Alonso: Replacing Vettel at Aston Martin "is an option" | No plans to retire

Alonso, aged 40, will see his contract with Alpine expire at the end of this season at the same time as fellow veteran Vettel, aged 35, will step away.

"All the teams are an option as long as they don’t have two drivers signed," Alonso said ahead of the F1 Hungarian Grand Prix. 

"My priority is to be with Alpine. We’ve been working and developing this project together for two years now. We are more and more competitive.

"Probably my wish is to stay. But we didn’t sit down completely and move forward with things. So still everything is ongoing."

When Vettel brings a close to his 15-year F1 career at the end of 2022, leaving a vacant Aston Martin seat, he will leave Alonso and Lewis Hamilton as the only two drivers who also competed in 2007.

Vettel leaves a legacy as a four-time world champion while Alonso has won the title twice. The Spaniard, however, has no intention of following Vettel into retirement yet.

His future remains up in the air.

Alonso said: "From the beginning of the summer break, it will be the point I need to sit down and conclude something. The summer break starts on Monday."

He said about the possibility of talking to Aston Martin: "Not really no, I think we spoke in 2020 when they were very competitive and winning races and on the podium, before I came back. I didn’t go well, I came with Alpine and I’m happy where I am."

On talks over a new contract with Alpine, he said: "Not yet but it will happen. I will be on holidays, the bosses will be on holidays as well so we need to fix some media calls or whatever. When two parties want to agree on something, it takes 10 minutes. When two parties, they fight or struggle on something, maybe one of the side is not happy, [it takes longer].

"I would like to stay here, I said that. But there are two parties, and I will not put a gun to the head of anyone.

"We will open the negotiations and as I said, if we agree on something, it will be a 10 minute conversation. If we have to fight too much, it will be strange."

Alonso reaffirmed faith in Alpine's competitiveness into 2023: "Sure it’s important, but this is not a crystal ball that you can choose. I guess with this set of regulations, it seems Ferrari, Red Bull and Mercedes are the only capable teams of winning races.

"So if you have an opportunity for 2023 with those three teams, you will try to join forces.

"There is no opportunity so you just need to trust some of the projects, wishing that they are competitive next year. It’s all a hope.

"But as I said, my challenge is big here, to try to win in this comeback.

"It’s not easy, I’m not in any of those three teams, but I don’t have other challenges in my head now. I don’t have a family, all the other categories, they are not giving me any appeal at the moment. So I’m happy where I am."

Alonso is the older driver on the grid but insists his age is not a factor: "I feel very fresh, I feel reactions are as sharp as ever.

"It was a very physical race [in France], we talked after the race and I was ready to go for another three or four grands prix. There are signs from your body, you’re the first one to raise your hand and say ‘this is a little bit too much for me’.

"It has never been my case in the car, I feel always very good. But for example in 2018, I had a lot of marketing commitments, a lot of travelling. I was exhausted mentally, Not physically.

"Now I am very fresh, travelling wise or just looking at the calendar now, Singapore I will go Monday. Normally I go on Tuesday or Wednesday, now I will go on Monday. I don’t care to spend one or two more days in the city because it’s better for the heat and things like that. I’m just enjoying it."

Alonso first retired from F1 after the 2018 season, missing two years to pursue other championships. He notable raced in the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the Dakar Rally and the Indy 500 but insists that those bucket-list opportunities won't tempt him away again.

"Not in the short term," he said. "But I think I am fresh here, very motivated. I’m looking forward so much into next year, what the second year of these rules will bring. We race in Las Vegas, we race maybe in South Africa.

"All these things, they are very appealing. I feel very fast this year, last year was a struggle a little bit. But this year I feel at my 100 per cent. Now even thinking about sportscars or IndyCar it’s like ‘not now’. My head is completely ‘remove this’ and stay focused on F1.

"I stopped in 2018 because I had bigger challenges in my head. I had the Le Mans, I had the IndyCar. I wanted to try cross country rallying, so I have also the challenges. In 2018 or 2019, the possibilities that I had to race here in the paddock was not attractive. There was only one team winning. Only Valtteri Bottas nad Hamilton, they were fighting for each race win, each pole position. It was, for me, not the place to be, not a happy place.

"So I decided to stop, I don’t know if that came to play in Sebastian’s decision as well, having a competitive or non competitive car. Then in the time away from Formula 1, in my case we had the pandemic as well. All the other series were hit quite badly in terms of sponsors, manufacturers, things like that. F1 was still quite healthy in that moment. So I thought in that moment the biggest challenge was to come back in Formula 1 and try to do well. I move always by own challenges more than what I think in that moment of my career."

Alonso reflected on Vettel's retirement by considering the toughest rivals of his own career: "I think Lewis and Seb, both of them I shared most of my time. Obviously Michael Schumacher will remain always maybe my top pic because I was fighting for the championship with him and I grew up watching him in Formula 1, dominating the sport. I learned so many things from Michael, and then Lewis and Seb. The three of us, we shared a lot."