…(RE)MADE IN HEAVEN?

Fernando Alonso will end a two-year spell on F1’s sidelines by returning to the grid with Renault next season. They have a storied history together, but is that good enough reason to get together for a third time, or is this latest reunion destined to bac

WHY HAS RENAULT SIGNED FERNANDO ALONSO

for a return to Formula 1 in 2021 and beyond? A better question might be, ‘why wouldn’t they?’. This, after all, is one of the greatest drivers in the history of F1. If a team seeking to return to success could get hold of the sort of performance that Alonso can bring – performance that, for example, could almost single-handedly make the second-slowest car on the grid finish sixth in the constructors’ championship only two years ago – why would that team not take the opportunity? That’s what you get with Fernando Alonso – a driver who will coax performance out of a car that almost no other driver can.

If that sounds like hyperbole, this is how former Mclaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh sums up Alonso’s gift: “Great drivers score the points the car deserves. Exceptional ones – like him – score more than the car deserves. Only one other driver I’ve worked with has been able to do that. It was at the beginning of my career, and he was Brazilian.”

That ‘other driver’ to whom Whitmarsh is referring is of course Ayrton Senna. This is the sort of rarefied company Alonso’s talent keeps. Now, there are of course caveats when it comes to Alonso – big ones. And we’ll come to those. But first, let’s deal with what Renault is getting from the driver. Why, even though he is now 39, Alonso was clearly the best driver Renault could get.

LEST WE FORGET HOW GOOD HE IS

“F1 is about having the best drivers,” says Williams’ George Russell. “Fernando is absolutely one of the best. It makes complete sense for Renault and Fernando, and I think he’ll come back and do a great job.”

Alonso is a global sporting icon, a status he’s developed over a 20-year career in which he has left no possible doubt about his stature as a racing driver. His career statistics are impressive enough: 32 race victories put him sixth in the all-time F1 winners’ list. Add to that two world championships, and the third-highest points total of any driver – although the relevance of that final statistic is skewed slightly by modern scoring system tweaks.

But it’s the context for these statistics that really highlights Alonso’s qualities. Another 11 points spread correctly over 2007, 2010 and 2012 and he would be a five-time world champion. Were it not for some appalling luck, for which he was blameless in 2010 and 2012, Alonso would be a four-time champion.

And all this while arguably never having driven the fastest car in the field for any season of his career. Even Pat Symonds, Renault’s technical boss at the time, admitted on a recent F1 podcast that the team would not have won the title in 2005 and 2006 had Alonso not been in the car. What marks Alonso out above all is his

adaptability, the flexibility to get the most out of any car however it is behaving.

Symonds says: “He is very fast over one lap. There probably are those who can get closer to him in qualifying but when it comes to managing a race, knowing how to plan a race, how to use the car in that race, he is Schumacher-like, Senna-like. This ability to get this holistic view of a race and to picture it from beginning to end and how he’s going to manage it.”

Mclaren performance director Andrea Stella, who worked with Alonso for nine years at Ferrari and Mclaren from 2010-18, sees the Spaniard’s ability as “a perfect circle” of qualities, “where Fernando is very high in all of them but potentially not the best in any”.

“He is very complete,” Stella explains. “You struggle to find a weak point, basically, in terms of high-level driving skills”.

WILL HE BE AS GOOD AS HE WAS?

No matter how good Alonso was in his first F1 career, there will inevitably be questions as to whether he will return at the same level. Alonso will turn 40 during the 2021 season and parallels will inevitably be drawn with the comeback of another legend, Michael Schumacher, who was clearly not as capable when he returned to F1, at the age of 41 with Mercedes in 2010, as he had been when winning his seven world titles.

But for every Schumacher there are a number of other drivers who have proved age – and a break from F1 – does not have to be a barrier to success. Alain Prost won his fourth title at the age of 38, after a year’s sabbatical. Nigel Mansell finally sealed his world championship in 1992 at 39, went to America and won the Indy Car World Series aged 40, returned to F1 in 1994, and won the season-ending Australian Grand Prix from pole position aged 41.

Mario Andretti returned to F1 aged 42 with Ferrari at the end of 1982 and took pole first time out. He remained competitive in Indycar in his 50s. And although this next example dates back to the 1950s, Juan Manuel Fangio was 40 before he won even the first of his five titles…

Schumacher is just the most recent example. But his and Alonso’s situations are not the same. For one thing, Schumacher suffered a major neck injury in a motorcycle accident in 2009, and some believe that, despite claims to the contrary, this affected him when he came back.

On top of that, Schumacher just did not get on with the Pirelli tyres and their propensity to overheat, which prevented him from driving in the way he had done in his first career. Not only will Alonso’s break have been a year shorter than Schumacher’s, Fernando has stayed competitive in other categories.

In 2019, Alonso did six months in the World Endurance Championship, including winning Le Mans for the second time, in addition to suffering Mclaren’s embarrassing failure to sort a car he could qualify for the Indianapolis 500. This was followed by six months of preparation for the Dakar Rally in January. And this year he returned to the Indy 500 in August before starting his work with Renault.

“Last year was a very active season for me,” Alonso said when his Renault deal was announced in July. “I was behind a steering wheel nearly every week of the year. I feel ready and I feel I am at 100% in terms of driving. Physically as well I had to preserve my body. I have to start very specific fitness preparations. I started in February and now I am 100%. I did a couple of fitness tests and I had the best results in my career. I am motivated, happy and stronger than ever. The stopwatch is the only thing that matters, not age. Hopefully, we are still fast – and faster than them.”

Renault F1 managing director Cyril Abiteboul