"I was exhausted mentally"- Fernando Alonso on retiring from F1 after 2018 season

Fernando Alonso has confessed that he opted to retire from F1 following the 2018 season after being "exhausted mentally." The Spaniard also revealed that he needed the two-year break that he took from the sport before returning with Alpine in 2021.

Fernando Alonso won two consecutive world championships with Renault in 2005 and 2006 before moving to McLaren in 2007. A year later, he was back with the French outfit but was never able to repeat the highs from his first stint. A move to Ferrari brought with it the promise of winning further titles, but it was not to be despite his best efforts.

Alonso left the Scuderia stables to make way for Sebastian Vettel in 2015. He ended up reconciling with McLaren, who had since dropped down the pecking order in the F1's competitive scale. What followed was frustration and passive-aggressive animosity towards his team. While it was fun for the neutrals, those outbursts did no favors for McLaren's reputation.

Despite being the oldest active driver at 41, Fernando Alonso feels there are no negatives in his driving that come from his age.

Speaking in an interview with motorsport.com, Alonso opened up about his decision to leave F1 after the 2018 campaign. He said:

"In terms of the downsides, it's difficult to say anything because I don't feel that I'm missing anything that I had when I was younger. Maybe in 2018, I felt that I was exhausted mentally by all the marketing and traveling and things like that. And I needed those two years out. Now I feel okay. So I don't know if it is just those two years that helped me out. Or it's just a different approach that I have now."

Alonso feels being out of F1 has helped him evolve as a driver in general. He added:

"I think watching races from the outside, you don't understand sometimes different things and different behaviours of the race, looking from the outside and looking at 360 degrees. It’s not only your own cockpit and your own strategy, so maybe I have a better understanding of how the race develops. And also the different categories that I drove: I think they teach me different things.

"There are different philosophies of racing, different driving techniques. It's not that they are applicable to an F1 car, but when you lose the car, you have an oversteer, maybe my hands and my feet are doing something that I didn't know before, because I was just driving F1 cars. So in a way, I feel more in control of things now."

In addition to being a two-time F1 world champion, Fernando Alonso is also a World Endurance Champion. He has also won the Daytona 24 and 24 Hours of Le Mans.

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Fernando Alonso chose Aston Martin for longer contract, according to Alpine boss Otmar Szafnauer

Alpine boss Otmar Szafnauer has suggested that Fernando Alonso opted to join Aston Martin owing to the length of the contract he was offered.

The two-time world champion is now on the precipice of an eighth team switch in his F1 career after inking a multi-year deal with Aston Martin one day into the summer break.

According to Szafnauer, one of the main reasons for Alonso's departure could have been Alpine's reluctance to offer the veteran a longer contract to.

When asked to elaborate, he said:

“We offered him a one-year contract plus one. It’s difficult to predict the future. I always say that if I could, I wouldn’t be here, I would be in Las Vegas. We discussed that if he was still at this level next year, of course we would have him, but he wanted more certainty, regardless of performance, he wanted to stay longer. That’s why one plus one; instead of two plus one or three plus one. There comes a time when, physiologically, you don’t have the same ability as when you are young. It’s fair to say that Michael Schumacher, at 42, was not the same driver as he was at 35.”

Fernando Alonso will also reportedly be raking in a higher salary than his current deal with the Anglo-French outfit and will have more say in the development of the car.

While he has expressed a desire and hunger to compete at the top level of F1, it remains to be seen how successful he will be with Aston Martin.