Formula 1 News: Aston Martin would like to extend Alonso

(GMM) Mike Krack wants to extend Fernando Alonso’s Aston Martin contract beyond 2024, but does the Spaniard want to stay?

Some thought the team boss’s words were a sign that a new deal for the 42-year-old Spaniard was already in the making.

“Obviously it’s not a decision I make alone,” Krack has now told the Spanish broadcaster DAZN in Abu Dhabi.

“We have Lawrence Stroll and we have Martin Whitmarsh. We talk about these things, but I can only say that at the level he is working at, I think Fernando Alonso’s age is just a number.

“I believe he’s like Roger Federer or Valentino Rossi, who had very long sporting careers,” Krack continued.

“I’ve worked with drivers who were not even 30 and said ‘I have achieved everything’, even though they had not really achieved much,” he added.

“And then you have an example like Alonso, with a great mentality and enormous determination.”

Alonso’s friend, fellow Spaniard and long-time colleague at several teams, Pedro de la Rosa, is now an ambassador at the grands prix for Aston Martin.

And he says the question of whether the team should give Alonso a new contract is a no-brainer.

“Yes, yes, yes, and yes for every year he asks for,” de la Rosa grinned.

Experienced former F1 engineer Toni Cuquerella fully agrees.

“Like Mike Krack, I don’t understand the question either,” he said.

“Would you renew his contract? Would you like to have Messi? You’d say ‘Damn, of course I want him!’

“You have something that is working, it is perfect, who cares about age because he’s still so fast. Would you renew him? I’d say ‘Are you stupid or what?'”

On Thursday in Abu Dhabi, the Spaniard said his first year with the Silverstone based team was one of his best-ever performances in a long and successful Formula 1 career.

His friend and former rival Robert Kubica agrees.

“Alonso,” said the Pole when asked if he would sign the Spaniard or seven time world champion Lewis Hamilton if he was running a F1 team.

“In my opinion, Alonso is the strongest of everyone even with an uncompetitive car,” he told Gurulandia. Better even than Max Verstappen?

“In an uncompetitive car, yes,” Kubica insisted.

Alonso left Alpine last winter to join Aston Martin because the former team admitted it had concerns about the 42-year-old’s advancing years.

“No, I’m not concerned,” Aston Martin team boss Mike Krack insisted on Friday when asked if Alonso’s age is even a factor when contemplating the possibility of a contract extension for 2025.

Alonso is already under contract for 2024.

“I think I don’t have to answer that question,” Krack added when asked if he will offer Alonso a new deal for 2025. “Absolutely yes.”