Google News Honda is not against a reunion with Fernando Alonso despite his criticisms
by SEAD DEDOVIC | VIEW 484
Honda has proven to be a great manufacturer. Namely, they have nothing against re-collaboration with Fernando Alonso, even though the Spaniard strongly criticized Honda back in 2015, calling their power unit a "GP2 engine".
However, this will not be a barrier to re-collaboration. Honda and Aston Martin will have a partnership from 2026. Honda Racing Corporation president Koji Watanabe spoke openly about it: “The selection of drivers is up to the team to decide,” -Watanabe said, as quoted by crash.net “So, if the team decides we’ll have Alonso as a driver again, we will have no objections whatsoever on him driving”.
Watanabe confirmed once again that they have enormous respect for Alonso.
“We respect him [Alonso] highly. With respect to the driver selection, I will not say we’re not going to be involved in team management whatsoever but the decision of the drivers is up to the team.
Of course we will be giving them suggestions or input”.
Martin Whitmarsh on Fernando Alonso
However, the fact that Alonso is 42 years old raises the question of whether the Spaniard will really stay that long on the F1 scene.
Aston Martin group CEO Martin Whitmarsh confirmed how important Fernando is to the team. It is still not known how long he will stay, but their goal is to provide him with a car that can compete with the greats. “Clearly Fernando is doing a great job and I’m delighted to have him as part of our team as he’s making a great contribution both on and off the track,” Aston Martin group CEO Martin Whitmarsh said.
"I spoke to Fernando a while ago about the direction we wanted to go. He’s a very intelligent individual. I’m sure everyone here is referring to some comments that were made in the heat of the battle, which were quite memorable, but he understands and respects what Honda is doing.
Honda won the 2021 and 2022 world championships and unless we can beat them this year, they’re going to do it again. So they are a great partner for us and I think Fernando sees that. 2026 is probably outside his planning horizon at the moment.
We’ve got to give him a car that is consistently capable of winning races. We’ve made a reasonable step forward this year, we’re not yet where we need to be but we’re continuing to develop the team’s facilities and we’ll get stronger.
We’ll have a discussion before 2026, I’m sure, about where Fernando’s future lies. I hope he’ll be around for a number of years and it would be great if he’s as fit and competitive as he is today. Then it would be fantastic to have him in the car in 2026 as well."
