Fernando Alonso was contacted as a potential replacement for Nico Rosberg at Mercedes for the 2017 Formula One season. The Spaniard, speaking at the launch of the McLaren MCL32 at the team’s base in Woking, said he had conversations with Lewis Hamilton’s team but told them he would see out his contract, which ends this year.
“Mercedes, after the surprise of Rosberg [winning the title then quitting] had to check with everyone,” Alonso said. “It is understandable. It was nothing really strange, nothing really deep to the conversations, but they did [it] with everyone. They wanted to hear my situation, which was very clear: I had this year at McLaren and I was happy here. There was no point in talking anymore.”
Alonso would have been an unlikely choice to partner Hamilton at Mercedes given the pair did not work well together at McLaren during the British driver’s first season in F1 in 2007, at the end of which Alonso left to join Renault. It is equally doubtful Hamilton, as the established driver at Mercedes and a two-times world champion with the team, would have welcomed his former colleague as his rival across the garage.
The new McLaren, sporting the orange associated the team in F1 and Can-Am between 1968 and 1971, will need to display real performance to maintain Alonso’s enthusiasm. He has been critical of the car and engine over the past two seasons in which they finished ninth and sixth in the constructors’ championship. He has made it clear he intends to race at Le Mans at some point and, while there have been suggestions he may retire from F1, the double world champion was emphatic he would continue long into the future.
“When you are winning you have that feeling, that adrenaline, that final result you worked at for many years from go-karts to F1,” he said. “In my case I cannot stop, it is like a drug. For Rosberg he was very brave to step away, I wish him the best. I will be 8o years old and I will be in a go-kart on a circuit racing and pushing the kids off the track in front of me.”
He has said he will address his plans later in the year but possibilities within F1 will still exist. The driver market will be open at the end of this season with Alonso concluding his contract at McLaren, Sebastian Vettel’s and Kimi Raikkonen’s deals ending at Ferrari and Rosberg’s replacement, Valtteri Bottas, on a one-year option at Mercedes.
