Is it still worth racing in F1? Misery for Alonso & Verstappen at scene of great wins

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Ever since its inauguration in 1989 the Circuit de Catalunya — or since 2013, to be pedantic, the subtly renamed Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya — has always been a venue that encourages reflection. Perhaps it is because Formula 1 knows it so well, for it is not only an F1 racetrack but also down the years F1’s most prolifically utilised test track. Maybe it is also because its 14 turns have showcased events that have filled so many chapters of F1’s modern storybook – not least Lewis Hamilton’s epic comeback victory for Ferrari two days ago. But, whatever the reason, as the F1 paddock dismantled itself on Sunday evening, and as the process began of returning the cars, personnel, and paddock hospitality units to the teams’ factories in the UK, Italy, and Switzerland, my thoughts drifted less towards what had just happened, delighted for Lewis though I was and still am, and more towards two men who did not star in the race but whose F1 careers have, in very different ways, become indelibly linked with the place.

Fernando Alonso, 44, born in Spain in 1981, and Max Verstappen, 28, born in Belgium in 1997, have little in common beyond an extraordinary capacity to drive racing cars at a level that almost no-one else can reach. They belong to different generations, they exhibit different character traits, and they have arrived at greatness by different routes. Yet it strikes me that they are currently connected by an unusual and rather melancholy symmetry. They are two of the greatest F1 drivers of all time; they are multiple F1 world champions; they remain capable of producing a level of on-track brilliance that leaves even seasoned observers shaking their heads in admiration; yet, for reasons that are partly technical, partly political, and partly existential, they are finding participation in the 2026 F1 season a profoundly unsatisfactory experience.

For Alonso the reasons scarcely require explanation. The Aston Martin–Honda project was supposed to represent the beginning of a compellingly exciting new collaboration, combining F1’s most ambitious underachievers (Aston Martin) with one of F1’s most successful engine manufacturers (Honda). Instead, at least thus far, it has become an epitome of frustration. Adrian Newey’s first Aston Martin chassis is startlingly uncompetitive, the Honda power unit lacks both performance and reliability, and the combo has resulted in what is currently by some margin the slowest package on the F1 grid. There have been flashes of resilience and even the odd false dawn – Alonso finished 10th at Monaco nine days ago for example – but no-one who has watched the opening seven grands prix of the season could seriously claim that he is operating machinery remotely worthy of his talent. In Barcelona he qualified 22nd and last, and he DNF’d after 37 of the race’s 66 laps.

The irony is that if there is one driver in F1 capable of extracting triumph from disaster, or dignity from disgrace, it is Alonso, who has spent much of the past two decades performing acts of competitive alchemy in cars that were often quite a bit slower than he had a right to expect them to be. Yet there is a difference between fighting against limitations and escaping them, and on Sunday, as he embarked on yet another grand prix in Barcelona – his 23rd – everyone who saw him do so was conscious that, as he had hinted before the race, he might never do so again.

Compounding Alonso’s dissatisfaction this year is the evident reality that he dislikes F1’s 2026 power unit regulations, which have fundamentally altered the balance between internal combustion and electrical propulsion and have introduced levels of energy management that he finds unacceptably intrusive. Like many of the older and therefore bolder aces, he has lambasted the increased need for lifting and coasting, and the unpredictable interventions of energy deployments, stating in no uncertain terms that the regulations have moved F1 away from the kind of racing that he believes drivers and spectators alike deserve. To be precise, he has said that hybrid cars “should not be racing”. Such criticisms are hardly surprising, for Alonso belongs to a generation of drivers who grew up believing that F1’s essential purpose was to challenge and reward its drivers’ speed, courage, and racecraft. Anything that diminishes that assignment is unlikely to gain his approval.

Neither, it seems, has the 2026 power unit formula earned the admiration of Verstappen. Indeed, if Fernando’s objections have been expressed with weary disappointment, Max’s have been delivered with the blunt candour that long ago became one of his defining characteristics. He has described the 2026 F1 regulations as “Formula E on steroids” and even “anti-racing”, phrases that angrily but accurately expressed his frustration with a formula that frequently obliges drivers to focus on the mind-bending science of energy deployment when they would far rather be thinking about the soul-stirring art of racing. Max has always been a purist. Beneath his effing-and-blinding exterior resides an old-school racer whose view of F1 is remarkably uncomplicated: the fastest car should be driven as fast as possible by the fastest driver. Over the past 10 years or so that actuality has often been realised by a Red Bull RB-something and Max Verstappen.

Yet, in truth, the 2026 F1 regulations are only part of his problem. At least as grievous an issue, although he insists that it is the lesser of the two, is that, by the extraordinary standards that he has established over the past decade, his 2026 F1 campaign has been distinctly underwhelming. Seven grands prix have now been completed, and his best result remains third place in Montreal, his only podium finish of the season. The Red Bull is not a bad car. Indeed, compared with Alonso’s Aston Martin it is a rocket ship. But F1 is a relative business, and relative to the Mercedes and the Ferrari that have set the pace so far this year the Red Bull has consistently lacked the speed required to challenge for victories. For most drivers, occasional podiums and regular points would constitute a respectable campaign. For Verstappen, whose objective is domination rather than competitiveness, they represent something rather less than that.

If that situation were not sufficiently irritating for Max, the recent introduction of F1’s new ADUO (additional development and upgrade opportunities) system has provided another source of exasperation. The principle that underpins ADUO is reasonable enough: the manufacturers that have embarked on the 2026 F1 power unit formula at a performance disadvantage should be granted additional opportunities to improve their power units, thereby reducing the likelihood of a prolonged competitive imbalance. However, the FIA’s methodology has produced an outcome that Verstappen regards as deeply unfair. The governing body has determined that the Red Bull internal combustion engine constitutes the benchmark in the field, and it has therefore allocated no additional development allowances to Red Bull, while rival power unit manufacturers will now benefit from opportunities to catch up. The iniquity, as Verstappen sees it, is that Mercedes’ and Ferrari’s cars are currently faster than Red Bull’s, which leaves him wondering how a supposedly benchmark power unit can be attached to a package that is plainly not setting the benchmark by the stopwatch.

His reaction in Barcelona was uncharacteristically polite: “We were a little bit surprised by that news because we don’t feel like we’re the best.” Behind closed doors I gather that he expressed bafflement and anger. The FIA’s explanation – that the assessment concerns only the internal combustion component rather than the complete power unit package – is technically coherent, but technical coherence does not necessarily constitute competitive fairness.

It is against the above-described backdrop that speculation regarding both Alonso’s and Verstappen’s futures inevitably acquires greater significance. Fernando’s position is relatively straightforward. A driver approaching his 45th birthday, trapped in the slowest car on the grid, and openly critical of the regulations under which he is competing, is naturally going to consider whether the struggle remains worthwhile. Max’s situation is rather different, but no less intriguing. He is 16 years younger than Fernando, still in what should be the absolute prime of his racing career, and theoretically therefore capable of remaining a prodigiously competitive force in F1 for another decade or more. Yet he has repeatedly hinted that he no longer regards F1 as a lifelong vocation, and he has made no secret of his desire eventually to embrace and pursue other forms of racing. Indeed, he has already begun to do so. Whether such remarks represent a genuine intent or merely sabre rattling I do not know, but their cumulative effect is undeniable: for the first time in his already magnificent F1 career, the possibility of an imminent Verstappen departure no longer seems entirely inconceivable.

It was while contemplating those possibilities on Sunday evening that my thoughts travelled backwards, first by 20 years then by 10, because, for both Alonso and Verstappen, F1 grands prix in Barcelona have previously represented something very different from the damp squibs they endured on Sunday. Twenty years ago, in May 2006, Fernando arrived at the Circuit de Catalunya not as an ageing jockey wrestling with a truculent steed but as the reigning 24-year-old F1 world champion who was just about to procure the height of his powers. Moreover, Renault had produced a truly excellent car, the R26; he was driving it brilliantly; and Spain, having traditionally and previously been a nation of motorcycle racing lovers rather than car racing lovers, was becoming newly gripped by F1 euphoria.

I was there in 2006, in Barcelona, as a working journalist and magazine editor, and of the hundreds of F1 grands prix that I have attended over the decades that weekend has left one indelible memory that remains uniquely vivid. Standing on the grid before the race, I watched Alonso guide his Renault up to the pole position slot. What followed was unlike anything I have experienced either before or since. The noise – no, the pandemonium – generated by the crowd in the grandstand beside the start-finish straight was not merely loud. No, it was overwhelming. It resounded like a physical force rather than merely an aural one. It was savage, scary even. Tens of thousands of Spanish fans rose as one, waving flags, cheering, shouting, and celebrating as though victory had already been secured. Even now, 20 years later, I can still hear it, raucous and clear, in my mind’s ear. I have witnessed F1 world championship deciders, emotional F1 farewells, and historic F1 victories, but I have never experienced a more thunderously enthusiastic reception than the one that greeted Alonso that afternoon.

What made the occasion even more remarkable was that he then proceeded to fulfil every expectation. He won the race, just as his supporters had desperately wanted him to; it was his third victory of the opening six grands prix of the 2006 F1 season; in the other three he had finished second; he now lay firmly at the head of the F1 drivers’ world championship standings; and by the end of the year he had secured a second consecutive F1 world title.

Everything about that stage of Alonso’s life suggested momentum, ascent, and limitless possibility — but, looking back on it now, from the perspective of Barcelona 2026, the contrast is glaring. The same driver, at the same circuit, remained every bit as capable, but the circumstances surrounding him could scarcely be more different.

The same — or perhaps I should say the similar — is true of Verstappen, whose defining Barcelona moment occurred 10 years ago, in 2016. By then I was no longer a working journalist and a magazine editor but McLaren’s chief communications officer, so I was watching events unfold from a different vantage point. Max had been promoted from Toro Rosso to Red Bull only days earlier. He was just 18 years and 228 days old, undeniably gifted but still largely unproven at the very highest level. Then came the opening-lap collision between Mercedes’ two aces, Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg, who had qualified first and second, and suddenly an extraordinary opportunity presented itself.