Fernando Alonso has spent the best part of this season calling Formula 1 the “battery world championship” and mocking the sport’s newest regulations as an insult to real driving. Naturally, he has just signed up for another year of it.
Aston Martin have confirmed that Alonso will race on in 2027, extending a career that already holds the record for most grand prix starts. He made his debut back in 2001, and 2027 will be his 24th full-time season in the sport, a number that should embarrass anyone who has ever used the phrase “why doesn’t he just retire” within earshot of him.
A Fake Retirement Announcement, Because Of Course
The confirmation arrived wrapped in a video styled as a fake-out retirement statement, presumably because a straightforward press release wasn’t dramatic enough for a man who has turned uncertainty about his own future into a season-long subplot.
“F1 has been great to me. I had an incredible career. I have travelled around the world, I raced for 23 years, more than 400 grands prix. And I achieved more than what I ever dreamed of. It took me a little bit of time to make my decision. But now I have things very clear on my mind. I will retire from F1… but not yet. I still feel fast and motivated and a huge passion for F1 and for the sport. So, yeah. I’m so happy to keep racing in the highest category. It is my life.” – Fernando Alonso
Alonso isn’t done.
Why Sign for a Team That’s Been Nowhere All Year
Here’s the awkward bit nobody at Aston Martin will say out loud: the Aston Martin AMR26 has been a genuine embarrassment for most of 2026, uncompetitive, difficult to drive, and hamstrung by a Honda power unit that has been the worst in the field on the manufacturer’s return to the sport. A significant upgrade helped, cutting lap times noticeably, but it didn’t turn the car into anything resembling a contender. The team sits tenth in the constructors’ standings with 3 points.
Yet Alonso has been at pains all year to separate his frustration with Aston Martin’s form from his frustration with the sport’s direction. Told BBC Sport in what was his only English-language interview on the decision, he explained that the biggest factor in signing on was simply that he still believes he’s fast enough.
“When I jump in the car, in free practice, I will see some people braking late in a corner, locking up the front tyres here or there, making mistakes there. I feel that I’m OK. Or, I’m faster than them. So when I get changed and I go back home, even if I’m P18, in a way I feel some satisfaction and pride inside, even if it should not be the case because we are not competitive.” – Fernando Alonso
It’s a remarkable thing to hear from a two-time world champion: finding pride in finishing eighteenth because he still believes he’s quicker than whoever beat him there. Whether that self-belief is admirable stubbornness or simple denial depends entirely on how the AMR27 turns out.
The Regulations He Can’t Stop Criticising
Alonso has not been shy this season about what he thinks of the 2026 rules, which introduced hybrid engines splitting power roughly evenly between combustion and electrical energy. His complaint, shared by Max Verstappen among others, is that cars run out of battery well before some corners in a process known as derating, forcing drivers to manage energy rather than simply drive fast. Some of the calendar’s most demanding corners have effectively been turned into charging zones.
He has not been subtle about his contempt for this. Calling F1 the “battery world championship” is one thing; joking that “the chef could drive the car” through a corner in Bahrain that used to separate the good from the great is another level of disdain entirely. Yet somehow none of that stopped him signing a new deal to keep driving exactly these cars.
Changes are coming for 2027 and 2028, shifting the power ratio toward more combustion and less battery, and Alonso says he’s hopeful, cautiously, that this will make the cars feel more natural again.
“Maybe even for next year they can tweak a little bit the battery power to have a little bit maybe less battery for longer or something like that because F1 at the moment is not natural driving.” – Fernando Alonso
Newey, Honda and the Family Calculation
The clearest thread running through Alonso’s reasoning is Adrian Newey. The design legend joined Aston Martin as managing technical partner and, according to Alonso, delayed the start of work on this year’s car, one of the compounding issues that left the team scrapping at the back for most of the season. Giving up now, after a single compromised year working alongside a man widely regarded as the best technical mind of his generation, apparently felt like walking out before the job had properly started.
“This team has all the ingredients to have success in the future, and I didn’t feel that this was the moment to leave. Adrian was probably the biggest contributor to this. We didn’t start it right this year but things are moving in the right direction and he’s capable of changing things very quickly.” – Fernando Alonso
Honda gets a more guarded vote of confidence. Alonso lived through Honda’s uncompetitive years at McLaren between 2015 and 2017, and admits reliving something similar “has been difficult”. But he insists internal changes at the manufacturer give him faith it will eventually be fixed, even if he can’t say when.
Family also factored into the thinking, though apparently less than expected. Alonso became a father this year when his partner, television presenter Melissa Jiménez, gave birth to their son, Leonard, in March. He initially assumed that would weigh heavily on the decision, but concluded it wasn’t the deciding factor, noting his son should be able to travel to more races next year as he gets older.
The Records Still Out of Reach
Alonso will turn 47 during the 2027 season, an age that makes his continued presence on the grid almost anachronistic given how young the field around him has become; several current drivers were born after his 2001 debut. His longevity is already unmatched in the modern sport, but the outright oldest-driver record, held by Louis Chiron’s age-55 outing in Monaco, remains safely out of reach unless Alonso plans on racing into 2037.
Aston Martin also confirmed that Lance Stroll continues alongside him for 2027, keeping the current line-up intact. Meanwhile Alonso sits nineteenth in this year’s standings with 3 points, a number that says everything about how brutal this Aston Martin season has been and nothing about why a two-time champion just signed up for another year of it anyway.
“I see that it would not be only one year, but I don’t have any pressure to think about it.” – Fernando Alonso
