Alonso’s move to Aston Martin surprised everyone

Sky Sport reporter Ted Kravitz knows all about everyone in the paddock, but even he was surprised by Fernando Alonso’s transfer to Aston Martin…

Ted Kravitz: “I think there’s no shame in admitting that Fernando’s transition was a surprise to everyone! Obviously Alonso’s contract ended and he was looking at big teams. When I spoke to him before the Spanish Grand Prix, he said he would like to move to a big team and become number two to Charles Leclerc or Max Verstappen – he was clearly not thinking about staying with Alpine.

Why did Alonso choose Aston Martin? A lot of people from Red Bull came to them, Dan Fallows became technical director and started coming to the races. Alonso knows this. He also knows that there is money – and decided that it is the best option.

Christian Horner said in an interview that Renault wants to go first-class but is willing to pay only for economy. Maybe Fernando noticed too? Perhaps he saw that Alpine does not have the level of investment that Aston Martin has and they are quite happy with the battle for fourth place in the Constructors’ Championship. Perhaps Fernando felt a lack of ambition, which he didn’t have when he drove for the Renault works team, so he decided to look elsewhere.

When Aston Martin found out that Sebastian Vettel had decided to end his career, they decided to look for an equally great driver. This is a team with very big ambitions, I think their position was that we could take Nick de Vries or Oscar Piastri, but these guys don’t have the necessary experience.

Maybe Alpine didn’t want to continue working with Alonso and replace him with Oscar Piastri, but I haven’t seen any evidence of that. The team loved Fernando, who was a master at working with the machine. I don’t think they were ready to let him go, but they have Piastri, so it won’t be a problem.

More than once in Alonso’s career there were transitions to a weaker team with the hopes of making serious progress over the next three years. But if it takes three years for Aston Martin to start winning races and fight for the championship, Alonso will be 44 by then.

He’s in good shape, he loves Formula 1 and he hasn’t picked up steam like Sebastian Vettel. Maybe he was just looking for a new challenge for himself to understand what he was capable of.

The move brings Alonso back to the Mercedes engines he has not worked with since his controversial departure from McLaren 15 years ago. This means that the contract should have been signed by Toto Wolff. And he got it.”