- Alonso wants his son Leonard old enough to remember him racing.
- Aston Martin sits last in the constructors’ championship with zero points.
- Spaniard will decide on his 2027 contract only after the summer break.
Fernando Alonso says fatherhood has given him a new reason to keep racing. The 44-year-old Spaniard told Sky Sports F1 ahead of the Canadian Grand Prix that he wants his newborn son to be old enough to remember watching him compete.
That desire, he said, is pushing him toward staying in the sport longer than he might otherwise have planned.
Alonso welcomed his son, Leonard, with partner Melissa Jimenez in March. Jimenez is a broadcaster for the Spanish television company DAZN.
Alonso confirmed the birth at the Japanese Grand Prix, where he arrived late after skipping media day to be with his family.
Speaking to Sky Sports F1, Alonso said the experience had changed his outlook.
“I have to say that it is going in the other direction. I want to race so he sees me racing,” he said. He added that he hoped not to retire before his son could visit the paddock or sit in his car.
A new son and a new perspective
Alonso has never been easily associated with sentimentality. He is a two-time world champion known more for his fierce competitive drive than for public reflection on personal life.
But fatherhood has drawn something different out of him.
He told Sky Sports F1 that he has been thinking about memory and timing. Specifically, whether a child of one or two years old would retain any real understanding of what he does for a living.
“I was thinking, if I race one or two more years, if he will have any memory or any understanding of what is going on at the paddock and things like that?” he said. “I would like not to stop before he is in the paddock, or he sits in my car.”
He described these as moments that stay with a person forever. It shows that his thinking is not just about legacy or records. It is about something much simpler: being remembered by his son as a racing driver while he still is one.
Aston Martin’s nightmare start to 2026
Any discussion of Alonso’s future must sit alongside the reality of his present. Aston Martin is at the bottom of the constructors’ championship with no points after the opening races.
The 2026 season was supposed to mark the start of something significant for the team, with a new partnership with Honda and the arrival of renowned designer Adrian Newey. It has not worked out that way.
Honda’s power unit has produced severe vibrations from its battery system. During pre-season testing, a piece of bodywork fell off the car as a result.
Alonso reported that his hands went numb after just 25 minutes behind the wheel of the AMR26. At the Chinese Grand Prix, the problem worsened to the point where he lost feeling in both his hands and feet and had to retire from the race.
The Miami Grand Prix offered some improvement. Honda is understood to have addressed the worst of the vibration problems.
Both Alonso and team-mate Lance Stroll completed a full race distance for the first time this season. But Alonso and Stroll finished 15th and 17th respectively, a lap behind race winner Andrea Kimi Antonelli.
Alonso told the media that no significant upgrades would arrive until after the summer break. At Miami, he drew a dry comparison between his two challenges this year.
“I would say the first races this year has been far more difficult [than taking care of his son] this year for me,” he said.
He credited Jimenez with keeping things steady at home, calling her an incredible mother and saying the two of them work well as a team.
The contract question
Alonso is in the final year of his current Aston Martin deal. Many in the paddock had assumed an extension for 2027 was a formality. That assumption looks shakier now.
Aston Martin has officially confirmed Alonso’s broader commitment to the organisation, which includes endurance racing at Le Mans.
But Alonso himself has been careful not to say anything definitive about his Formula 1 future. Ahead of the Miami Grand Prix, he said he would not make a decision until after the summer break.
“I’m open to anything,” he told the media.
He has said publicly, including to the Spanish press, that he would accept the physical punishment of racing if he were competing for victories.
Finishing ninth or tenth, he has suggested, is a harder thing to keep doing. He has not won a Grand Prix since 2013.
What comes next for Fernando Alonso?
The picture Alonso presents is not one of a driver counting down his final races. Nor is it one of a driver certain he has more years ahead.
It sits somewhere between the two, shaped by two very different forces pulling in the same direction.
His son gives him a personal reason to stay. Aston Martin’s performance will likely determine whether that reason is enough.
If the team makes genuine progress in the second half of the season, with Newey’s input and Honda’s continued work on the power unit, Alonso may find the sporting argument for continuing harder to dismiss. If the car stays uncompetitive, that calculation changes.
For now, he is doing what he has done throughout his career: keeping his options open and refusing to be pushed toward a decision before he is ready.
