Fernando Alonso has dismissed rumours linking him with a return to Alpine, saying they are another example of how Aston Martin has been treated "very badly" by the outside world and subjected to borderline abuse on social media.
Alonso has yet to decide whether to keep racing with Aston Martin into 2027, a decision he said he will make after the August summer break.
Over the past weeks, social media was awash with suggestions Alonso might replace Franco Colapinto at Alpine, where his long-time associate Flavio Briatore is currently team boss.
Briatore spoke this week on the Beyond the Grid podcast that he will decide on Colapinto's future ahead of the break.
Alonso won his two titles with Renault, as it was called then, in 2005 and 2006, and drove again for Alpine in 2021 and 2022.
Speaking ahead of the summer break, he flatly denied truth in a return.
"I mean, there are always rumours, you know, and we've been very badly treated by the outside world. It's normal," he said.
Although his racing future is unconfirmed, it has been widely publicised that Alonso signed a wider deal with Aston Martin which will include ambassador roles and the opportunity to race in sports cars once he stops in Formula 1.
The Spaniard was quick to stress this point, adding that he still believes Aston Martin can turn around its dismal situation by the end of 2026.
Aston Martin has only scored a single point this year, courtesy of Alonso in Monaco, and has otherwise been fighting against upstart F1 team Cadillac not to be last -- engine partner Honda has found itself woefully off the pace, although the team is eagerly awaiting the first major car upgrade of team boss Adrian Newey, F1's greatest ever car designer.
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Alonso continued to speak punchily on the topic of his future.
"We are underperforming, we are in a bad moment and when summer break comes, you know, there are always rumours, there are rumours in the top teams, there are rumours also in our case because we are underperforming. But my commitment with Aston Martin is beyond my driving time.
"I believe in this project and we have the right people, we have obviously the best of the best with Adrian Newey, we have Honda, we started with the back foot, yes, we understand that but we are trying to put things in place as short as possible but we are an easy target because we are at the back and there is all this social media and all these things and jokes that you can put on ourselves, probably that's borderline to be abused in social media."
He reaffirmed his commitment to Lawrence Stroll's big-spending Aston Martin project, which came into 2026 with championship-winning aspirations.
"We talk sometimes that we are not happy with our position but we are hard workers, and Honda are hard workers and Aston Martin, we are 1,000 people of hard workers and they go Monday to Sunday, you know, to work eight hours to fix our our problems and the problem will be fixed, it's a matter of time and I believe in the project," Alonso said.
"I trust my team and we are in this together and obviously we take one of the hardest parts of the situation because we race every week and we face the media every week and we jump in the car tomorrow and we are very uncompetitive but, you know, we, our team and our leaders, they took the decision in Australia to wait until it was worth making an upgraded package, for cost efficient and things like that and we all agree on that and we are all waiting on that and we wait in the best manner possible."