…(RE)MADE IN HEAVEN?
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
