Fernando Alonso drops 2009 retirement plan bombshell as 400 Grand Prix milestone reached

Fernando Alonso has revealed he had every intention of walking away from F1 after the 2009 season, believing his then-McLaren deal to be his last.

The two-time F1 World Champion signed a three-year deal with McLaren in late 2005, and has revealed he planned on it being his last contract in the sport.

Fernando Alonso reveals 2009 F1 retirement plan

Alonso, who entered F1 with Minardi in 2001, had worked his way up to the top of Formula 1 by the mid-2000s as he won back-to-back World Championships with Renault in 2005 and ’06.

At the end of the 2005 season, Alonso signed a three-year deal to switch to McLaren for 2007 – a deal that complicated his relationship with Renault in his championship-defending year, which he successfully managed to do.

Alonso had signed with Ron Dennis’ McLaren team to race for the Woking-based squad for 2007, ’08, and ’09, but the deal was off after the first season as the relationship crumbled – the arrival of a precocious Lewis Hamilton had resulted in a lack of team orders and the distraction of the ‘Spygate’ scandal resulted in Dennis and Alonso having a bitter falling out.

Alonso returned to Renault for 2008, and joined Ferrari for a five-year stint in 2010 before an unlikely return to McLaren materialised in 2015. After four dismal seasons there, Alonso left F1 for two years before returning with Alpine (formerly Renault) and joined Aston Martin for 2023.

It’s been a career of remarkable longevity, with the now-43-year-old still showing no signs of slowing down as he reaches the 400 Grand Prix mark.

Appearing on the Beyond The Grid podcast to discuss the milestone with host Tom Clarkson, Alonso was asked how his 19-year-old self, lining up on the grid for his debut race in Melbourne in 2001, would view how his career has played out.

“I was not really thinking too much about the future,” he said.

“I was a driver that, you know, the dream was coming alive, driving for Formula 1, the first race. I would say that I didn’t have a clear road map into my career, I didn’t know exactly what was the next race, what will be my next team, I was improvising.

“Every weekend was a new adventure.”

Unprompted, Alonso then revealed that he had every intention of leaving F1 behind in the same decade he had started in the sport.

“What I would say is that when I won the championship in 2006 and then I joined McLaren, I had a three-year contract – 2007, ’08, and ’09.

“I was 99 percent sure that 2009 would be my last Formula 1 season. That was my plan. Very clear plan in my head. I won the championship in 2005, again in ’06, joined McLaren for three years, and that was my last contract in my head.”

Asked why he had had this plan, and what he planned on doing instead if he had retired before turning 30, Alonso said: “I don’t know! Maybe there was no reason for it but, when I signed that contract, a three-year contract, so, in my head at that time, it was like a long-term contract.

“Okay, three years will feel maybe long, but, you know, this is the last anyway, you know? I’ve already fulfilled my dream, I won the championship two times. This was beyond my wildest imagination, to be a Formula 1 champion. So what else can I do here?

“So I signed this contract with McLaren and hoped to win more championships, hoped to win more races. But, after Formula 1, there is a different life outside, and even not so much about motor racing.

“I was thinking I will have a family, I will do normal things, normal days.

“I don’t think that the 19-year-old Minardi 2001 Fernando Alonso would think something strange about the 400 Grand Prix, because I was not thinking too much about the future. But, 2007 for sure, this would be a surprise.”

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Fernando Alonso: You have to accept Formula 1 for what it is

Alonso’s F1 career zenith was during those early years, with the Spaniard unable to replicate his title successes despite lengthy stints with Ferrari and McLaren through the 2010s. His move to Ferrari, in particular, coincided with the rise of Red Bull and Sebastian Vettel, and what looked like a team move certain to yield titles only resulted in disappointments.

In 2024, Alonso’s fire and passion for racing remains undiminished but he said that his love for the sport needed to evolve over time – that love had disappeared by the time he opted to leave F1 behind after 2018, with his future uncertain.

“It did evolve. Yes, I learned things, I accepted things that I didn’t at some points in my career,” he said.

“I have a sense of justice and a sense of fairness that you have to disconnect if you are in Formula 1.

“There is no fairness here. There is no justice sometimes, and you have to just deal with the unique things in this sport.

“There are a lot of politics, there are a lot of interests. There are some decisions that, maybe, are not so much on the sportive side.

“You have to accept it if you want, if you would like to be part of the circus. You have to accept certain things.

“If not, you find another category, which is exactly what I did in 2018 – I was not happy with myself, I was not enjoying Formula 1 at that moment, not only on track, but also off track, you know, the domination of Mercedes.

“It was just… I don’t know. I felt it was time.

“I still loved motorsport. I still loved driving cars. So let’s try the Indy 500, the Le Mans, all these kinds of things. And then I came back to F1, enjoying it more – not because F1 changed too much, it’s because I accepted things that Formula One has, and you take it or you leave it.”

Alonso, who already holds the record as the most experienced Grand Prix driver ever, sets a new record milestone when he starts this Sunday’s Mexico City Grand Prix – the race will mark his 400th Grand Prix entry in F1.

There’s no one even close to this number – Kimi Raikkonen, who debuted at the same race as Alonso back in 2001, also took two years out from F1 after ’09, but called time fully on his career after 2021 after reaching 353 races.

Asked for his feelings as he hits the record number, Alonso acknowledged Clarkson’s assertion that it’s an “insane” number to reach: “It is, it is, I think 400 – even though I think now the calendar is a little bit longer and you accumulate 24 every year, and not like in the past – but yeah, taking into account that I’ve been two years out in 2019 and ’20, to reach 400 now is a big number. It’s a way of demonstrating my passion for the sport and for Formula 1.”

As for whether he’s proud to reach the 400 mark, Alonso suggested pride is the wrong word as “it doesn’t mean too much for me right now, because you are racing and you are focused on the next weekend, but knowing that no one reached that number in the past, and maybe someone does in the future, but not many, let’s say a group of five or 10 maximum.

“As I said, it just demonstrates my love for racing, for Formula 1, and how much I enjoy this lifestyle as well, motor racing in general. Even if traveling is demanding, racing is just paying off all the sacrifices.”

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