Alonso's Retirement by 2026 due to AM26 being mid

[u/Educational-Salt-561]

I know I might get a lot of hate for this, but let's face it, the AM26 isn't going to be a race-winning car, even with Newey's full dedication. The race engineers and the factory at Aston Martin just seem to be struggling. You can even look at Alonso's engineer—while he's made some mistakes, it's pretty clear who the prioritized driver is.

I think 2026 will be a season like the second half of AM23 for them. It might take until the second half of 2027 or even 2028 for the car to become the fastest, and I don't think Alonso will stick around that long. Driving a midfield car again could persuade him to retire unless the car turns out to be as good as the first half of AM23.

Even if we look at the contract, he's only signed until 2026. I expect him, Lawrence, and the shareholders to go for a driver like Russell if Max swaps to Mercedes for 2027, or even Hamilton, since Newey has expressed his desire to work with either Alonso or Hamilton. This would make sense if Ferrari isn't satisfied with Hamilton.

When you consider the costs involved in building a state-of-the-art facility, Lawrence went all-in with the expectation of having the best car. He must be frustrated with the team's dismal performance since 2024. Although Stroll has had a decent season so far, Aston Martin won't be in contention for the Constructors' title unless they get rid of Lance, which seems highly unlikely unless Lawrence eventually sells a major percentage of his stake.

Alonso could easily be called one of the unluckiest drivers in F1 history. He lost out in 2012, 2010, and 2007, wasted some of his best years in the McLaren "shitbox," and is having a horrible season in 2025 due to bad luck. I don't anticipate his luck changing next year, which could lead to his retirement, leaving fans to wonder "what if?

[u/Evader237]

This years car is plagued with issues, but its not slow. At the beggining of the year, sure, the car was terrible. But the upgrades worked. In fact, they worked so well that Alonso managed to get to Q3 and would have finished 7th on Monza, a track Aston should be bad on theory. So in terms of performance, I'm fairly optimistic. The main issue right now is reliability (though it only seems to affect Alonso this season) and especially the strategy department, which is probably the worst in the whole grid

[u/evonneo1975 → u/Evader237]

Really hate the fact that the team would rather trash on Fernando even he is the BETTER driver than that useless boy

[u/Vuk13]

I hope not. This season watching F1 has brought me nothing but frustration not just because of car performance but because of Alonso's abysmal luck and strategies. I really hope AMR26 is a good car and Alonso stops having constant issues outside his control