Fernando Alonso has put pen to paper on an extension deal with Aston Martin that will see him racing through the 2025 and 2026 seasons.
After being tentatively linked to various teams across the grid—Lewis Hamilton’s shock move to Ferrari triggered an early start to silly season—Alonso ultimately opted to remain with his current team. He admitted that he found it “easy” to arrive at this decision after some consideration.
“I needed a few races or few weeks to really think about myself, if I was ready to commit for more years in Formula One, because the calendars are just a little bit more intense now,” Alonso said.
“My love for Formula 1 and my love for Aston Martin didn’t change but I just wanted this time to really speak with myself and make the decision and the commitment. Obviously Formula 1 takes all your time, all your energy, you have to give up basically everything in life to keep racing and I wanted just to speak with myself if I was ready to do so.
“Once I took that decision—I think it was after Australia or something like that—I sat with Aston, which again is exactly the same as what I said in February, that would be my first priority. It was not too difficult, I think we both wanted the same. I wanted to keep racing with Aston Martin but [they] wanted also to keep me in the seat. When two parties want something, at one point you reach an agreement.”
Aston Martin was the most improved team at the start of 2023. Alonso made eight podium appearances that season, even as the team experienced a slump in the second half of the year.
“So I’m extremely excited to keep racing and to keep racing with this team, which I feel at home,” he continued.
“It was also a sense of loyalty that I wanted to express to my team. One year and a half ago we started together and we achieved so many things, some of them probably unprecedented in Formula 1 to reach so many highs in such a short period of time.”
Although Aston Martin’s current performance is promising, they have yet to match their early 2023 form, when Alonso briefly emerged as Red Bull’s main competitor. Alonso’s willingness to commit for 2025 and beyond, however, proves the Spaniard believes the team is on an upwards trajectory.
“I felt this is just the beginning of the journey, it could not be the end of the journey for me and Aston Martin,” Alonso said.
“Super, super happy, excited, also for the people at the factory, for the staff, for our partners. We have great partners in the team, so proud of them as well, all our sponsors.
“It feels that it was my natural decision to keep racing and to keep racing with Aston Martin.”
The multi-year contract extension highlights Alonso’s preference for longer-term commitments—a factor that influenced his departure from Alpine at the end of 2022 after the French team was unwilling to offer such a deal.
Alonso’s contract extension will see him racing through at least one season under the 2026 regulations.
“Yeah, it was an important point, I will not lie,” Alonso admitted.
“I think to commit to a one-year project, it didn’t make sense for me. It’s not that I had a one-year proposal elsewhere or anything like that.”
For the past few years Lawrence Stroll has been working to modernise Racing Point-turned-Aston Martin’s Silverstone headquarters by overhauling the factory and constructing a new wind tunnel. 2026 will mark a period of extensive change, as Aston is set to partner with Japanese manufacturer Honda to create a works team.
“I was very clear to Aston in the first conversations that the appealing part of this project is just everything that we are building,” Alonso said.
“It was the new campus last year, it’s going to be the wind tunnel this year. (…)
“I think to really enter a new regulation with a new project, with a new wind tunnel and also with Honda as a partner, it was something for me that was very, very important.
“Part of the decision to stay at Aston is because they are with Honda for 2026, is because they are with Aramco, the biggest and the best partner in the world. We have incredible, talented people in the team now on the technical side that will benefit from the new wind tunnel and the new facilities in Silverstone. So there were a lot of factors that made 2026 very appealing with Aston.”
Alonso also hinted at forging a legacy with Aston that extends beyond racing, saying: “But it’s not only 2026, it’s a lifetime project in a way for me.
“This is the longest contract I ever signed in my career so this is something that will keep me linked with Aston for many, many years to come.
“Let’s see which role, let’s see how many more years I will drive, but even after driving I will use 25 plus years experience in Formula 1 plus another 10 or 15 outside Formula 1, so nearly 40 years motorsport experience in the benefit of a team that gave me this opportunity now in this moment in my career.
“So this is also very appealing for me and I’m extremely motivated for the next years to come.”
Although Alonso gained notoriety for his strained relationship with Honda during his stint with McLaren in the mid to late 2010s, including that infamous ‘GP2 engine’ message at Suzuka in 2015, he insisted that those tensions are water under the bridge.
“Yeah, Honda is definitely a manufacturer that has so much success in Formula 1 and in the world of motorsport. That is always a company that I respected. It didn’t work for us in McLaren in the years that they came to the sport but right after that they fixed all the problems and they are currently dominating the sport [with Red Bull] and they’ve been world champions for the last few years.
“So I think they will have a baseline for 2026 that is already very strong but also they have the capacity in Sakura of building something really nice.
“I know that they are really, really motivated there and obviously with the sustainable fuels that we will have in 2026 this is something that also I would love to experiment.
“I think 2026 is we are going into the unknown for sure in terms of regulations but if I have to choose one by feeling I will choose our project and our engine and our power unit.
“One, because I think [Honda] are dominating the sport as I said now and they have a very, very strong engine on Red Bull and AlphaTauri and second because with the new fuels and the new regulations they will have all the tools available to succeed.
“I see a win-win situation. (…) After the experience with McLaren Honda and the IndyCar as well we have now this opportunity to work again together. That for me is a true pleasure.”
