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Alonso: McLaren title 'my only goal'

Fernando Alonso has told McLaren-Honda his "only goal" is to win the world championship with the team despite a vacancy at Mercedes.

Nico Rosberg's retirement from F1 with immediate effect has left one of the most coveted seats on the grid available for 2017. Alonso has been linked with a move as he goes in search of his third drivers' title, with the 35-year-old named by Toto Wolff as one of the options Mercedes has to consider to replace Rosberg.

However, addressing McLaren at the McLaren Technology Centre in Woking on Tuesday, Alonso reiterated his commitment to the team.

"I believe in this project, I'm committed and I want to be World Champion with McLaren-Honda," Alonso said. "That's my only goal".

Alonso currently has one year remaining on his McLaren contract, having joined the team from Ferrari ahead of the 2015 season. Former McLaren boss Ron Dennis made clear Alonso had a straight three-year deal with no clauses to trigger an early exit.

While Alonso's statement will go down well at the MTC, Mercedes had already placed Valtteri Bottas and Pascal Wehrlein at the top of its shortlist of drivers to replace Rosberg, with an initial approach to Williams for Bottas made over the weekend.

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.