Fernando Alonso reacts to Adrian Newey rumours: 'I always wanted to work with him'

Fernando Alonso has revealed that working with design guru Adrian Newey is a career dream amid speculation he could join Aston Martin in F1 2025.

Newey will be a free agent from early-2025 after Red Bull announced that he would be leaving the team ahead of this weekend's Miami Grand Prix.

The 65-year-old has been instrumental to Red Bull's success over the years, starting in the early 2010s with Sebastian Vettel.

Ironically, it was Alonso who was on the other end of the Vettel-Newey combination, losing out on the 2010 and 2012 world championships.

In 2022, Red Bull returned to being F1's dominant force, with Newey playing a key role in their strong form in the 'ground effect' era.

Newey has since been linked with Ferrari and Alonso's current team, Aston Martin.

Speaking about the news, Alonso hailed Newey as a "legend of the sport."

"I always wanted to work with him once in my life," Alonso said in Miami. "I respect him a lot. I consider him the best probably F1 ever had, a legend of the sport.

"I feel in a way privileged to drive alongside him in the paddock, obviously as a competitor, but I feel lucky to be part of his journey and he was part of my journey as well because he always competed against his cars."

Alonso was close to joining Red Bull on a couple of occasions during his F1 career, most notably in 2008 and 2009.

The two-time world champion shed light on his talks with Red Bull, confirming that Newey was part of those negotiations.

"I was close [to joining Red Bull] a few times," he added. "Even spoke with him a few times because some of those meetings in the past were not only with Christian and Helmut [Marko], some of them was with Adrian.

"I always expressed my admiration to him and he was always sharing his respect also to me. Let's see what he does in the future."

Alonso was candid on the prospect of Aston Martin signing Newey, adding: "It's a question for Lawrence. We are very happy with our technical department. Adrian is the best or one of the best out there but he needs to fit in a team. It's more Lawrence's decision than Adrian's, ultimately, decision that needs to happen.

"We are not focused on that at the moment there are a lot of things we need to fix on the car here in Miami."