Following the announcement that negotiations with the Euskaltel team have broken down, Formula 1 driver Fernando Alonso has made it clear that he still plans to set up a cycling team. He hopes to be back with a new project for the 2015 season.

Two days ago it was announced that the negotiations between Fernando Alonso and the Euskaltel team about a possible acquisition of the latter's WorldTour license had broken down and that the Basque squad would fold at the end of the season. While this has definitively spelled the end for the orange-clad team, it may also be the beginning of a brand-new cycling project.

Alonso has issued a statement via Twitter in which he regrets the fact that the negotiations came to nothing but doesn't elaborate further on the reasons for the breakdown. Instead, he vows to continue his hard work to set up a team for the coming season.

While those news are certainly positive for the cycling world in general, it may be too late for the Euskaltel riders who put their negotiations with other teams on hold with the expectation that their futures had been secured.

Alonso's statement:

We've tried it until the end but it's just been impossible to have a cycling team in 2014. My passion for this sport, my will to cooperate and to do my bit remains intact, so this is only the beginning of the future.

From tomorrow morning we are going to work on building, if needs be from scratch, a team we can be proud of. The best cycling team we can form, respecting this sport with humility. As you may have observed I'm quite tenacious, and above all, I love and value this sport a lot.

It possesses and transmits, as I said many times, values that I share: a set of values that I would like to help promote. Cycling and it's fans deserve the best and now we have time on our side, time in which we'll be very attentive to any circumstance that we can learn from and, above all, that can make us better for next year.

It wasn't to be, but it will be! This adventure has only just begun. Let's look for to 2015!