[RahulNagaraj]

Fernando Alonso will be joining the Aston Martin F1 team in 2023. The two-time Formula One World Champion will move from Alpine to Aston Martin from the start of the 2023 season. Alonso is said to have signed a multi-year contract with Aston Martin.



Fernando Alonso will replace Sebastian Vettel who announced that he would be retiring from the sport at the end of the 2022 season, last week.

The two-time F1 world champion re-joined the sport in 2021 with Alpine, after taking a two-year sabbatical from the sport. He even managed to score a podium at the 2021 Qatar Grand Prix.

Alpine now has a seat vacant alongside Estaban Ocon for the 2023 season, with many favouring young driver Oscar Piastri to make his F1 debut.

Link to Team-BHP news

[adhil412166]

Originally Posted by RahulNagaraj

Fernando Alonso will be joining the Aston Martin F1 team in 2023.

This is quite an achievement by Aston Martin F1. And they also managed to keep it under absolute wraps until the official reveal. A considerable feat, in the age of social media

All the "insider" tips & leaks indicated Mick Schumacher was #1 in the race to take Vettel's place.

Honestly, Alonso joining AMR makes a lot of sense. AMR need an experienced driver alongside Stroll to lead the team. Mick ain't that. And apparently, Alonso and Otmar Szafnauer (Principal, Alpine F1) didn't get along too well....

I imagine Stroll Sr. is having a nice laugh on his yacht somewhere in rich people land. When Otmar left AMR for Alpine last year he took away BWT's sponsorship as well... Now AMR have more or less gotten their sweet revenge by stealing Alonso.

[Amit_breakfree]

Not completely out of the blue but this was very swift after Seb's announcement.

The conversations would have already been ongoing at the back end and Lawrence Stroll and Aston Martin would have wanted to finalize before summer break. Also having another multiple WDC winner driving for them works well for AM to keep them in the news, help them in car development, and help the road car division with increased sales. However, going from a factory team to a customer team makes less sense for Alonso - but better to have a team than to retire.

Now Oscar Piastri will most probably gets a seat - a promising talent who will be worth looking forward to.

[Hatari]

This is an absolute shocker for us Alonso fans. But an absolute gem of a catch from Aston Martin.

Alpine have been twiddling their thumbs over a very simple and logical decision. Hope Otmar is held responsible for what has just transpired.
Maybe he felt it was 'negotiating', and that has ticked off Alonso.

Lets be clear.. Piastri has nothing to do with this scenario. You cannot put him and Alonso (driving the way he is) on the same platform.
Piastri needs what Mercedes gave Russel - 2 years at Williams.

I feel this is another poor team switch from Alonso, Alpine were just getting it together :
good technical team with Pat Fry and Alan Permane, a clear plan for the future, effective upgrades coming through, looking to recruit much more. Enstone always managed to build a good car with the resources at hand.

With Aston Martin, I think Alonso has lost atleast a year compared to where Alpine are at now.

Quite bizarre, but Stroll will be delighted, he now has F1's gold standard on his books.

[VRJ]

I’m not a fan of his decision. At Alpine, he is fighting for best of rest. He has a good car. Their upgrades have all seem to have worked. From two weeks there was news circulating that he would renew his contract with Alpine for 2023 and an additional year if he wanted. If Vettel wouldn’t have retired, Alonso would’ve continued in Alpine. Lawrence Stroll wanted a champion to replace a champion and he got one. AM at the moment has a bad car. Hopeful they can turnaround and give Alonso a good car in 2023. That man can win a championship at the age of 41 if he’s given the second best car. Alonso is a phenomenal driver. I guess the reason for him moving to AM is the paycheque. He’s set to retire in a couple of years and he’s maximising his earnings. We all know how deep Lawrence’s pockets are. All that hype, belief and TRUST in the EL PLAN down the drain.

[Reinhard]

How many times is Renault going to help this guy get on the grid, just for him to jump ship elsewhere ?

Looks like daddy Stroll wants a whining driver beyond his prime age in the 2nd car, for Lance to appear better relatively. (No offence - I absolutely liked Seb and admire Alonso's race-craft on his day.)
Ferrari used to be the last station on the train to retirement over the last decade. Looks like Aston Martin wants to win in that area at least.

[ninjatalli]

This seems a weird jump to make given the historical stats so far

2022 (so far)
Alpine: 99 points (#4 so far)
Aston Martin: 20 points (#9 so far)

2021
Alpine: 155 points (#5th on Constructor Standings)
Aston Martin: 77 points (#7)

2020
Alpine (McLaren Renault back then): 202 points (#3rd on Constructor Standings)
Aston Martin (Racing Point BWT): 195 points (#7)

Even on a driver vs driver comparison, Alonso did better than Ocon last year and while so far Ocon has higher points than him, clearly he's the better driver of the two; and scoring much better (double) than the Aston Martin drivers.

Might be a monetary play more than anything. It'll be interesting to see how the rest of the year turns out between Alpine & Aston Martin, considering they have been competing heavily with each other (+ Mclaren) on most of the races.

[Senna_sempre]

There is a rumour that Alpine offered him a single year contract but Nando wanted a multiyear. So this move makes sense.

Nando is still a beast and I really want AMR to produce a machine capable of atleast podiums next year as they have all the right resources. Interesting to see how Stroll Jr. fares against one of the bests.

Nando was always in a right car at the wrong time after his last triumph in 2006. I really wish this one decision should change that once and for all

[veedub89]

What a horrible decision by Alonso.
As an Alonso fan, this really hurts. Because Aston will probably never have a championship winning car and Alonso perhaps has 2-3 years of F1 left in him. He might say he will race for 5, but it's quite obvious that age will catch up to him soon.

His entire career has been littered with incomprehensible team switchovers.

McLaren Merc, Ferrari, McLaren (2nd time around) were all poor decisions. The first two being genuine championship contention cars.

It could have come down to Alpine not accepting Alonso's salary demands and Lawrence Stroll saying yes to it. But I find it hard to believe that a guy as competitive as Alonso will leave a superior team just for more money.

[AZT]

The only way this makes sense if Aston offered him a multi year contract and Alpine was offering a single year extension. I liked watching Alonso in Alpine and fighting it out at the top of the grid, I'll support Aston and hope they can get a better car next year.

[TT-S]

Fun fact:
Alonso is the only driver on the grid who has driven all the PUs available right now - Renault, Mercedes, Ferrari, Honda.

Although his sole year of experience with Mercedes PU was from a non-turbo hybrid era (2007 at McLaren), next year he will get a taste of that also. But I think this is a bad move, as always he has done. AMR will take years to be competitive and become a front runner, and matters like copying other cars blatantly would not help at all. It is believed that Stroll Sr's strategy of copying instead of properly developing the car had led to Otmar leaving the team.

Whatever it is, it will be fun watching the veteran beat the baby Stroll on track, and I will be surprised if Stroll Jr can match Alonso's race craft.

[SilentEngine]

Strange decision (as always been the case with Alonso)! Probably he wasn't left with much choice. What other choices did he have? None of the top teams would consider Alonso anyway.

Originally Posted by ninjatalli

2020
Alpine (McLaren Renault back then): 202 points (#3rd on Constructor Standings)
Aston Martin (Racing Point BWT): 195 points (#7)

Alpine wasn't McLaren Renault in 2020. McLaren and Renault were always separate teams, and Renault were #5 in 2020, and Racing Point was actually ahead at #4. Alpine is rebranded Renault F1 team (Enstone based squad).

Current Aston Martin team - under previous ownerships (Racing Point, Force India) - was known to punch above its weight. After Stroll took over, it's actually the opposite, they have constantly moved backwards in last two seasons.

[rmz1088]

Very strange decision by Alonso given Apline are placed much better than AMR with these new regulations. With Alpine he had much better chances of an odd podium/race win. Tough to understand what his motivation really is (mostly monetary). Either ways, its a big win for Stroll Sr. and AMR as rightly pointed in the posts above.

Unlike so many others, one thing is clear with Alonso, no matter what car he drives, we will be treated with some amazing racing. Not something we can tell about other drivers.

[Cyborg]

Alonso has done these things in the past, wrong decisions (which time has proven wrong) or decisions he thinks are correct at the time. He knows he has a limited shelf life in Formula 1 so I feel he is going for the biggest gamble of his career and of course for a huge, huge amount of money which Stroll must have offered him. Hero or zero, nothing to lose.

It does seem like an insurmountable mountain to climb for Aston Martin to get strong in a short time but did anyone think Mercedes could get their car so wrong after eight years of domination.

It will interesting to see what develops from this.

Cheers

[Hatari]

The other twist in this is that Alpine may have committed Piastri to Williams for 2023.

There were rumours of a 30th July cut off date by when he would need a confirmed seat in F1 or be released to another team.

A couple of weeks ago, Otmar came out to say he was sure Piastri would be in F1 next year, but did not name the team.

Alpine may now need to negotiate and 'buy' their own driver back from Williams!
What a mess.

Confirming Ocon on such a long term deal was the first mistake, they should planned for Piastri in the car for 2 years, learning from Alonso.