Alonso signed a new contract with Aston Martin last spring that will keep him with the team until he is moving into the second half of his 40s - he will turn 45 in July 2026.

He does not like to talk about this, and has said a number of times he feels it's not relevant - that more downforce on an F1 car is a much more important effect on its lap time than age.

Of course, he would say that. But it is worth talking about. He is doing something that has not been done since the 1950s - driving an F1 car competitively into his mid-40s.

It is, by the very definition of the word, extraordinary, and yet the extraordinary thing is he doesn't seem recognise it as such.

"No, I don't," he says. "I'm not thinking too much on that. Media reminds me from time to time some of the stats and some of the numbers but for me I feel like I was 25 or 30 and I keep racing in F1.

"I don't feel it. I feel motivated, I feel fresh, I feel fit to drive and to do the same training I was doing for 20 years now, because it is the same routine more or less."

So why does he think he has been able to do this, and no-one else, yet, has been able, or offered the opportunity, to do the same?

"I think because my discipline of working and training and dedicating myself to F1 has been quite extreme," Alonso says, "and the results maybe are paying off.

"I have never been missing any test session or any debrief or any factory time or training. I have never been out or partying too much.

"Maybe the results are coming now in my 40s, but the starting point was at 20s or 30s, when you need to dedicate yourself to F1 for a long period of time to achieve some results later on."

As drivers age, what normally slows them down is that they lose the desire to do it. It ceases to matter so much.

Time passes and the importance of shaving the last milliseconds off a lap time - of driving around in circles, as Niki Lauda famously put it when he retired for the first time mid-race weekend in 1979 - diminishes. So too does the desire to make the many required sacrifices, in terms of physical commitment, in terms of time away from family.

With Alonso, though, the flame of love and desire is still burning strong. Why?

"Because I never had a good car that I could dominate something, apart from my season with the world endurance championship with Toyota [in 2019-20].

"That season I realised how wonderful it could be to have a dominating car in F1 as well, because you could achieve so many results and drive as you wish.

"All my career I have been driving cars that were maybe not the best in that moment, even my two World Championships. In 2005, the McLaren was the fastest car but their reliability was bad so we compensated with that and won the championship.

"And then in 2006, they were very similar but the Ferrari and Michael [Schumacher] had a little bit too many DNFs, especially in Japan at the end of the year, and I won the championship.

"I keep delivering and motivated and I am not [feeling like I am] driving in circles because every year I still have the hope that will be the season I could have a fast car."

Does he worry other people might look at his age and lose faith he can do the job before he does?

"Not worry," he says. "I know it is happening and it will happen. There is a younger generation of fans and followers who are just into F1 and they don't know much about me and they never saw me winning a race or they go just by the results.

"But I still have the hope I can prove them wrong and have a fast car in 2026."

Is he still driving as well as ever, as he insists? It's hard to be sure when a driver's team-mate is not close to his level, as Lance Stroll is not with Alonso.

But the underlying indicators are in Alonso's favour. He scored the bulk of his points in the first few races of the season, when he was qualifying regularly in the top six.

On average, the Aston Martin has been the fifth fastest car - and they have finished fifth in the constructors' championship. But over the second half of the season, their form has tailed off to the extent the car has been the third slowest on the grid.

Yet Alonso has still finished the season as the highest driver in the championship outside the top four teams. And he has nearly twice as many championship points as the next driver in a midfield team.

"My self-confidence will always be there until there is one day that I don't feel comfortable in the car. If I feel - as you touch on - slower than my team-mates, or slower than what I think is possible with the car, if that date arrives, probably I will raise my hand and stop racing, because I will not enjoy any more."

All of which begs another question. The 2026 Aston Martin will be designed by Newey and the team of big names owner Lawrence Stroll has collected to work with him, and designed and built in the new factory and wind tunnel in which the Canadian billionaire has invested in recent years.

If it is as competitive as the team hope it will be, might he want to stay on longer?

"If 2026 is running smoothly and we are having a good time and there is a possibility to race one more year, I will be open [to it] for sure," he says.

"I will not close the door beforehand. But I will not start thinking that and I will take every race as if it is my last race and I will enjoy every second."