Fernando Alonso has spent much of the second act of his Formula 1 career pondering his luck and, amid the swings between the better years and more common leaner spells, he has concluded that over a decade without an F1 win “doesn’t sound right”.
The two-time champion’s last F1 victory remains his 2013 Spanish Grand Prix triumph, his 32nd in the championship, as opportunities to win a 33rd have proven sparse at best.
The following years were characterised by machinery incapable of mounting challenges for wins: 2014’s Ferrari was a step backwards after the introduction of the V6 turbo-hybrid engine formula, and his switch to McLaren – lured by the prospect of joining a works Honda team – was disastrous. Even the team’s switch to Renault engines in 2018 did little to move the team forward, as the chassis department had taken its eye off the ball.
Alonso thus called time on F1, a move that transitioned to a two-year sabbatical. He rejoined the championship in 2021 to replace Daniel Ricciardo as Renault became Alpine; although he himself was not in with a chance of victory, he at least pitched in to ensure Esteban Ocon broke his duck at that year’s Hungarian Grand Prix.
But Alonso’s misgivings about Alpine began to grow. A series of powertrain issues throughout the 2022 season led to the Spaniard switching to Aston Martin – Sebastian Vettel‘s retirement left an open seat. While 2023 started brightly, as the Dan Fallows-designed AMR23 was the only car able to hold a candle to Red Bull’s exalted RB19, frequent podiums did not quite grease the wheels towards race victory.
Many consider that year’s Monaco race to have been Aston’s best shot at a win, but an ill-fated tyre stop for slicks before the heavens opened snuffed out any remaining victory embers. Alonso had to console himself with second to Max Verstappen and, in the years since, has labelled himself as perhaps F1’s unluckiest driver. Many without championships, wins, or even points, might dispute that – but it’s equally true that Alonso’s talent hasn’t necessarily been capitalised on.
Fernando Alonso, Aston Martin AMR23
Photo by: Erik Junius
Taking a less hyperbolic view, however, he suggests that the run of his 418-start grand prix racing career has largely equalised the good and the bad – but also remains frustrated by the delay in achieving his 33rd win.
“Good luck, bad luck, I think 50-50 to be honest. The thing is that when you do 400-plus races, there are a lot of races with good luck and a lot of races with bad luck, but I think everything compensated,” Alonso said.
“Even when I went to Le Mans, the second Le Mans [2019], we were two minutes behind the leader [Toyota’s #7 car] one hour before the end. Then they had a puncture, and then they had a wheel that was not properly done and they had a double pitstop on the following lap and then I won the second Le Mans. [For context, the #7 had a faulty tyre sensor that indicated the wrong wheel had a puncture; Toyota changed one, then realised the other was the culprit and had to stop again.]
“That was a lot of luck on our side. So everything compensated. But yeah, probably over 20 years, I think, or maybe more than 10 years that I won my last F1 grand prix. It doesn’t sound right to me.”
Over 2025, Alonso has sometimes felt slighted by strategy; at Zandvoort, for example, Alonso made his displeasure known as he’d stopped moments before the safety car when Lewis Hamilton crashed. He suggested his team “forgot about me in the first half of the race”, then later complained that the team “always put me in traffic” when asked about the balance of his car.
Alonso estimates that he’s lost “22 points” this year through ill-fortune. He feels that, when the car is competitive, he loses points in difficult races – when it’s uncompetitive, the weekends go smoothly. Perhaps that outlook has been dictated by his Monaco race, where he looked set to break his points duck in 2025 before encountering a powertrain issue.
Oscar Piastri, McLaren, Fernando Alonso, Aston Martin Racing
Photo by: Clive Rose / Getty Images
“We are already up to 22, I think. It’s a shame that we cannot finish the races on merit when we are in the points,” he mourned. “And then when we are slow, because we are uncompetitive, normally things are always smooth and nice until the checkered flag and we score no points.
“But this is the way it is and this is the sport, the nature of the sport. And as long as next year we have a good car, we are in normal luck. We don’t ask for good luck, but normal luck is okay.
“Losing 22 points, it should sound like it’s not much. We are not fighting for the world championship, so why should Alonso care about 22 points in a season like this?
“But it’s a lot of effort and determination to score every single point when the car is just able to score one or two points per weekend. To lose 22 is a massive amount.”
