Fernando Alonso will head into 2026 still waiting to become a three-time Formula 1 champion, 20 years after winning the second of his titles.
Alonso, then with Renault, was 25. It appeared as if he would win many more. He missed out on a third championship by a point in 2007 and was a three-time runner-up in the years that followed. At more than 420, no driver has started more Grands Prix than he has.
Two decades after that championship, now 44, he said, “it blows my mind” he was still competing.
“It doesn’t feel that long ago, because I kept fighting for the championship in 2007, 2010 and in 2012,” he said in an interview in November. “It’s the same with my last race win in 2013.
“It doesn’t feel that from 2013, I was not in a condition, or I didn’t have the feeling, that I was able to win a race again, even if I haven’t come that close.”
Alonso has not spent all of the last 20 years in Formula 1. He retired in 2018 and won the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2018 and 2019. He was also crowned the World Endurance Champion in 2019.
Those triumphs have kept him fresh in body and spirit, further fueling his belief that 2006 does not seem an age ago.
“They’re maybe not the same feeling as Brazil 20 years ago, winning the Formula 1 world championship, but they are the closest moments and feelings,” he said.
“For me, the last big satisfaction was maybe a few years ago. It was not 20 years ago. That’s why it doesn’t feel like 20. That’s the perception I have.”
Carlos Sainz, 31, of Williams said he was 10 years old when he first met Alonso at the 2005 Spanish Grand Prix. As an Alonso fan, it had a profound effect on his career.
“That’s what made me want to become an F1 driver,” Sainz said in October. “Now, 20 years later, he’s still in F1, and he’s still one of the fastest guys out there, delivering week in, week out.
“What that basically tells me is that time flies, and that you need to maximize every year, every opportunity you are in F1. It’s something to look up to because if I keep my energy levels high during these next few years, I would like to be in F1 for a long time.”
Alonso, who will be in his fourth season with Aston Martin next year, said that Lawrence Stroll, the owner, had been accumulating pieces of a puzzle over the past few years to turn the team into champions.
“Definitely, there is everything needed to succeed, so it’s just a matter of time,” Alonso said.
“That’s the thing that we, as racing drivers, would like to happen as soon as possible, but at the same time, Formula 1 is a sport that needs a little bit of time to glue everything together.”
Since Stroll signed Alonso before the 2023 season, the team has undergone a major transformation.
A new factory, which includes the first new wind tunnel in Formula 1 in 20 years, cost $250 million. The team’s work force has doubled to 900.
In March, Adrian Newey, a master of car design whose cars have won 12 constructors’ championships and 14 drivers’ titles, started working for Aston Martin. Stroll has said that Newey was “the biggest part of the puzzle from a technical and leadership point of view.”
“When I joined the team, I spoke with Lawrence about the project,” Alonso said. “It was still the old building back then and just the drawings of the new campus.
“I knew the timeline, and I knew there were a couple of things happening in the following years from my arrival, which became even better when we were joined by Adrian Newey and some other names. The progress we have made in these three years has been better than expected.”
Alonso said that he was already learning from Newey. “When you sit with him, have lunch with him, you talk about motor sport, and that inspires you to become a better driver for the following day.”
Alonso goes to the gym or the simulator “to apply some of the techniques that he was chatting with you in the lunch that, for next year, is maybe required due to car behavior and things like that. I love that part of my life and the sport.”
But Alonso’s performance has been off the past two years. After scoring six podiums in the first eight Grands Prix in his first season with Aston Martin in 2023, he has not finished in the top three of any Grands Prix since then.
In the first eight Grands Prix this year, Alonso did not reach the top 10, but has finished there eight times since, with his best result a fifth-place finish at the Hungarian Grand Prix in August.
“I expected it to be a difficult season,” Alonso said. The focus of Aston Martin and the other teams is on a significant regulation change coming for 2026. The cars will have different engines and aerodynamics.
“The end of 2024 was not particularly strong for us,” Alonso said. “Knowing the 2025 car would be a continuation of 2024, I knew it could be a season that presented some challenges, and it has.
“Obviously, the main focus, goal, hope is for 2026.”
The unknown going into next year is the performance of a car that the new regulations say must have an even split between the internal combustion engine, running on 100 percent sustainable fuel, and electrical power.
The drag reduction system, or D.R.S., a device to aid overtaking, will also be removed. To overtake, drivers will have to use the car’s front and rear wings.
Alonso said Aston Martin “has the capabilities, the resources and talent to make the project a success.”
“But I don’t know if that means that we need to be fast straight away,” he said. “In previous changes of regulations, I was probably more stressed about getting it right from the beginning. Now, I think things will be right.
“We have everything that is needed to be competitive eventually. If it’s race one, fantastic. If it’s race four, race seven, race 11, it doesn’t matter. We will be there. That’s the trust we all have in the project, which has a solid foundation. Hopefully, we get it right from the beginning.”
Will it be enough to land Alonso an elusive 33rd Grand Prix win and a third title?
Gabriel Bortoleto, of Sauber, an Alonso protégé signed to his company, A14 Management, said Alonso was “one of the greatest of all time” who should have won more than two championships.
“Unfortunately, that’s how Formula 1 works,” Bortoleto said. “You need to be in the right place at the right time. There have been many talented drivers who have not been able to become world champions.”
Alonso said he believed he could become champion again, but also noted that an element of fun has disappeared over the past 20 years.
“F1 has changed for the better in terms of safety, selling the show to the public and technology,” he said. “We have incredible power units, very efficient, maybe 60 percent less fuel consumption than two decades ago with the same performance or more, which is remarkable.
“But the fun behind the steering wheel, maybe that has taken a step backwards, because with safety and technology, these long, heavy cars are not as sharp as they once were.”
Still, he said his driving force remained.
“When I’m not in Formula 1, I’m on a go-kart circuit, or a buggy in the middle of the dunes, or a rally car,” he said.
“Then, when I reflect on what is the best step for the following year, the following three years or whatever, I think Formula 1 is still the pinnacle of motor sport.”
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