Fernando Alonso, Alpine, Hungaroring, 2022

Alonso prioritises new Alpine deal over replacing Vettel at Aston Martin

2022 Hungarian Grand Prix

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Fernando Alonso says he is more interested in extending his stay at his current team next year than taking Sebastian Vettel’s place at Aston Martin.

Vettel confirmed today he will not continue in Formula 1 next year. That leaves Aston Martin with a seat to fill alongside Lance Stroll for the 2023 Formula 1 season.

Alonso’s deal to drive for Alpine expires at the end of this year. However he made it clear today he intends to remain with his current team.

“I would like to stay here,” he said in response to a question from RaceFans. He intends to begin discussions with them during the summer break and expects a quick resolution.

“I will be on holidays, bosses will be on holidays as well so we need to fix some video calls or whatever,” he said. “But when two parties want to agree on something, it takes 10 minutes. When two parties fight to agree on something, maybe one of the sides is not happy. So it will not take more than 10 minutes with whatever I am talking.”

Talks took place between Alonso and Aston Martin – then known as Racing Point – before he returned to F1 with Alpine in 2021. “We spoke in 2020 when they were very competitive, obviously, and winning races and in the podium,” he said. “And it didn’t went well and I came with Alpine and I’m happy where I am.”

Although Alonso conceded a move to Aston Martin is a possibility, he would prefer to stay where he is. “All the teams are an option as long as they don’t have two drivers signed,” he said.

“My priority is to be with Alpine because we’ve been working and developing this project together for two years now. We are more and more competitive and probably my wish is to stay. But we didn’t sit down completely and move forward things, so still everything’s ongoing.”

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Alonso believes his best chance of having a race-winning car is to help one of the teams outside of the top three to develop one.

“With this set of regulations, it seems that Ferrari, Red Bull and Mercedes are the only capable teams of winning races. So if you have an opportunity in 2023 on those three teams, you will try to join forces.

“There is no opportunity, so you just need to trust some other projects that they are maybe wishing that they are competitive in next year. It’s all a hope.

“But at the moment, as I said, my challenge is being here. Trying to win in this comeback is not easy. I’m not in any of those three teams, as we said now. But I don’t have other challenges in my head now. I don’t have family, as I said before and all the other categories, they are not giving me any appealing at the moment, so I’m happy where I am.”

Vettel won his four world championships from 2010 to 2013 against competition from, among others, Alonso, who finished runner-up to him in three of those seasons.

“We will miss him after so many years sharing the track together, good fights,” said Alonso. “Obviously, in all his championships I was somehow in there as well.

“He’s a great champion and also a great man with all very strong values and a lovely family and probably that’s the decision also into this, as I heard, the family. So I’m wishing him the best and hopefully he’s around in the paddock.”

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2022 Hungarian Grand Prix

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Author information

Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...
Claire Cottingham
Claire has worked in motorsport for much of her career, covering a broad mix of championships including Formula One, Formula E, the BTCC, British...

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28 comments on “Alonso prioritises new Alpine deal over replacing Vettel at Aston Martin”

  1. Alonso prioritises new Alpine deal over replacing Vettel at Aston Martin

    That should guarantee Aston Martin make a fantastic car next year!

  2. That’s an odd one… never would’ve imagine the rumours about Vettel’s replacement to start with Alonso.

    I hope he stays for another year or two. He’s performing at an incredible level, which isn’t something you say for drivers at this age… and arguably he’s outperforming Ocon still.

    1. Stroll Snr probably wants to show that Stroll Jr can beat another ‘legend of the sport’.

      1. someone or something
        28th July 2022, 16:34

        Meanwhile, the only “legend” Stroll Jr ever beat* in an F1 car was … *drumroll* … Sergey Sirotkin.

        *in the sense of “actually outperformed over the course of a season”, and not “occasionally finished a race slightly ahead when the stars aligned”

        1. I don’t think he outperformed Sirotkin, who was a rookie. He was just a tiny bit more consistent, but he also had much more experience in F1 and surely a better treatment in the team, considering that he was financing it. I’m sure Sirotkin would beat him in the future, Stroll’s obviously limited in talent. I think he should end this humiliation, living on nepotism, I don’t think there’s any honor in that. It’s one thing to get a financial push from your family, to allow you to show what you can do (life isn’t fair after all), but entirely another to base your whole career on being someone’s son and nothing else. In my eyes, this family is also damaging Aston Martin’s reputation, it’s not a flattering connection.

      2. José Lopes da Silva
        28th July 2022, 21:42

        Lance Stroll is ready to take on Alain Prost or Nigel Mansell. Stroll Snr. should hire one of them.

    2. Not so odd if you consider the Aston Marting rebranding, includes having champions, even past champion racing for them.

      Besides which it makes the CEO’s son look all the better when he does better than the experianced champion.

  3. Stay where you are Fernando your doing OK.
    The entire “Stroll Martin” operation is based on hubris and self aggrandisement.

    Ermmm – actually you might fit in quite well ;)

  4. In a perfect world this washed up past his peak driver would step aside and let Alpine academy driver Oscar Piastri who won F3 and F2 titles in his rookie season get a race seat, its disgusting to see him sit at home whilst alonso can steal a seat at alpine plus zhou who spent 6 FULL seasons in total in f3/f3 and won zero titles can race for afla thanks to his huge paydriver funding he brings from the ccp.

    Hopefully alonso does go to AM freeing up the seat for Oscar, I could see offering him big contract as he knows alonso is old and declining in his abilities so he is no threat to his precious son which is the number one goal for jr’s next team mate , also like what @sonnycrockett said what better accolade for his son to “beat a 2 time champion” to PrOvE that his son is worthy of an F1 seat and not the result of daddy throwing 100s millions at him..

    1. It’s always a pleasure to read how people can get upset about nothing.

      1. José Lopes da Silva
        28th July 2022, 21:43

        Indeed. Also, I didn’t realised that Ocon was that bad

    2. Bitter much?

    3. Puastri won’t do as good as Alonso is doing. Alonso is a top 5 driver at the moment. Only a true hater would call Alonso washed up. Puastri can go drive for Williams and prove himself against Albon

  5. And herein lies the rub for Aston Martin. What driver really wants to drive for them? Alonso is past his prime and has demonstrated he’ll go to where the money is as long as the car is halfway decent (no more GP2 engines) and he has the freedom to race his teammate. At Aston, it seems pretty clear that not only is the car not very competitive but you are always racing with one arm tied behind your back if Stroll Jr. is in the vicinity.

    So they can sign an up-and-coming driver who wants to get into F1, but my guess is that driver will probably outshine Stroll, Jr. pretty quickly even with being handicapped. They could get an older driver to race for them who just wants to stay in F1, but I think they will also get tired of being brake checked by Jr.

    All it seems like they are doing is throwing good money after bad and will quickly start circling the drain. If they aren’t there already.

    1. Another hater of Alonso. He is still in his prime driving like a top 5 driver

      1. I’m sorry but the stats don’t back up the idea that Alonso is still in his prime. This season, in races in which they have both been classified, Alonso finishes an average of 1.66 places behind Ocon. Alonso in his prime would wipe the floor with Ocon if they were in the same equipment. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think Ocon is a bad driver and I think a past-prime Alonso is better than a lot of the grid. It is just that is how dominant Alonso was in his prime.

        1. Stats never tell the whole story do they though? A lot of those are down to car problems (Bahrain, Canada, Australia), bad strategy (Australia, canada), and penalties (Miami, Canada) and that’s just off the top of my head. Yes penalties were his fault but that’s not related to pace. You’re taking stats which are a result of multiple factors and attributing it all to pace and ‘past his prime’. The alpine is no slouch if a car but also had no business being in contention for the 2nd row in Australia and the front row in Canada. Imo alonso is very much still in his prime. Certainly hasn’t dropped in performance like Raikkonen or vettel did.

  6. petebaldwin (@)
    28th July 2022, 18:12

    It’s a difficult call. The Aston Martin was always going to be bad this year as there was no car to copy. Next year, they get the 22 Mercedes which is fast but also appears to be a bit of a handful… Will it be better than the 23 Alpine though? Very possible.

    It’s irrelevant anyway as there is no chance Daddy Stroll is going to let his son get directly compared to a driver like Alonso.

    1. @petebaldwin
      They have started already copying the 2022 Red Bull !

      1. someone or something
        28th July 2022, 22:58

        Yeah, badly. Turns out the secret ingredient to “reverse -engineering” another team’s car is that other team’s cooperation after all.

  7. Never trade in a factory team for a works team, no matter how lofty they claim their goals to be.

    I also don’t think a veteran driver or anyone but a rookie should pick Aston Martin as long as the boss’ son is the other driver. It just screams “you will never be the priority in this team” to me.

  8. I can see either De Vries or Ocon joining AM. Both have links to Mercedes and Ocon would free up the seat for Piastri.

    1. Sorry but that never will happen @asanator .
      AM owner Lawrence Stroll will NEVER hire a fast rookie who would embarrass his son, i think drivers understand that this is Lance strolls team.
      IMO stroll snr wants a washed up driver like alonso(old and past is peak, will be 42 next season) or hulkenberg (all round rubbish, cult following, most race starts without a podium, heavy@78kg ) who has presence and a following to give legitimacy as a team mate but isn’t a threat to and embarrass precious son on track so when lance does beat his team mate he can claim he beat a legitimate ‘established’ name…

      I predict stroll snr will offer alonso an insane contract which is good for all parties: Alonso can make 8 figure income being a backmarker and this opens up the Alpine seat for Oscar Piastri who should’ve got the seat this year if not fire fernandos oversized ego..

  9. Michael (@freelittlebirds)
    28th July 2022, 20:13

    Alonso deserves a better car – he should be in the Red Bull. I wouldn’t touch Aston Martin after what happened to Vettel and after losing Otmar.

  10. It doesn’t seem like Otmar wants Alonso at Alpine so it might be a tough one retaining that seat. Alonso at Aston Martin will be setting some new records of toxicity between driver and team though…

  11. It might be coincidental but Mike Krack, Aston team principle this week said Robert Kubica is the best driver he ever worked with. It might seem far fetched, but Stroll Snr. also has high regard for Kubica, previously nearly signing him as 2nd or 3rd driver before Vettel became available. In any case it seems Aston will pick an experienced and marketable driver to partner younger Stroll.

  12. As long as PIA gets a drive????

  13. RandomMallard
    1st August 2022, 9:30

    This aged well

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