He’s been in Formula 1 for over 20 years (give or take a few), racked up two World Drivers’ Championships and three runner-up positions, won 32 races, and contributed to at least three of our favourite F1 memes – Fernando Alonso is truly one of the sport’s veteran drivers.
Of course, you don’t spend that long at the very pinnacle of motorsport without earning a few quid, and if you’re a top-level racing driver, what do you spend that money on? Cars, of course. Alonso’s owned quite a variety of impressive metal over the years, doubtless helped by the fact that during his storied career, he’s driven for teams that have given him easy access to the latest and greatest road cars from McLaren, Ferrari, Aston Martin and, erm, Renault.
Join us, then, for a quick look back at Fernando’s car history, and what he’s got in his garage now. Rumours that he had a brief fling with a Suzuki Swift in 2023 are still unverified.
Aston Martin Valkyrie
Alonso is about to spend some time getting acquainted with a serious piece of kit designed by one of F1’s greatest technical minds, Adrian Newey. No, not the Aston Martin AMR26 F1 car that Newey’s set to design after moving to the team from Red Bull – we’re talking about the Aston Martin Valkyrie.
Conceived when Newey was still at Red Bull, and Aston – long before getting an F1 team of its own – was a partner of the Milton Keynes outfit, the Valkyrie was designed by Adrian Newey to push the limits of what’s possible in a road car. Notable for its long and often troubled development period, Alonso finally took delivery of his Valkyrie in September 2024 – conveniently, just a week before Aston officially announced it had signed Newey.
He joins Max Verstappen as an owner of the 1160bhp, 6.5-litre V12-powered Valkyrie on the current F1 grid. Ex-driver David Coulthard had one too – but sold it last year.
Aston Martin Valiant
Fernando Alonso doesn’t just own an Aston Martin Valiant – he’s the reason it exists. Supposedly, he laid eyes on the 705bhp, limited edition, retro-styled Valour, and asked if he could have one with more of everything.
The Valiant was the result – more aero, more power from its 5.2-litre twin-turbo V12 (735bhp, to be precise), less weight, and still using an old-fashioned six-speed manual gearbox. It originally started as a personal commission for Alonso, but he was nice enough to let 37 similarly wealthy Aston fans in on the fun.
Ferrari LaFerrari
You have to be on good terms with Ferrari to get access to one of its limited edition halo hypercars, and taking its F1 cars to second place in the World Drivers’ Championship three times probably helps with that.
Now 11 years old, the LaFerrari is still the most recent addition to its exclusive lineage and pairs a 6.3-litre V12 with a hybrid system for a grand total of 950bhp. Alonso has been spotted on multiple occasions cruising around the F1 drivers’ residential village that is Monaco in a matte black LaFerrari with red accents. Given that he was driving for Ferrari when it launched, there’s a good chance he was able to jump the queue for one of the 499 coupes built.
That rounds out the cars we can be reasonably sure Alonso still owns, but he’s had plenty of other interesting metal in his garage over the years…
McLaren Elva
Alonso’s second stint with the McLaren F1 Team may have been marred by unreliability and, erm, a Honda engine that felt like it was from a lower category of open-wheel racer, but it clearly didn’t put him off the company’s road cars.
In 2022, he took delivery of a McLaren Elva, the British company’s entry into the open-top ‘speedster’ genre of supercars that was all the rage a couple of years ago. Making 804bhp from a 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8, and weighing just 1269kg, it’s certainly likely to be one of the more visceral road cars out there, given it doesn’t have a windscreen. It was clearly a special commission, with Alonso’s logo embossed into the headrests, but maybe that brutal nature put him off driving it because when he put it up for auction in late 2023, it had all of three miles on the clock.
Ferrari Enzo
The LaFerrari isn’t the only Ferrari halo car Alonso has owned over the years. Previously, he’s had a very special example of the Enzo – a 2002 car with the very first production-spec Enzo body completed.
Finished in the standard Enzo specification of Rosso Corsa, it’s not clear how long Alonso had owned the 6.0-litre V12, 651bhp hypercar for when he sold it in summer 2023. Either way, with serious ownership provenance and only around 3000 miles on the clock, it’s no surprise it fetched a healthy €5.4 million (around £4.5 million).
Maserati GranCabrio
It’s not often a GT car with a 4.7-litre, 434bhp Ferrari-derived V8 would be considered a bit pedestrian, but next to the other stuff Alonso’s owned over the years, that’s the case for the Maserati GranCabrio.
Essentially a drop-top version of the GranTurismo, the original GranCab paired seating for four with one of the greatest engines of all time – and more direct access to it thanks to the convertible roof. Maserati very proudly put out a press release in 2010 announcing that Alonso had bought one, in black with an unusual white and burgundy interior. Whether he still has it all these years later is another matter,
Mercedes SLR McLaren 722
McLaren poached Alonso for the 2007 F1 season, fresh off him winning back-to-back Drivers’ Championships with Renault, and this may well have been a sweetener that McLaren – then the closest thing to a Mercedes factory team – threw in to convince him.
Reports in early 2007 suggested that Alonso had been given a Mercedes SLR McLaren 722 by Merc. A co-development by the two companies, the SLR was the traditional front-engined GT car taken to its logical extreme, courtesy of active aero and a thumping 617bhp 5.4-litre supercharged V8. The 722, meanwhile, was an even faster, harder version. It had a stiffer setup and saw its power bumped to 641bhp, and was named for the race number of the Mercedes driven by Stirling Moss on his heroic, record-smashing running of the 1955 Mille Miglia.
Cars named after Alonso
Alonso has also lent his name to a couple of special edition cars over the years, and while we don’t have any evidence that he’s definitely owned them, it would be quite surprising if he didn’t. Well, one of them, anyway.
The first of these was the Ferrari 599 GTB Alonso Edition from 2012. This was a limited-run version of the 599, marking three things: 60 years since Ferrari’s first F1 win, the impending end of the 599’s production, and Alonso’s achievements with the team in red. Based on the standard 599 GTB, just 40 were made, all with the HGTE handling pack and that distinctive red and white colour scheme. We wouldn’t be at all surprised if Alonso himself was one of the 40 original owners.
We can be less certain he owned an Alpine A110 R Fernando Alonso Edition, though. A limited-run version of the lightweight A110 R sports car featuring Alonso’s logo and flashes of his racing colours throughout, it was unveiled in October 2022 – two months after Alonso announced he’d be departing Alpine’s F1 team for Aston Martin the following year. This, we can be fairly sure, was not part of El Plan.
Going back to his first stint at the Franco-Oxfordshire team, back when it was called Renault, Alonso was heavily featured in promotion around the Renault Megane R26. Named for his 2006 championship-winning car, it’s fairly likely Renault sent one of these hardcore hatches his way as a sweetener, too. And that’s about the only thing I’ll ever have in common with Fernando Alonso. That, and a love of deck chairs.