Spaniard joins an illustrious list but leaves endurance racing as organisers are eager to revitalise and level playing fieldAfter victory on Sunday at the Le Mans 24 hours Fernando Alonso left the Circuit de la Sarthe having joined a very select club. With his win last year at the first attempt, the Spaniard, who is now leaving endurance racing, joins Woolf Barnato and Jean-Pierre Wimille as the only multiple Le Mans winners who remain unbeaten at the race.Alonso leaves on a high, albeit an unexpected one after an unlikely win. Yet for many drivers, among them Britain’s Nick Tandy who won here in 2015, stepping away from Le Mans is almost unthinkable. Alonso may not be there for it but...
Spaniard returns to his old team, initially with only mentoring duties, as he continues his pursuit of the triple crownThe irrepressible Fernando Alonso’s farewell to Formula One at the end of last season may not have been the final curtain.McLaren are testing in Barcelona and they revealed on Wednesday that the 37-year-old will now be an ambassador for the team and test their F1 cars over the next two years. Having the two-times world champion in their set-up is a boon while they rebuild with two far less experienced drivers but crucially it also ensures the Spaniard remains at the heart of McLaren and keeps his hand in should he make a return to F1 in 2021. Continue reading...
Charles Leclerc impressed again and Max Verstappen finally got his temperament in sync with his talent in CanadaFernando Alonso’s 300th grand prix was far from a celebratory affair: he started 14th on the grid, his lowest position this season, and retired from the race with an exhaust failure. The McLaren racing director, Éric Boullier, had been clear about their car’s problems in lacking grip in low-speed corners that was making them struggle in Canada and afterwards Alonso could not wait to walk away from it. He wanted to talk about Le Mans, where he will race next weekend. He will be in the class of the field Toyota at La Sarthe, a world away from the recalcitrant McLaren. The Spaniard...
Lewis Hamilton and Prince Albert might well have the wellbeing of the celebrated grand prix at heart but there is a danger that the sport is losing its romanceThere’s a rule of thumb around talking down the product, a “doing a Ratner” kind of thing, and by God does it apply to sport. Such is the competitive nature of the business, and of the individuals involved, that saying anything remotely critical about an activity in general or a performance more specifically is about as likely as watching a free-to-air Test match.So the aftermath of the Monaco Grand Prix on Sunday was quite something to behold. “This is probably the most boring race ever,” was Fernando Alonso’s considered opinion. “Extremely boring.”...
The Spaniard has been in fine form in both the World Endurance Championship and F1 this season, but goes to Barcelona needing McLaren to give him the tools for the jobFernando Alonso finally made it back to the top step of the podium last weekend when he, alongside his Toyota team-mates Sébastien Buemi and Kazuki Nakajima, took victory in the first round of this year’s World Endurance Championship at Spa. It has been some time in coming. This was the 36-year old’s first win since 2013, when he took the flag for Ferrari at the Spanish Grand Prix, and it would have taken a hard heart not to empathise with the evident pleasure he felt at being back where he...