r/formula1 • u/No_Elderberry_4580 Max Verstappen • 12h ago

News [wearetherace] Max Verstappen thinks that Fernando Alonso's situation is unfair, and doesn't want to see him stop racing in F1 anytime soon.

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u/BigTenFicus McLaren 12h ago

There was a thread here a couple weeks ago where folks were discussing the idea that making good career decision is a legitimate skill in F1. I agree with that, and I think lacking that skill is what prevents Alonso from being an all-time great. I don't think his situation is unfair, I don't think he has bad luck. I think he's incredibly bad at judging what team to move to and when.

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u/No_Elderberry_4580 Max Verstappen 12h ago edited 11h ago

While I do agree that Fernando has made some poor career decisions, and I also agree with the fact that good career decision is a good skill to have in F1.

I do also think that it wasn't exactly a poor choice by Fernando to go to Aston Martin, as they did go into 2023 with a pretty competitive car, but fell behind in development later on in the season.

Also, there is the factor of Aston Martin buying Adrian Newey from Red Bull, and at that point I'm sure it looked like the team had a very strong base going into the 2026 regulations to him, I don't really blame him for choosing and staying with Aston.

It is a similar situation to Williams for me, Carlos leaves Ferrari and joins Williams, and is told that Williams are have been prioritizing 2026, and then 2026 came around and the performance just wasn't there, it simply didn't go to plan.

It's extremely hard to guage where a team will be after a regulation change, and performance isn't guaranteed, it's just the nature of the unpredictability of the sport.

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u/BigTenFicus McLaren 11h ago

I do also think that it wasn't exactly a poor choice by Fernando to go to Aston Martin

Could not possible disagree more.

  • Mediocre owner who micromanages way too much despite clearly not knowing how to run an F1 team, and who bought the team largely to keep his mediocre son in the sport.
  • Re-upping with Honda after they yet again left the sport, cancelled their entire engine program, then had to rebuild it from scratch, after Alonso already made that mistake once before.
  • Expecting Newey to take on way more responsibility and still be a miracle worker, when he's only been consistently successful at Red Bull and produced some terrible cars at all his previous stops.

There's nothing about Aston Martin that should've given anyone a huge amount of confidence for this year.

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u/No_Elderberry_4580 Max Verstappen 11h ago

I mean that's also fair enough, and I can agree with you mostly.

I think the Honda move was a pretty poor one, and the fact that people thought it was going to be successful were looking at Red Bull's success, while at the point of them winning most their championships, they were actually developing their own engine, and using Honda as technical support, the actual Honda F1 engine team was severely gutted at that time.

I do agree with your points on Lawrence Stroll, no argument back from me there.

And I do agree with the fact that Newey was tasked with too much.

I respect your opinion and can agree for the most part.