Alonso: Future decision still a few weeks away
Fernando Alonso expects his future in Formula 1 only to be resolved over the next few weeks, even though he is all but certain to remain at McLaren in 2018.
With McLaren set to announce on Friday that it is switching to Renault engines next year, the change in supplier is believed to have been enough to convince the Spaniard to commit to a fresh deal at Woking.
But despite some suggestions his new contract could be confirmed as early as this weekend's Singapore Grand Prix, Alonso admitted that nothing was yet finalised as he weighed up what to do.
"There are options everywhere," he told reporters about his future. "And they are all very good. You just need to be patient and wait a couple of weeks."
Alonso did suggest, however, that he was loyal to McLaren and once the plans of his team for 2018 were official then he could work on sorting out his future.
"Whatever I do next year is because I want to win," he said. "I will not be around in any series to be fighting for top 10 or top 15, anything like that.
"There are many options out there that I am studying and looking at. F1 is my first and only priority, so I will wait to make a decision on that before making decisions on other series.
"At the same time, I want to give time to my team. With some struggles we went through together, I want to have time together to make decisions, to see next year's car and after they take a decision, I will take mine.
"I want to stay loyal to them and not make any decisions without them first making their decisions. I am relaxed, happy, and we see what is happening in the next weeks."
Le Mans chance
While Alonso remains clear in his mind that he wants to win F1's triple crown of victories in Monaco, Le Mans and the Indy 500, he says that can still be achieved in the future despite calendar clashes.
"The triple crown is a clear target for me in the future," he said. "There are three races there, if the Indy 500 is together with Monaco, there is another one still to compete.
"If I remain in F1 it is because I believe I can win next year, and that will ease the decision a lot because I will be in Monaco as I don't want to lose points there.
"The priority is F1 and winning there. The triple crown is three races, not Indy, so many, many possibilities to do a fantastic 2018."
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