Fernando Alonso is set to race in F1 until he is 45, but does he deserve such longevity?

Fernando Alonso is the oldest driver in F1, but Formula 1 expert Mat Coch from Speedcafe asks if the Spaniard’s reputation is only enhanced because he is beating a teammate that isn’t up to it.

Is Fernando Alonso the most overrated driver in Formula 1? Picture: Getty

Two-time world champion Fernando Alonso has signed a contract with Aston Martin that will see him race in F1 at least until the end of 2025.

Alonso is a giant of the sport. A 32-time grand prix winner, he is the man who ended Michael Schumacher’s dominance in the mid-2000s.

He is also now 42-years-old, and will be 45 when his latest deal expires, the oldest driver in half a century.

Alonso is already the most experienced driver in the championship’s history, and his record of wins and world titles marks him out among its all-time greats.

Only that success came, for the most part, more than a decade ago. His last win was the 2013 Spanish Grand Prix.

Fernando Alonso celebrates with Ferrari’s fans in 2013. Picture: Getty

His slide from world championship contender to midfield challenger has been masked by years of uncompetitive machinery and, lately, his domination of his Aston Martin teammate Lance Stroll.

Over the last 18 months, the Canadian has been utterly destroyed by Alonso in a display that would have ended any normal driver’s career, but Stroll is no ordinary F1 driver on the grid.

His billionaire father Lawrence owns the team, having rescued a struggling midfield squad (it was previously Jordan, Force India, and Racing Point) from oblivion in 2020.

When Sebastian Vettel was paired with Stroll in 2021, he too blew him into the weeds. As did Sergio Perez in 2020.

To dominate Stroll is not an especially great measure for Alonso because the Canadian simply isn’t a good enough yardstick.

Aston Martin's Canadian driver Lance Stroll. Picture: AFP

Quite the opposite, in fact; his performances flatter the Spaniard.

A better measure of Alonso is Esteban Ocon.

The pair were teammates at Alpine in 2020 and 2021 and were evenly matched in the end-of-year points haul – the ultimate measure in a team’s eyes.

The Frenchman is a solid driver. He’s thought to be under consideration to plug a gap at Mercedes alongside George Russell and has also been linked with Audi if it can’t close the deal with Carlos Sainz.

Ocon is reliable, experienced, and extremely capable. He won the 2020 Hungarian Grand Prix.

Tellingly, he was a match for Alonso for two years.

It’s only natural that, with age, a driver slows down. It’s basic physiology that not even Fernando Alonso can hold back.

Fernando Alonso’s performances for Aston Martin have underwhelmed. Picture: Getty

At the end of 2026, when his latest contract expires, he will be the oldest driver to have competed in F1 since Graham Hill in 1975.

Curiously, Hill was also a two-time world champion, taking the crown in 1962 and 1968 when he raced against legends like Sir Jackie Stewart, Sir Jack Brabham, and Jim Clark.

The Englishman’s career was a tale of two halves, with a crash at the 1969 United States Grand Prix the defining moment.

He suffered two broken legs and, upon his return in 1970, could do not better than play second fiddle to teammate Jochen Rindt, who won the world championship that year.

Meanwhile, Hill could record no better than a fourth in Spain.

The Englishman was never the same driver after that US Grand Prix crash and he only became increasingly less competitive.

Formula One driver Jackie Stewart (left), shakes hands with the late Graham Hill.

He failed to qualify for his final grand prix appearance at Monaco in 1975, a race he won with such ease during his prime that he earned the nickname ‘Mister Monaco’.

When he eventually retired, Hill was the most experienced driver in F1 history with 176 grand prix starts and 14 wins, his career spanning 18 years.

But he was a shadow of his former self and, much like Michael Schumacher’s F1 comeback, his time post-1969 is largely dismissed or ignored when considering his position in the sport’s

pantheon of greats.

At the end of 2026, Alonso will be 46 years old with potentially 450 grand prix starts to his name.

But where once he created headlines by toppling the mighty Schumacher and Ferrari, now he

makes them for simply delivering what his teammate can’t.

An unreliable benchmark and a team that has struggled for much of its existence paint Alonso out to be far closer to the driver he once was than the driver he actually is.

* Mat Coch is the Formula 1 editor for Speedcafe. He has written about F1 and motorsport for more than 15 years and is the first and only Australian-based journalist to hold permanent FIA Formula 1 media accreditation. You can read more from Mat at speedcafe.com/f1

Originally published as Fernando Alonso is set to race in F1 until he is 45, but does he deserve such longevity?