Fernando Alonso says he will contemplate his future during the summer break, as he hits out following Mike Krack's comments.

Heading into the Austrian Grand Prix weekend, Aston Martin's chief trackside officer, Mike Krack played down speculation that the two-time world champion, who is out of contract at season end, is looking to move on.

Along with talk of a return to Enstone, there has been speculation that the whole Aston Martin-Honda affair has left the Spaniard drained and is looking to walk away from the sport.

However, Krack dismissed the talk, insisting that Alonso is still up for the fight.

"We are happy with the drivers," he told reporters. "They are in this with us, and also great credit to them, how they deal with it," he added.

"We spoke about this many, many times," he continued. "That the drivers are the most effective, the most exposed to this. And the way they handle it is heads off to the way they handle that. I have great hopes that we continue to work together.

"Fernando should not retire," he insisted. "He is too quick."

"I don't need Mike to tell me that I'm fast," Alonso told reporters today. "I feel it every lap that I do on track, and I've been feeling it always.

"I have not taken any decisions," he said of his future. "I will wait until probably summer break, which is August. And after summer is Zandvoort, Monza. I think around that time I will probably decide what to do next year."

Though not specifying F1, or the rumours linking him with alpine, Alonso insisted that he is in no mood to hang up his helmet in favour of the proverbial pipe and slippers.

"I will keep racing because I'm feeling fast and I feel motivated and I love what I do," he said. "I will not stop now, you know, because I don't feel uncompetitive or I don't feel that I enjoy racing. If I race in Formula 1 or not, that's a different story.

"I need to enjoy the category," he continued. "I need to enjoy the feeling of driving these power units and these regulations and this kind of thing. There are many factors to put in place. And there are many options to race in the world of motorsport.

"I still love Formula 1," he insisted. "I'm committed to this team also. So even if I don't race, my commitment with the team and with the project is the same. And it's still the same as what it has been for years now. We started this in a way together with some success in 2023 and with a lot of changes in the company and in the campus in Silverstone.

"Now with the partnership with Honda, with Aramco, with the new fuels... there are a lot of things that we built together in a way. And as I said many times, there are certain guarantees that this team will succeed and it will fight for the championships.

"We don't know if that will be next year, in three years' time or in eight years' time," he admitted. "That's probably my limitation behind the wheel. But I want to win a world championship with Aston Martin, with or without driving. That's still the same commitment in my case".

Indeed, his commitment to the Silverstone-based outfit, was further highlighted by his robust defence of it following abuse on social media.

"We are an easy target because we are at the back and there is all this social media and all these things and jokes that you can put on ourselves," he said. "Probably, that's borderline to be abused in social media.

"We talk sometimes that we are not happy with our position, but we are hard workers," he continued. "And Honda are hard workers, and Aston Martin, we are 1,000 people of hard workers. They go Monday to Sunday to work eight hours to fix our problems. And the problems will be fixed. It's a matter of time. I believe in the project.

"I trust my team and we are in this together. Obviously, we take one of the hardest parts of the situation because we race every week and we face the media every week and we jump in the car tomorrow. And we are very uncompetitive. But our team and our leaders, they took the decision in Australia to wait until it was worth making an upgraded package for cost-efficient and things like that. And we all agree on that. We are all waiting on that and we wait in the best manner possible."

As for the Alpine speculation...

"There are always rumours," he said, "we've been very badly treated by the outside world. It's normal, we are underperforming, we are in a bad moment. And when summer break comes, there are always rumours.

"There are rumours in the top teams, there are rumours also in our case because we are underperforming. But as I said, my commitment with Aston Martin is beyond my driving time.

"I believe in this project and we have the right people. We have, obviously, the best of the best. With Adrian Newey, we have Honda. We started with the back foot, yes, we understand that. But we are trying to put things in place as short as possible."