Fernando Alonso retirement plan leaked by girlfriend ahead of Saudi GP

F1: Alonso back in saddle after fracturing jaw on bike ride

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Fernando Alonso’s partner, Andrea Schlager, has revealed that the Spaniard is likely to retire once his Aston Martin contract runs its course. There had been murmurs that the two-time F1 world champion could race even further into his forties after clinching a superb podium at the Bahrain Grand Prix earlier this month.

Alonso raised eyebrows last year by ditching Alpine for Aston, who finished three places behind the French team in last season’s Constructors’ Championship. The 41-year-old replaced another heavyweight in Sebastian Vettel, who walked away from the sport at the age of 35. 

The choice is shaping up to be a wise one for Alonso as Aston appear to have made significant strides in the off-season to give their drivers a car worthy of challenging Red Bull, Mercedes and Ferrari. 

Although they aren’t expected to push for the top prizes this season, Alonso showed that he can battle for Grand Prix victories over the coming months by taking the final spot on the podium in Sakhir.

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All eyes will be on Aston this weekend, and whether they can prove that it was not a fluke result when drivers descend on Saudi Arabia. Alonso is at the start of a two-year contract, which would take him until the end of 2024, but Schlager has suggested that he will then call it a day. 

“He currently has a two-year contract and it will most likely be the last,” she told ServusTV, per GP Fans, before adding of his hard work before the start of the season: “The whole winter consisted of gym, tennis, skiing. It was impressive how he went full throttle.”

Schlager is a prominent broadcaster in Austria, covering sports such as F1 and tennis. The pair met in the paddock last year and have been dating ever since, with Schlager among the first people to congratulate Alonso after his stunning result in Bahrain.

The veteran F1 star has 32 Grand Prix victories and two world titles on his CV, but he has not won a race since 2013, when he finished second in the Drivers’ Championship with Ferrari. It remains to be seen whether Aston Martin have the kind of pace to push for that kind of finish this year. 

Having been landed with a competitive car, some have evaluated how Alonso stacks up against other heavyweights on the grid such as Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton. Sky Sports pundit Naomi Schiff is among them, and she has even suggested that the Spaniard may hold the upper hand.

“I think Fernando might just trump them in the sense that he’s so much more mature,” she told the Sky Sports F1 vodcast. “He’s been in it for so long. I think even last year, we could see it in the Alpine and that there were moments that he was just extracting the absolute maximum out of their car.”

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