The Athletic

The race is on and Fernando Alonzo is off to Aston Martin in a sensational twist in the Formula One driver market.

So why has he turned down the chance to say at Formula One's fourth best team

to move to the ninth best and what does it mean for Alpine? I'm Ed's jaw and joining me to

unravel this seismic transfer move is Scott Mitchell. Well Scott let's first ask Scott Mitchell

from 15 hours ago when we recorded our last podcast, what he thinks.

For what it's worth, I asked Alonzo after the race if he expects to arrive at Spar

with his future fully sorted and he said yes.

So I can't imagine he'll be sneaking off on holiday with Lawrence Stroll

and arranging a new contract and defection to Aston Martin in that time. I think it will be dotting some eyes and crossing some T's on a two-year deal at Alpine. Well, clearly, first of all I need a better imagination, don't I? It's like all the things you can't picture. Maybe don't admit that you can't picture the thing that then gets announced within 12 hours. Well, you were right that he didn't need to go off and do it during the August break, though. That aspect of what you said was correct. Yeah, it just, it started okay. It just, that statement just got progressively less insightful, didn't it? And I did ask that of Alonzo, and Alonzo did say he'd have his future sorted by Spa. I was so close to getting

it right. But no, I actually, as soon as this was announced this morning, one of my first

thoughts was back to this and I was like pretty sure I said something quite ridiculous on the

podcast that's going to age like milk, basically, when I listened to it back. And a few other people have heard it as well. So I think a few people that are listening to this are probably quite glad that we're addressing it this way because I've had a couple of messages this morning saying that the podcast didn't age very well. Well, what it does illustrate is how much of a surprise that it's happened or a surprise that has happened this quickly. We knew there was a possibility that it was an option,

but things have moved very, very quickly. And I think that illustrates quite how fast moving it's

been. The last time we were taken by surprise quite so much by a driver market move was probably

when Daniel Ricardo announced he was moving from Red Bull to Renault. Again, something we knew

was possible, but it appeared not to be happening.

Slightly different circumstances, similar surprise. And this is something that's really come

together quickly, isn't it, Scott? It is, yeah. So maybe I can redeem myself for my lack of

insight last night in exactly where all this was, with a bit more insight into how it came about

so quickly. I think the first thing to do is to stress that

it's not just us that have been caught out by this. My understanding is that Alpina are pretty shell

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