Alonso drove around Monaco in a very expensive Mercedes.

      Formula 1 stars sometimes attract attention thanks to the very expensive cars in their private collections. For example, in early autumn Daniel Ricciardo put his hypercar, the Aston Martin Valkyrie, up for auction, and that news was immediately picked up by many publications.

      But in terms of uniqueness that car is hard to compare with the vehicle Fernando Alonso recently drove onto the streets of Monaco, with his girlfriend Melissa Jimenez — the mother of their expected child — as passenger.

      Among Mercedes’ sports models there is a special one, developed in 1997 in cooperation with AMG specifically for endurance racing — the Mercedes CLK GTR. But there was also a version adapted for public roads, and between 1998 and 1999 only 28 examples of that car were produced. Naturally, one of them is in the Stuttgart company’s museum, and it is known that the Sultan of Brunei’s garage contains as many as two — a coupe and a roadster, both right-hand drive.

      The road-going modification is known to connoisseurs of automotive rarities simply as the Strassenversion; its auction price starts at €9 million but can reach €15 million if it’s a roadster, since there are only six of those.

      Alonso rode in a silver coupe with the characteristic combination of digits on the license plate — 1414 — since everyone knows that the two-time world champion races in Formula 1 under number 14.

      As the Spanish press writes, there were times when Fernando strove to hide his collection of rare cars from prying eyes, but since he now lives in Monaco, where everyone is in plain sight, doing so has clearly become much harder.

      Depending on the version, the Mercedes CLK GTR was fitted with a V12 engine of either 6.9 liters or 7.3 liters, producing over 600 hp, and the top speed of such a monster exceeds 320 km/h; 0–100 km/h in 3.8 seconds.

      Not long ago Alonso was seen behind the wheel of classic Ferrari models such as the F40 and Testarossa, and now he has shown off his unique Mercedes hypercar. His personal collection also includes at least three rare Aston Martin cars — Valkyrie, Valiant and Vantage DTM — and there is also a Ford GT Holman Moody Heritage Edition. Most likely this is far from the full list, and next year it will almost certainly grow.