stable number two. If anything, they’d also probably want someone younger than Checo to hopefully have a stable nr.2 for the rest of the duration of Max’s contract.
Also, I’m not even sure Alonso would want to go there. I think he knows Max is better than him, and I don’t think he would want to go there and be consistently beaten. He needs to luck into a car that is better than Max’s, and of the options open Aston is really the best. They’ll be a Honda works team for 2026 and Honda is the reigning constructors champions’ engine provider. That’s got to be the year he’s essentially gambling on with this contract.
Would he have a chance for the championship at red bull? No. McLaren isn’t even an option? Mercedes? Number 2 driver. No room at Ferrari. Aston best case scenario. Maybe they nail it.
Hate to say it but at his age he’s probably just glad he gets to keep racing. Even if he had to drive a backmarker I bet he’d just keep doing it for the hell of it.
Say what you want about Alonso but he is pretty die-hard for the sport.
I mean, he did retire in 2018 when McLaren was a backmarker
Mate how can you say that they had the best GP2 engine on the grid.
I dunno, Kimi was like that for a long time up until he finally retired, but I get the sense being competitive is much more important to Alonso. The last couple of years he’s repeatedly said he’ll bow out once he feels he can’t perform anymore, and I believe him.
A driver of Alonso’s reputation can go to almost every WEC team, demand a seat, and just get his wish.