Newey is Alonso’s best chance yet to win third title · RaceFans

It’s Saturday at Buddh International Circuit in late October 2012 and Fernando Alonso is despondent.

Three races earlier he held a 37-point lead over Lewis Hamilton at the top of the drivers’ championship. Sebastian Vettel was a further two points behind.

Since then Vettel had won three races in a row, erasing Alonso’s championship lead and leaving him with a six-point deficit. He and Red Bull team mate Mark Webber annexed the front row for the Indian Grand Prix, leaving Alonso fifth on the grid, over half a second off the pace.

“At the moment I am, or we are not, fighting against Sebastian only,” said Alonso, “we are fighting against Newey, let’s say, because they are first and second in the last [three] races.”

The first rounds of the 2012 season were thrillingly competitive. The opening seven races were each won by a different driver, from five different teams. But in the second half of the year Red Bull’s design team, led by chief technical officer, made strides with the performance of their RB8, and Alonso’s title hopes began to fade.

That moment 12 years ago was Alonso’s last, best chance to win the third world championship he has sought since his back-to-back title wins of 2005 and 2006. Now 43, the longevity of his career has defied the expectations of many, not least himself.

It has been driven by Alonso’s utter conviction that he remains a match for anyone else on the grid. And his equally firm and frequently stated understanding that the key to success in F1 is having the best car.

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Newey’s arrival makes that a serious possibility for Aston Martin in 2026, when new regulations arrive in time for Alonso’s 23rd season in F1. And he is quite convinced of Alonso’s abilities, having previously named him as one of the few drivers on the grid he is most keen to work with in the future.

“Fernando, of course we’ve battled against each other for so many years,” said Newey after his move to Aston Martin was made official today. “He’s been a bit of a kind of arch-enemy at times.

“We came so close to him joining Red Bull in 2008 for the 2009 season, but unfortunately it didn’t quite happen, which is a great shame, so we continue to battle against each other. He’s a legend of the sport. So I’m very much looking forward to working with him.”

The sport’s most admired designer will join a roster of other senior figures who arrived from Aston Martin’s rivals. Aston Martin’s revamped factory leaves them wanting for nothing in terms of facilities, they will have an exclusive, works power unit supply from Honda and bespoke fuel from Aramco.

For Alonso, this promises to be his final chance to win the world championship after many false starts in recent years. Each time a change in the regulations has offered an opportunity for him to join a team who could exploit it, the outcome has been a disappointment, whether it was Ferrari or McLaren when the V6 hybrid turbo rules arrived, or Alpine when F1 last overhauled its technical regulations in 2022.

But what is coming in 2026 has the potential to dwarf all that. The new regulations mean not just huge changes on the power unit side, but drastic revisions to the cars’ aerodynamics. In Newey, Aston Martin have made the perfect hire to give themselves the best possible chance of getting it right first time.

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The enormous investment Lawrence Stroll has poured into Aston Martin has coincided in an ideal way with the latest shake-up of the F1 rules. The performance of their 2026 car will be the standard by which the value of that investment will be judged.

Moreover, with Aston Martin virtually certain to end this season behind the top four teams in the constructors’ championship, Newey will have the benefit of more development time than they have to hone his 2026 design. And his past form makes it abundantly clear he is not someone who needs to be handed an advantage over his rivals.

Alonso certainly came to understand that earlier in his career. The day after he spoke those words in 2012, Vettel scored his fourth win in a row, taking another step towards his third world title. Newey may now prove the final ingredient which allows Alonso to replicate that feat.

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