{"id":27145,"date":"2025-04-17T09:21:08","date_gmt":"2025-04-17T09:21:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/27145\/"},"modified":"2025-04-17T09:21:08","modified_gmt":"2025-04-17T09:21:08","slug":"ex-ferrari-chief-truly-sad-about-fernando-alonso-in-f1-retirement-hint","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/27145\/","title":{"rendered":"Ex-Ferrari chief ‘truly sad’ about Fernando Alonso in F1 retirement hint"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yet to get off the mark this season, Luca di Montezemolo hopes Fernando Alonso has a competitive Aston Martin next season as the Spaniard bids farewell to Formula 1.<\/strong><\/p>\n

That\u2019s the Italian\u2019s assumption as Alonso<\/a> has yet to confirm any retirement plans.<\/p>\n

Fernando Alonso: Can he achieve a 33rd F1 victory?<\/p>\n

Last year, Alonso signed an extension with Aston Martin for two seasons, F1 2025 and 2026, and admitted at the time that it was \u201cprobably my last contract, so I wanted to make sure that it was the right decision\u201d.<\/p>\n

However, four races into the F1 2025 championship, potentially his penultimate campaign, Alonso is one of four drivers still to get off the mark with his best result of the campaign a near-miss P11 at the Japanese Grand Prix.<\/p>\n

His season began with back-to-back retirements, a crash in Australia and brake problems in China, that has extended to four pointless results.<\/p>\n

It marks Alonso\u2019s worst start to an F1 championship since 2017, when he didn\u2019t score a single point in the first six races having opted to sit out the Monaco Grand Prix to contest the Indy 500.<\/p>\n

More on double F1 World Champion Fernando Alonso<\/p>\n

\ud83d\udc49Ranking Fernando Alonso s F1 career moves from worst to best<\/a><\/p>\n

\ud83d\udc49Fernando Alonso net worth: How one of F1 s highest-paid stars gives back to racing<\/a><\/p>\n

Although Alonso has yet to score a point this season, his team-mate Lance Stroll secured back-to-back top 10 results in the two races in which Alonso didn\u2019t score. But in the ensuing two, Japan and Bahrain, he\u2019s been well off the points with a high of P17.<\/p>\n

Alonso concedes Aston Martin need to improve the car, most notably in the low and medium speed corners.<\/p>\n

Speaking about his AMR25 after the Bahrain Grand Prix, the double World Champion told the media, including PlanetF1.com: \u201cTricky at the exit, but also mid corner, it\u2019s like the car is dying in the low speed. A well-known problem that we had last year, and we still have this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need some improvement. It was a difficult weekend. We expected to be slow with all the low-speed content in Bahrain, but we need to improve the car. It\u2019s not only the low speed, I think it\u2019s a little bit everywhere.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to get better. Hopefully, the next race will be a little bit more friendly to us, but scoring points seems difficult this year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Quizzed on the one key area that needs improving, he replied: \u201cI think low speed. Low speed was our weakest sector in Australia, Japan and China. Bahrain was all about low speed, and has been our least competitive weekend. So yeah, that\u2019s where the focus has to be.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we are trying everything we can. It\u2019s not that we are just happy with the results, we just need to make it to the track as fast as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

His plight has caught the attention of former Ferrari president di Montezemolo.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m very sad for Alonso,\u201d the Italian told Marca<\/strong>. \u201cA driver like him at the end of his career with such an uncompetitive car is truly sad.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope that next year, which may be his last in F1, he will have a competitive car. He\u2019s a great friend, he\u2019s a great champion.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alonso is hoping to break his duck this weekend in Saudi Arabia, but concedes that scoring points isn\u2019t easy with four teams \u2013 McLaren, Mercedes, Red Bull and Ferrari \u2013 leading the charge ahead of a closely-contested midfield.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope so,\u201d he said, \u201cbut I qualified sixth in Bahrain last year, and it was not the case this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really think Jeddah will be a little bit better for us, but I think to be in the points is a little bit difficult for us at the moment. Top four teams in another league. And then there is always Haas, Williams, AlphaTauri a little bit ahead of us as well. So you quickly are seventh or eighth team and in those positions, you cannot score points unless you are very, very lucky.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo yeah, let\u2019s see. We will try our best.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read next: Revealed: When Verstappen\u2019s exit clause will be a \u2018hot topic\u2019<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Yet to get off the mark this season, Luca di Montezemolo hopes Fernando Alonso has a competitive Aston…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27146,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4103],"tags":[1837,4199,6319,707,4200,225,12,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-27145","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-f1","8":"tag-aston-martin","9":"tag-f1","10":"tag-fernando-alonso","11":"tag-formula-1","12":"tag-formula1","13":"tag-home-page","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114352572668321993","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27145\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}