Which prompted Alonso’s shock move to Aston Martin

Just last week Alonso said his new contract with Alpine could be signed within 10 minutes and team boss Ottmar Zaffnauer agreed – but that sentence proved ambiguous.

Based on the information that has leaked since Fernando Alonso’s move to Aston Martin was announced in 2023, the deal could apparently go through if Alpine accepts the Spaniard’s desire for a two-year deal, or if Alonso instead accepts the French team’s desire for a year.

The recent statement by Alpine boss Laurent Rossi that he would be targeting Alonso for the World Endurance Championship (WEC) and the company’s LeMans program after the Spaniard retired from Formula 1 may not be so good with the two-time world champion from Oviedo to have arrived.

Alpine’s program in the top LeMans class of LMDh hybrid prototypes starts in 2024 and this could easily be translated by Alonso as Alpine taking him to Formula 1 for 2023 to help with the development of the car help and prepare the position for Oscar Piasti in 2024.

It was further evidence that Alpine wants to link its future with Piastri, a phenomenal talent but no Formula 1 experience, to build around the Australian and grow with him into a title contender with a time horizon of 2025, ever previously.

Alpine’s plan appeared to have Piastri looking to a preparatory stint with another team – possibly Williams – in 2023 before calling him up to replace Alonso in 2024. Given that the French team Esteban Ocon rushed with a three-year contract until the end of 2024, possibly also for marketing reasons given his French origins, there would be no more room for Alonso in this plan 24. Besides, what incentive would Alonso have to build the team so that Piastr would come and find it ready instead of him?

Alpine was thinking about things diametrically opposed to the Spaniard’s ambitions. Despite his 41 years, Alonso believes that the Formula 1 chapter is far from over for him. And given his stellar performance this year, it’s not unreasonable that he retains the ambition to be the sport’s star again, to pick up wins and maybe a third championship. Michael Schumacher raced until he was 44.

Alongside Alpine’s thoughts on his driver duo, Alonso also has his own views on whether the French team could pull off such a feat in the next three years. It’s quite possible he wasn’t sure, for a team in their 7th year of factory involvement with Renault but no better than 4th in the Constructors’ Championship.

As much as it’s improving this year and dominating the battle of mid-range teams, Alpine doesn’t even have the speed of Mercedes, let alone Ferrari and RBR. And with regulations stable until the end of 2025, Alonso may have decided the French can’t change that with their 100-race plan to climb to the top of F1 – which has yet to reach 1/3 of it.

But the truth is that Aston Martin is in a much worse situation. Owner Loren Stroll seems to have disbanded the team that just two years ago as Racing Point (formerly Force India) was competitive and at times even in the midst of podium fights. And Ottmar Zaffnauer, who later served as Alpine’s race director, reportedly left the team over disagreements over the direction the team was taking.

So Alonso left Alpine for Aston Martin because he was offended by the way the former treated him? Or did he do it because he believes the latter has greater and better potential to rise to the top of Formula 1, soon enough for the Spaniard – given his age – to catch up?

If the reason was the first, then his decision seems to be another of the many wrong – as it turned out – in Fernando’s career. And that was probably the last. If the reason is the latter, he probably sees something in Aston Martin – also based on his very good relationship with Lawrence Stroll – that is not visible outside the walls of the team’s Silverstone factory.

His words after announcing his move to Aston Martin prove the latter – and also implicitly leave a well-hidden tip for Alpine: “I follow the team closely [Aston Martin] as it attracts great people with important CVs and I have heard of their great commitment to the new facilities and infrastructure at Silverstone. No one in Formula 1 today shows greater vision and total dedication to victory.”

Laurens Stroll has made no secret of his big ambitions to make AM the star of F1 and is investing heavily in it. It is building a new factory for the team, has expressed an ambition to build its own engines in the future, and is hiring some capable executives. On the other hand, Mike Krak, who has rich experience in motorsport but not from Formula 1, was recently hired to lead the team.

Alonso certainly has a lot more insight into the future of a team that, for now, is Formula 1’s underdogs with its choppy, erratic performance and normally slow car, and he apparently reckons he can co-exist with up-and-coming, difficult character Lawrence Stroll .

And what’s more, he found in Aston Martin exactly what Alpine didn’t give him: first, the respect that befits his worth, then the position of the undisputed leader of the team alongside a not particularly dangerous driver (although he’s the boss’s son), a third multi-year contract and then maybe a much higher salary.

And so Fernando Alonso found himself in the position where his talent has always suited him: leading a factory team. It remains to be seen whether the factory team will be able to fulfill its potential – although Aston Martin’s path to the top of Formula 1 currently looks like an odyssey.