Fernando Alonso Says Deciding His F1 Future ‘Is Not My Biggest Priority’ Right Now

• Fernando Alonso says he has no timeline for deciding whether he will continue at Aston Martin beyond this season.
• With Max Verstappen, Carlos Sainz and Alex Albon all now committed to their current teams, Alonso is the biggest remaining question mark in Formula 1’s driver market.
• The 45-year-old says age is not a factor in his decision and that he still has ambitions beyond Formula 1, including the Dakar Rally and the Indianapolis 500.

Fernando Alonso is in no rush to tell anyone what he plans to do next. With the driver market around him rapidly filling in, the 45-year-old Aston Martin driver says a decision on his own future remains exactly that, his own, and he is not ready to make it yet.

The past week narrowed the list of contenders left in this year’s driver market. Alex Albon and Carlos Sainz confirmed they are staying at Williams, and Max Verstappen ended speculation about his own future by signing a contract extension with Red Bull through 2030. That leaves Alonso as the driver whose future carries the biggest question mark heading into the second half of the season.

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No Timeline to Give

Aston Martin chief trackside officer Mike Krack said the conversation with Alonso has been ongoing for months. “The discussion has been going on for many months already,” Krack said in Zandvoort on Thursday. “I think Fernando was always saying that he will take a decision around the summertime, and I think we will see a decision in the coming weeks. I think we’re waiting for his decision, as I said, and then we will see.”

Asked whether the team had other options in mind, Krack added: “We’ve always said that the focus is to continue with Fernando, and as I said, we are quite confident that we will reach a good outcome. On the other hand, we have to respect also Fernando’s request to make his own decision, and we have to wait for that.”

Alonso himself gave little away when he met the media on Thursday. “I don’t have any,” he said, asked for a timeframe. “I just came from holiday now, so I will see in the next days or weeks, or months! Let’s see. I know Lawrence is coming this weekend, so I will have a nice lunch with him, or coffee, and maybe Monza, I don’t know when he’s coming next. I will have to go to the factory soon as well to do Madrid in the simulator. So maybe if Lawrence is around, or Adrian, I will sit also with them. So maybe in the next weeks.”

It’s About More Than Who Is Driving

Alonso has made clear that stepping out of the cockpit would not mean stepping away from the team altogether. “Formula 1 has been and it will be always my life, and my heart is here,” he said. “I will be with this team in one role or in another for the long term. It’s not about myself, or about who is driving next year, or if I’m driving next year or three more years.

“It’s sitting with Lawrence and with Adrian, and if the need for the team is for me to drive, I will consider, I will be happy. If I can be more valuable in another position, I will consider and I will be happy as well. But I need to drive something, for sure. I need to race; I need to feel the adrenaline. I’m a competitor, and I have other challenges in my head, as I said many times, to win one day Dakar or to try again Indy 500 or whatever is coming next. And also winning in Formula 1 a third World Championship, that will be obviously the ultimate dream. Is that possible? I don’t know how long it will take to achieve that performance for this team. If it’s going to be a very long time, maybe I’m not behind the wheel. But that’s something that is all in my head.”

Age Is Not the Issue

Alonso turned 45 last month, and he rejects the idea that age alone should decide when a Formula 1 driver stops. “This is the normal trend,” he said. “You have a certain age that you are at your peak, and then you have to perform. But this is not football. This is not athletics. This is not NBA.

“We raced in Qatar, I think it was 2023, and everyone was semi-dead in the parc fermé, and I was fine, and I was doing the interviews in the TV pen. So this is a different animal. There is someone that is using 100% of their brain capacity and physical abilities to drive the car, and maybe Max Verstappen is using 10%, because he’s on another level. So it depends. So yeah, age is not a problem. It’s just the motivation, the fun, what remains to be achieved.”

Bigger Ambitions Beyond the Cockpit

Alonso also pointed to goals that stretch beyond a Formula 1 seat entirely, a theme he has revisited repeatedly, having spent two years away from the sport before rejoining in 2021. “There are drivers that have never been in the podium, drivers that never won a race, drivers that dream to become champion one day. I have obviously those goals as well, and that appetite,” he said.

“But I have also bigger ambitions as well, when I took the sabbatical years, to be a more complete driver and to learn different things as well, not only specific in Formula 1.”

Focused on Zandvoort, Not the Future

For now, Alonso insists his attention is on the weekend in front of him, with Aston Martin bringing a new Honda engine and a small chassis update to Zandvoort. “I’m happy here,” he said. “I’m here to help Aston as well. I feel fast, I feel motivated. And yeah, let’s see what happens. But honestly, I didn’t think about my future until I entered the room here, and I’m answering all these questions!”

“We have this new engine, I saw the forecast for the weekend, we have a small upgrade also I think on the chassis as well. There is a new comfort thing around the knee area. I was speaking with the engineers now, so my head is completely into this weekend, not in the future. I understand the attention can be more into the future, but it’s not my biggest priority.”

A Shrinking Pool of Alternatives

Part of what makes Alonso’s situation unusual is that Aston Martin does not appear to have an obvious replacement waiting in the wings should he decide to step away. Having previously employed Sebastian Vettel before signing Alonso, team owner Lawrence Stroll would want a proven race winner in the second car alongside his son Lance. Sainz could once have been an option, but he is now off the market after committing his future to Williams, while any hope Stroll held out for pairing Verstappen with Adrian Newey and Honda power in the years ahead ended when Verstappen signed his extension with Red Bull.

The longer Alonso takes to decide, the smaller that pool of alternatives becomes, and the more it seems both sides already suspect how this will end. It is also in Alonso’s own interest that the team finds a well-qualified driver if he does step aside, given he has said he intends to stay involved with Aston Martin in some capacity regardless of whether he is behind the wheel.

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Written by

Jack Renn

Jack Renn is an editor at F1 Chronicle and a veteran motorsport journalist with 25 years of experience covering Formula 1 and international motorsport. A member of the Association Internationale de la Presse Sportive (AIPS), the global body representing accredited sports journalists, Jack has spent his career reporting from paddocks and press rooms across the F1 calendar. His work spans race analysis, technical insight, and in-depth features, giving readers authoritative coverage grounded in decades of firsthand experience at the highest level of the sport.

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