Fernando Alonso will be racing in Formula 1 in 2027 at the age of 46, and a comparison with Alexander Wurz really highlights just how extraordinary his career actually is …
There’s a thought experiment that quite impressively demonstrates just how remarkable it is that Fernando Alonso will be competing in the 2027 Formula 1 season at the age of 46 – at least after his birthday on 29 July.
Here’s how it works: Alexander Wurz, now chairman of the GPDA drivers’ union, ended his Formula 1 career with Williams in the 2007 season. Had he still been racing in Grand Prix events at the same age as Alonso, however, he would not have had to retire until 2020 (!). By then, however, the Austrian had already been a TV pundit for twelve years and, alongside Ernst Hausleitner, formed a well-established and popular duo on ORF.
It is not only in light of this comparison that Wurz, appearing as a special guest on the YouTube members’ get-together on the Formel1.de channel, explains that, for him, Alonso is “the most sensational figure” par excellence in modern Formula 1 history: “For me, Fernando is one of the very best racing drivers I have ever seen and experienced over the decades he has been in the sport.”
“He keeps reinventing himself. No matter what time of day, whatever the conditions, whether it’s raining or not, regardless of the tyre manufacturer or the car – from Dakar to the WEC to Formula 1 – he always manages to squeeze every last drop out of himself, and the fact that he can still motivate himself to do so at his age is something truly sensational.”
Wurz understands all too well what that means. He himself began his Formula 1 career in 1997 with Benetton and ended it ten years later, won Le Mans twice and carried out development tests for Toyota’s endurance programme “right up until the age of 44”. And at a fairly respectable level at that: “I wasn’t far off in terms of lap times,” he says.
But what was missing was “in my head”, and “that’s why I stopped early. Much like Nico Rosberg or Gil de Ferran. If you no longer have that hunger in your head to find that final hundredth of a second, if that’s no longer there, you have to be honest with yourself. Otherwise, your team principal can read your expiry date right off your face and say: ‘Bye, thanks, there’s the door.’ I didn’t want that […].”
Alonso was Formula 1 World Champion in 2005 and 2006 (with Renault) and celebrated his most recent Grand Prix victories to date in 2013 (with Ferrari). He currently drives for Aston Martin, where he has just extended his contract for the 2027 season.
Wurz sees “nothing in the Spaniard that suggests the effects of ageing. His skin and wrinkles may not be as smooth as they were when he was 20,” laughs the 52-year-old, “but that’s all part of it. The stopwatch doesn’t care. It doesn’t see how old, how young, how inexperienced or experienced someone is. It only sees the result. What he’s still achieving today is impressive. A top driver who can carry on racing for as long as he’s mentally up for it.”
