• Alonso. "Renault has the means to return to the podium, just like me"
  • Renault: between truncated plans and hope for 2022
  • Album: a great story in 10 images

Fernando Alonso's visit to the Abu Dhabi GP on December 1 was crucial to resolve his future. The Asturian wasted his last days as McLaren's ambassador on the same circuit where a year earlier he had formalized his Until Then to Formula 1. Under Yas Marina's palms he maintained contacts with the Renault leadership and even leaked them to Martin Brundle . No one then took the information of the former British pilot on Fox Sports very seriously. However, Fernando already had powerful reasons to return to the team where he had enjoyed the most.

1. Empty gaps

About to turn 39, Alonso feels better prepared than most of his young rivals. Both physically and technically, he does not see himself as inferior to anyone in Formula 1, who decided to give up due to his continuous frustrations in a car unable to push him to victory. The fresh air at Toyota, with whom he twice tasted glory at Le Mans, soon began to taste little. And his schedule, despite the adventure of the Dakar Rally and the challenge of the Indianapolis 500, was beginning to have too many empty holes. In the end, this lack of incentives has been decisive.

2. Go home

Cyril Abiteboul , head of the Renault F1 Team, and Alain Prost , non-executive director of the team, had to offer a very consolidated project to convince Alonso, fed up with fighting for the middle of the table with McLaren and eager to renew his laurels. However, Abiteboul and Prost also had a very powerful ace up their sleeve: nostalgia. Far from the tensions experienced at McLaren and Ferrari, the options of Mercedes or Red Bull, with whom he also had discrepancies in the past, were ruled out, Renault was emerging as the only option where to reissue the glories of the past.

3. A project for 2022

The regulation change, delayed by the FIA ​​until 2022 due to the pandemic, was always a priority requirement for Alonso, convinced that with the previous rules he could never stand up to the three World Cup champions. At the moment, in its first season, Renault will already be able to fight in better conditions due to the budget limit, reduced for the 10 teams to 145 million annually. The 2021 World Cup, with little evolution in the cars, will have nothing to do with the next one. And that regulatory revolution is the best incentive for Alonso and Renault.

4. From Meo and Marketing

The crisis in the automobile market, exacerbated by the Covid-19, has forced Renault to extreme measures, both in production and in shipments. Just a week ago, Luca de Meo took over as head of a company that had gone on to manufacture 5.5 million cars a year, but in 2019 suffered a 99% drop in profits. Immediately, through Clotilde Delbos , his right hand, silenced the rumors and confirmed the continuity of his F1 division. Alonso, after his profitable experience at McLaren with Zak Brown , needed a reference with which to establish a secure bond. The Italian executive, who is most responsible for the resurrection of SEAT, also knew of the unquestionable magnetism of his new star, as a guide for Esteban Ocon . A veteran Spanish pilot together with a young Frenchman represents a complete marketing success for the brand.

5. Unlimited ambition

The joy at the signing of his friend Carlos Sainz by Ferrari, in mid-May, was mixed with a somewhat more difficult feeling to define. The one that produces extreme competitiveness. Because we must not forget that Alonso's last victory dates from the 2013 Spanish GP and the last podium came at the 2014 Hungarian GP. Renault, in his own words, represents "an opportunity to return to the highest level". Just what his voracious winning appetite required.

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Know more

  • Fernando Alonso
  • Seat
  • Dakar Rally
  • Formula 1
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