ALONSO TAKES THE F1 WORLD BY SURPRISE  AGAIN

Fernando Alonso certainly took us by surprise last week. Actually, we were a bit miffed about the timing of his announcement that he was quitting Formula 1 for 2019, coming as it did just as we were about to close for press on last week’s issue… Edd Straw quickly put together a holding story in between hosting various podcasts, then set to work on providing us with a detailed cover story for this week’s magazine. Alonso hasn’t held back on his reasons for falling out of love with F1, and you can find the full feature on page 16. What the news also did was to continue this silliest of silly seasons. The house of cards that was the 2019 driver line-up is being built back up again, with Carlos Sainz Jr replacing Alonso at Mclaren, and Pierre Gasly swiftly promoted from Toro Rosso to Red Bull in place of Renault-bound Daniel Ricciardo. And now Lando Norris could be in line to join Sainz at Mclaren if he goes well in his FP1 outings, starting at Spa tomorrow (Friday). Read the latest on what’s going on with all the to-ing and fro-ing on page 4. Alonso was also in the news at Silverstone. Ironically, he’d complained that F1 was too predictable before winning on the road in last weekend’s British World Endurance Championship round alongside Sebastien Buemi and Kazuki Nakajima, as Toyota completely crushed the opposition. But what happened in the scrutineering bay was far from predictable. You can read Gary Watkins’s account of what happened on page 24. Finally, we were shocked about the Robert Wickens accident in the Pocono Indycar race. That he has survived at all is testament to the strength of modern racing cars. I’m sure you all join us in wishing Robert a rapid and full recovery.