Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton: The Rivalry Beyond Titles

Fernando Alonso has long since accepted that Lewis Hamilton has him beaten on world titles. Away from the circuit, though, the old rivalry is very much alive.

The two former McLaren teammates now live at opposite ends of the Formula 1 grid, Hamilton in a Mercedes still chasing wins, Alonso dragging Aston Martin towards the front. Their pay packets remain firmly in the same stratosphere, and so do their tastes. Both have poured a hefty slice of their fortunes into some of the most coveted cars on the planet.

Hamilton made the latest move in this quiet arms race at Monza, rolling into his team’s home race with a Ferrari F40 that stopped the paddock in its tracks. The car is an ultra-low-mileage example of the iconic 1980s supercar, with an engine block Hamilton says matches his trademark No.44. Valuers put it somewhere between the going rate of around £3 million and the £6m record set at auction for a similar model. It is the kind of purchase that makes even seasoned collectors blink.

Alonso, typically, has responded in his own way – not with a paddock parade, but with something even more outrageous, spotted on the streets of Monaco rather than in front of the cameras at a grand prix.

Alonso’s mirror-finish monster

The Aston Martin driver has been filmed and photographed gliding through Monte Carlo in a Bugatti Veyron Grand Sport Vitesse, a car being described as the most expensive Veyron ever built.

This isn’t just another Veyron. Built in 2014, its bodywork uses a staggering 20 tonnes of polished aluminium, finished to create a mirror-like surface that turns the entire car into a moving reflection. In a place as saturated with supercars as Monaco, this one still manages to look like it has landed from another planet.

Alonso knows every bump and kerb of those streets from his annual Monaco Grand Prix appearances, but this is a very different kind of lap. The Veyron glints off shopfronts and apartment windows, a rolling showcase of excess in a town that specialises in it.

Underneath the shimmering skin sits the engineering that made the Veyron a landmark. When it arrived in 2005, it tore up the record books as the fastest production car in the world, clocking a top speed of 407 km/h. That came courtesy of an 8.0‑litre W16 quad‑turbocharged engine, a powerplant so extreme it effectively reset what a road car could be.

According to AutoNext, Alonso’s example had just 750 km on the odometer with its previous owner and lingered on the market for 27 months before he stepped in. A car like that doesn’t exactly gather dust, but it does wait for the right buyer. Alonso, it seems, was that buyer.

A private duel in the showroom

Publicly, the highest recorded sale price for a Veyron sits at around £2m. Alonso’s car, with its unique specification and mirror-finish aluminium body, is expected to soar beyond that mark. That would pitch it directly against Hamilton’s F40 in the unofficial contest of who owns the more extraordinary machine.

For Alonso, 45 and still racing at the sharp end, it is another jewel in an already remarkable garage. He owns an Aston Martin Valkyrie, a track-bred hypercar that blurs the line between F1 and the road, and a one-off Pagani Zonda Roadster Diamante Verde, a bespoke take on one of the most revered supercars of its era.

Hamilton’s F40 and Alonso’s Veyron may never share the same pit lane, but they tell a familiar story. Two of the defining drivers of their generation, still competing, still pushing, still trying to outdo each other – only now the battleground is measured in rarity, polish and price tags rather than points and podiums.