Paris (AFP)

Returning to F1 next year at Renault, Fernando Alonso will not only have to get back in the bath of a discipline that had been abandoned two years ago, but also show that his age is not a handicap.

Born on July 29, 1981, the double Spanish world champion (2005 and 2006) will be 39 years old when he returns to the paddock. Only the Finnish Kimi Räikkönen, who will be 41 years old in October, is older among the active Formula 1 drivers.

"As long as you stay fit and motivated and don't decline with age, that is not important," Alonso said in an interview with AFP on Wednesday.

"In motor racing, it is not the age that counts, it is the chronometer. There is certainly a movement towards increasingly younger drivers but, at Mercedes for example, that would not be a good thing to replace Lewis Hamilton with a younger driver just because he is 35 years old, "he added.

It is true that even Raïkkönen, world champion with Ferrari in 2007, still won a Grand Prix in 2018, at just 39 years old, still for the Italian team.

In the 1950s and 1960s, it was not uncommon to see people in their forties, or even their fifties, winning GPs or even world championships, the legendary Juan Manuel Fangio first. But today we have to go back to 1994 to find a driver in his forties, the Briton Nigel Mansell, on the highest step of the podium.

As a sign of the times, the average age on the box at the most recent Grand Prix in Austria on Sunday was 24, between the winner Valtteri Bottas (30), the 2nd Charles Leclerc (22) and the 3rd Lando Norris (20 years old).

By adding the great hope Max Verstappen, 22, in the lot, it is obvious that F1 has considerably rejuvenated in recent years and that the "old" drivers are becoming rare.

"I agree with Fernando, it's age and motivation that count," said Cyril Abiteboul, Renault F1 team manager, however. This one however plays on the two tables because the other driver of the French team, the French Esteban Ocon, is only 23 years old.

For Alonso, the objective is first to get back on the podium, just like Renault, which has not managed since its return to F1 in 2016.

- Age and experience -

Winning a 3rd world championship remains, for both of them, an even more distant objective. But the Spaniard would be, if he succeeded, the first since the Australian Jack Brabham in 1966 to be crowned F1 world champion at more than 40 years old.

Age also brings experience, which could be very useful for Alonso and Renault at a time when F1 is going to experience a technological revolution with the arrival in 2022 of a new generation of single-seaters.

With less aerodynamic downforce and narrower tires, in theory they will be able to follow and overtake themselves more easily, in order to bring back to discipline the peloton and lively races of yesteryear.

Alonso has always been considered a formidable developer and an outstanding "finisher", finding the resources necessary to overtake his opponents in the last laps of a race. These qualities could play in its favor in the new F1 environment.

He also did not remain inactive during the two years spent away from this discipline, with two victories at the 24 Hours of Le Mans with Toyota in 2018 and 2019, a participation in the Dakar rally-raid with the same manufacturer (13th) in 2020 and a failed qualifying attempt at the famous Indianapolis 500 Miles last year.

And the Spaniard will have the opportunity, before his next F1 Grand Prix, to return to the American oval, in just over a month, to try to top the "triple crown" of motorsport (world championship F1, 24 Hours of Le Mans, Indianapolis).

Only before him the Briton Graham Hill succeeded, winning the Le Mans test in 1972 at ... 43 years old!

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