MADRID (AP) — FIA President Mohammed Ben Sulayem said it wouldn't be “acceptable” for Fernando Alonso to leave Formula 1, and vowed to try to make the two-time world champion change his mind.
Ben Sulayem's comments on Friday came a day after Alonso said he is considering racing in another series or taking a non-driving role next season. The 45-year-old Spaniard has been showing dissatisfaction with the performance of his team Aston Martin, and with the new F1 regulations that came into effect this season.
“There is no way we can allow Fernando, a great champion, to leave ... because of the circumstances,” Ben Sulayem said as he spoke at the New Economy Forum in Madrid. “That's not the way to leave the stage. He has to be successful, and then he leaves whenever he wants. (But) not because he was forced to leave because of the performance.”
Ben Sulayem said he had already talked to Aston Martin owner Lawrence Stroll to try to help the team improve. Alonso has only three points after 13 races this season.
“I share the issues, the car is not performing,” Ben Sulayem said. “I met with the owner, with Lawrence, and I am going to do the changes, and I will talk to him (Alonso) to make him — try to make him — change his mind. It’s not acceptable.”
Ben Sulayem said he had heard rumors about Alonso possibly wanting to leave, but the driver hadn't mentioned anything to him when they last spoke. Ben Sulayem said he had told Alonso earlier that “it was not acceptable that you are coming to your own country” with a car near the bottom of the grid.
The Spanish GP is back in Madrid after more than four decades, and the new Madring will remain on the calendar until 2035. Spain has been hosting races in Barcelona in recent years — including this season.
Ben Sulayem said it's feasible for the country to keep two races on the calendar every year, according to Spanish media.
See AP’s full auto racing coverage here
Aston Martin driver Fernando Alonso of Spain attends a press conference ahead of the Spanish Formula One Grand Prix, in Madrid, Spain, Thursday, Sept. 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)
Aston Martin driver Fernando Alonso of Spain attends a press conference ahead of the Spanish Formula One Grand Prix, in Madrid, Spain, Thursday, Sept. 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)
Aston Martin driver Fernando Alonso of Spain steers his car during the first free practice ahead of the Spanish Formula One Grand Prix, in Madrid, Friday, Sept. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)
NEW YORK (AP) — Americans are commemorating the 25th anniversary of 9/11, remembering the shock, the dead and the sweeping consequences of the al-Qaida attacks on symbols of U.S. might and prosperity.
Friday's milestone anniversary will bring memorial rituals — wreath-laying, flag-flying, moments of silence, vigils and readings of victims' names — and volunteer projects in tribute to a day that about half of U.S. adults remember as the most historic event of their lifetime, according to a new poll.
For others it's an occasion for private reflection — or, in many schools, education — about the attack that unfolded in a single morning but left nearly 3,000 dead and a decadeslong trail of aftermath, from personal grief to far-flung wars.
Police Officer Casey Kloepfer plans to spend time Friday at the Brooklyn station house where his father, Officer Ronald Kloepfer, reported to work that day before being called to the World Trade Center. He didn't make it home.
Casey Kloepfer was only 4, but he grew up hearing about his father's affinity for helping people and for a job that enabled him to do so. He became an officer this past June.
“It’s big footsteps to fill, but it’s definitely something that I take very seriously and want to continue to honor him and be the best police officer I can,” he said by phone this week. The 29-year-old wears his father’s badge number and even has joined the New York Police Department lacrosse team, which his dad founded.
On Sept. 11, 2001, al-Qaida extremists hijacked four commercial jets and crashed them into New York's World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
The impacts brought down the World Trade Center's twin towers — icons of U.S. economic power, and among the tallest buildings on Earth — and blew a hole in the Pentagon, the U.S. military's fortress-like headquarters near Washington. The fourth plane also was headed for the nation's capital, officials concluded, but the aircraft went down in Pennsylvania after passengers and crew members stormed the cockpit and fought the hijackers.
“In the course of history, there are a few moments that divide time into, really, what came before” and after, President Donald Trump said at a 9/11 remembrance in Washington this week. The Republican, who was in his native New York on Sept. 11 and has often recounted his memories, plans to attend the Pentagon's anniversary ceremony Friday.
Vice President JD Vance is expected at the observance at the National Sept. 11 Memorial in New York, while other administration officials are headed to the Flight 93 National Memorial in Pennsylvania.
Planned remembrances extend far beyond the attack sites, from beams of light projecting from New Hampshire's Mount Washington to a stair climb at Mississippi State University's football stadium to a ceremony at Honolulu's 9/11 memorial.
Traditionally, there are no political speeches at the New York commemoration, where relatives read all the victims' names, punctuated with moments of silence at key points in the attack timeline. For the first time, this year's ceremony will add a silent moment to honor people who were exposed to the clouds of toxic dust released by the twin towers’ fiery collapse and have since died of cancer and other illnesses. Questions remain about how many people developed health problems linked to the dust.
It's a reminder of how the attacks' long shadow has reached into many corners of life in the U.S. and beyond.
The U.S.-led global war on terrorism included invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan — the latter Washington's longest war — and detentions and harsh interrogation of terror suspects in an international network of secret CIA prisons. The U.S. military found and killed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden in Pakistan in 2011, but accused 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed still awaits a trial 23 years after his capture.
The attacks changed U.S. air travel, prompted new federal surveillance and intelligence-gathering powers and banking regulations, and generated ongoing debate over the balance between security and freedom. The Department of Homeland Security, many state anti-terrorism laws and billions of dollars in state and local counterterrorism funding all are post-9/11 creations.
So, too, is the culture of individual vigilance summed up by the slogan “ if you see something, say something.”
Sept. 11 generated a wave of patriotism that propelled some Americans to join the military, fire departments, police forces or other public agencies. But amid the national unity that many remember, the attacks also fanned mistrust, prejudice and hate crimes directed at Muslims.
In the quarter-century since, Muslim Americans have played a growing role in public life from statehouses to Congress to New York City Hall, where Zohran Mamdani is the city's first Muslim mayor. Yet he faced some criticism for attending the anniversary ceremony at ground zero, something his predecessors have done for years.
Some complaints came from Republican ex-Gov. George Pataki and 9/11 victims’ relatives, who cited among other things past remarks that some of Mamdani's political associates have made about the attacks. Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani, a Republican, also inveighed against Mamdani attending, though the two shook hands Friday as they awaited the start of the observance.
Mamdani, a Democrat, said earlier this week that he loves the city and country and wants the anniversary to focus on victims' families, first responders and New Yorkers who helped one another after the attacks, which he called a “horrific act of terror.” The 34-year-old mayor was an elementary school student in New York on 9/11.
Sept. 11 isn't a federal holiday, but Congress has designated it both Patriot Day and a National Day of Service and Remembrance.
“One appropriate way to remember is by serving,” says Jay Winuk, who lost his brother Glenn Winuk and then co-founded the volunteer organization 9/11 Day with friend David Paine. The group helps people find meal-packing and other volunteer opportunities and this year arranged for dozens of Times Square billboards to pause their advertising at 9:11 a.m. Friday.
Instead, they will simply display the time.
Service members unfurl a flag on the 25th anniversary over the portion of the Pentagon's west side that was struck by an airliner hijacked by terrorist, on Friday, Sept. 11, 2026, in Arlington Va. (AP Photo/John McDonnell
Rosanne Spirito, 49, and daughters Sabrina, 22, and Amanda, 20, who lost their sister Catherine Lisa LoGuidice, stand at a reflecting pool on the 25th anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Friday, Sept. 11, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Adam Gray, Pool)
Service members unfurl a flag on the 25th anniversary over the portion of the Pentagon's west side that was struck by an airliner hijacked by terrorist, on Friday, Sept. 11, 2026, in Arlington Va. (AP Photo/John McDonnell
Members of the New York Fire Department and New York Police Department rehearse ahead of memorial observances on the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, at the site of the World Trade Center on Friday, Sept. 11, 2026 in New York.
Members of New York Police Department carry a US flag ahead of memorial observances on the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, at the site of the World Trade Center on Friday, Sept. 11, 2026 in New York. (Olga Fedorova/Pool Photo via AP)
Phillip Flood, 48, watches as the Tribute in Light is tested over the skyline of lower Manhattan, Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2026, in Jersey City, NJ. (AP Photo/Adam Gray)
New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani, center, speaks to FDNY commissioner Lillian Bonsignore, right, during a memorial to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2026, in the Staten Island borough of New York. (AP Photo/Pamela Smith)
Members of the FDNY march with flags during a memorial to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2026, in the Staten Island borough of New York. (AP Photo/Pamela Smith)
An American flag flies, with the lower Manhattan skyline in background, Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2026, in Jersey City, NJ. (AP Photo/Adam Gray)
