Alonso: 'Too bad I don't know many people in the sport anymore'

Fernando Alonso has been around in Formula 1 for a long time: since 2001. In 2018 he left the sport after an unsuccessful time at McLaren. In 2021 he made a comeback at Alpine. Now he will start at Aston Martin. At 41 years old he is the oldest on the grid.

The Spaniard says he initially knew many people within the teams. Why? Because he has been around for so long and has driven for several teams. During a press conference with GPblog he said: "I'm getting older so they are younger and younger so I don't know many of them. I work with the son of someone that has been working with me."

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Alonso also gave stories about what such a long period in the sport entails. For example, one engineer told him he had visited Silverstone as a child in 2006. By then, the Spaniard had been driving in the sport for five years already.

Apart from the fact that Alonso doesn't know many people within the sport anymore, there are a few exceptions: "I think there are a few people that, believe it or not, they've been working in Ferrari in 2014, McLaren in 2017, in last year and now at Aston Martin. So we changed four of the last teams, more or less together in different years, but we seem to meet always."