Fernando Alonso has made a potentially surprising take on Formula 1‘s new regulations, admitting he is “still having fun” racing, despite woes for Aston Martin and his own personal dislike of the ruleset.
Many drivers have complained about the 2026 regulations, and Fernando Alonso has had his fair share of things to say about them since pre-season testing.
However, it seems that he is having as much fun as ever, to some extent at least.
The Spaniard is responsible for the sole point scored by Aston Martin this season amid struggles to find their footing, surely a demoralising reality for such a driver of his calibre.
But, speaking to media, including Motorsport Week, ahead of the Belgian Grand Prix, Alonso said that he thinks the 2026 cars are fun to drive but could not compare them to the previous iteration, due to the counterintuitive nature of the new ones.
“I think that it’s fun to drive these cars,” he said. “If you drove previous generation of cars [by comparison], I would say no, because they were very different and they were pure attacking mode.
“And driving to the limit of the cars, and the physics, and pushing the tyres to the limit, and all these kind of things – we don’t do that anymore.”
Fernando Alonso: ‘I’m still fighting when the visor is down’
Alonso, however, did convey that the hunger for racing against other drivers is still omnipresent within him, showing that, despite the unpalatable feeling of the regulations and his advancing years, he has lost none of his old sense of competition.
“But I do enjoy competing and I do enjoy racing against the rest of the field,” he continued. “So, when I close the visor, I don’t really notice anything new on the rules. I’m just fighting against the car alongside. And I’m still having fun and I’m still enjoying what I do.
“If I was alone on track, I probably would not enjoy much driving these cars. But because I’m with another 21 cars, I do enjoy a lot.”
Alonso will be likely to be racing just the Cadillacs again in Spa-Francorchamps, as the Aston Martin challenger is patiently awaiting upgrades, set for next weekend’s pre-summer break Grand Prix in Hungary.
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