Fernando Alonso Díaz (Spanish pronunciation: [fe?'nando a'lonso 'ði.a?] (listen); born 29 July 1981) is a Spanish racing driver currently competing for Aston Martin in Formula One. He won the series' World Drivers' Championship in 2005 and 2006 with Renault, and has also driven for McLaren, Ferrari, and Minardi. With Toyota, Alonso won the 24 Hours of Le Mans twice, in 2018 and 2019, and the FIA World Endurance Championship in 2018–19. He also won the 24 Hours of Daytona with Wayne Taylor Racing in 2019.
Born in Oviedo, Asturias to a working-class family, Alonso began kart racing at the age of three and achieved success in local, national, and world championships. He progressed to car racing at the age of 17, winning the Euro Open by Nissan in 1999 and was fourth in the International Formula 3000 Championship of 2000. He debuted in Formula One with Minardi in 2001 before joining Renault as a test driver for 2002. Promoted to a race seat in 2003, Alonso won two drivers' championships in 2005 and 2006, becoming the youngest pole-sitter, youngest race winner, youngest world champion, and youngest two-time champion in the sport's history at the time. After finishing just one point behind eventual champion Kimi Räikkönen with McLaren in 2007, he returned to Renault for 2008 and 2009 and won two races in the former year for fifth overall. Alonso drove for Ferrari from 2010 to 2014, finishing runner-up to Sebastian Vettel in 2010, 2012, and 2013 with the title battles in 2010 and 2012 going down to the last race of the season. A second stint with McLaren from 2015 to 2018 resulted in no further success. After a two-year sabbatical, Alonso returned to Formula One in 2021 with Alpine. At the 2021 Qatar Grand Prix, Alonso scored his first podium in seven years. At the 2022 Singapore Grand Prix, he broke the record for most starts in Formula One. At the 2023 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, Alonso scored his 100th podium by finishing third, becoming one of six drivers in the series' history to achieve that feat.

At the time of his sabbatical, Alonso had won 32 Grands Prix, 22 pole positions, and 1,899 points from 311 starts. He is currently the only Spanish Formula One driver to have won the World Championship. Alonso won the 2001 Race of Champions Nations Cup with the rally driver Jesús Puras and the motorcyclist Rubén Xaus for Team Spain and thrice entered the Indianapolis 500 in 2017, 2019 and 2020. He has been awarded the Prince of Asturias Award for Sports, the Premios Nacionales del Deporte Sportsman of the Year Award and the Gold Medal of the Royal Order of Sports Merit and has twice been inducted into the FIA Hall of Fame. Alonso runs an esports and junior racing team and is a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador.
Arrow McLaren SP (2020)
He entered the 2020 Indianapolis 500 with Arrow McLaren SP after an agreement with Andretti Autosports fell through.[136] Alonso had a crash during practice. He qualified 26th.[137] Alonso did manage to finish the race. He started 26th, was running 15th halfway through the race, and then ended up P21 and one lap down because of a clutch issue causing the team to manually start the car during every pit stop.[138]

Off-road racing
Alonso entered the Dakar Rally with Toyota in 2020 following a five-month testing programme in Africa, Europe and the Middle East and driving a series of races to better himself.[139][140] He raced in the Lichtenburg 400 in South Africa, the Rally du Maroc in Morocco and the Al Ula–Neom Rally in Saudi Arabia,[141] with the five-time Dakar Rally bike class winner Marc Coma his co-driver. Alonso was third at the Al Ula-Neom Rally, which was his highest finish in three preparation events.[142] With co-driver Coma, he finished the Dakar in 13th position with a best stage finish of second place.[143] A stop for repairs on the second stage and a roll on the tenth lost him several hours in the general classification.[144
The essence of his qualities is that he is very complete. You struggle to find a weak point, basically, in terms of high-level skills. The technical preparation in terms of driving. The ability to cope with a variety of situations. Intelligence - just [the] capacity to understand the situation while he is in or out of the car. Commitment... it is so difficult for Fernando to accept he is slower than someone else. It is very essential to his nature[,] which potentially might have created problems when he was not mature enough to manage this fundamental aspect of his identity... I have seen this with Michael [Schumacher]... This aspect of Fernando is certainly not less than Michael, but it expresses itself in different ways.

Alonso's race engineer at Ferrari, Andrea Stella, on Alonso's ability and similarities to Michael Schumacher[145]
Alonso is often regarded as one of the greatest F1 drivers in the history of the sport.[146] Journalists and fellow drivers regarded Alonso as a fast and consistent driver who can extract additional pace from a car in all weathers and on all tracks.[145][147] Fisichella said Alonso understands when to go faster and when to preserve his tyres in a race.[147] Former racing driver and Sky Sports pundit Martin Brundle described Alonso as "Senna-like in his intimate feel for where the grip is" and cited the driver's knowledge on how much grip to use for the entry to a turn.[147] He drives aggressively and uses a braking area to put a car into a corner without losing speed exiting it. This allows Alonso to keep it "on the edge of adhesion" and it has been observed during a qualifying session and the first laps of a race.[13] 1979 world champion Jody Scheckter has criticised Alonso for causing problems in teams.[clarification needed][148] This opinion is shared by Christian Horner, who ruled out signing Alonso for Red Bull, as he caused chaos in previous teams.[149]

Alonso's experience increased his awareness of events around him and competitors in a race and adjusted his situation to focus on the drivers' championship.[150] Alonso is an all-round driver who can mount an apex and correct a sliding car to go faster.[151] He is careful in finding the ideal feeling with his brakes and can apply the maximum amount of force with a fast response time. Alonso's physical strength contrasts his braking skill and regularly exceeded that limit without overdoing it on multiple conditions.[152] According to Jonathan Noble of Motorsport.com, this allows Alonso to "create a kind of natural ABS – fully exploiting tyre grip to achieve greater speeds while turning without locking the wheels."[152]