Fernando Alonso jokes after Monaco: “Cars should be small enough to fit Yuki and myself”

The 2025 Monaco Grand Prix, despite the mandated two-stop rule added to shake things up, saw only two overtakes throughout the whole race. There’s a simple reason behind this: the size of the cars compared to the width of the track. Monaco is too small for modern Formula 1 cars. Two-time champion Fernando Alonso has commented on this ahead of the Spanish Grand Prix, admitting that the cars from the 2000s were his favourite despite them still not working in the Principality.

Lando Norris, after acing qualifying and starting on pole, took his maiden win at Monaco last weekend. Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc followed in second, with championship leader Oscar Piastri completing the podium. Alonso wasn’t as lucky, with his Mercedes-powered Aston Martin coming to a stop on lap 37 due to a power unit failure. 

Starting seventh on the grid, it was looking like a points finish for the Spaniard, who has so far had a difficult start to his 2025 season. But after losing ERS from lap 15, robbing the Silverstone car of 160 horsepower, it was downhill from there. This was the driver’s third DNF in only eight races so far this year.

Multiple teams began legally gaming the system, with drivers acting as road blocks to assist in their team-mates’ pit stops. 

“[The cars should be] small enough to fit Yuki and myself in it,” the Aston Martin driver laughed. “After that, it’s George’s problem.”

Russell, sat next to him in the press conference, is one of the sport’s tallest drivers, measuring 1.85 metres in height. Tsunoda is the smallest, measuring just 1.59 metres. Alonso is fourth shortest at 1.71 metres.

“There are other sports like basketball and other things, you know, that [Russell] can try…” he continued to joke.

“No, I mean, I always said that the early 2000s, for me, were the best cars that I drove. But maybe I’m a little bit romantic about this answer because it was my first days in Formula One and success came also in those years.

“But I think the V10 engines, the small cars – I have great, great memories from that time. The cars were nice to drive and fun to drive. But they still didn’t overtake in Monaco.”

2026 will see cars lose some size, with the width being reduced by 100mm to 1900mm, and the wheelbase reduced by 200mm to 3400mm. This is still much larger than the 2005 cars, however.