Why Alonso and Renault have nothing to lose from their third dalliance

Why has Renault signed Fernando Alonso for a return to Formula 1 in 2021 and beyond? A better question might be, 'why wouldn't it?'.

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 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 and 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 driver George Russell. "Fernando is absolutely one of the best. It makes complete sense for Renault and Fernando, and I think he'll come back and do a great job."

Alonso is a global sporting icon, a status he's developed over a 20-year career in which he has left no possible doubt about his stature as a racing driver. His career statistics are impressive enough: 32 race victories put him sixth in the all-time F1 winners' list. Add to that two world championships, and the third-highest points total of any driver - although the relevance 
of that final statistic is skewed slightly by modern scoring system tweaks.

But it's the context for these statistics that really highlights Alonso's qualities. Another 11 points spread correctly over 2007, 2010 and 2012 and he would be a five-time world champion. Were it not for some appalling luck, for which he was blameless in 2010 and 2012, Alonso would be a four-time champion.

"When it comes to managing a race, knowing how to plan a race, how to use the car in that race, he is Schumacher-like, Senna-like" Pat Symonds

And all this while arguably never having driven the fastest car in the field for any season of his career. Even Pat Symonds, Renault's technical boss at the time, admitted on a recent F1 podcast that the team would not have won the title in 2005 and 2006 had Alonso not been in the car. What marks Alonso out above all is his adaptability, the flexibility to get the most out 
of any car however it is behaving.

Symonds says: "He is very fast over one lap. There probably are those who can get closer to him in qualifying but when it comes to managing a race, knowing how to plan a race, how to use the car in that race, he is Schumacher-like, Senna-like. [He has] this ability to get this holistic view 
of a race and to picture it from beginning to 
end and how he's going to manage it."

McLaren performance director Andrea Stella, who worked with Alonso for nine years at Ferrari and McLaren from 2010-18, sees the Spaniard's ability as "a perfect circle" of qualities, "where Fernando is very high in all of them but potentially not the best in any".

"He is very complete," Stella explains. "You struggle to find a weak point, basically, in terms of high-level driving skills".

Will he be as good as he was?

No matter how good Alonso was in his first F1 career, there will inevitably be questions as to whether he will return at the same level. Alonso will turn 40 during the 2021 season and parallels will inevitably be drawn with the comeback of another legend, Michael Schumacher, who was clearly not as capable when he returned to F1, at the age of 41 with Mercedes in 2010, as he had been when winning his seven world titles.

But for every Schumacher there are a number of other drivers who have proved age - and a break from F1 - does not have to be a barrier to success. Alain Prost won his fourth title at the age of 38, after a year's sabbatical. Nigel Mansell finally sealed his world championship in 1992 at 39, went to America and won the Indy Car World Series aged 40, returned to F1 in 1994, and won the season-ending Australian Grand Prix from pole position aged 41.

Mario Andretti returned to F1 aged 42 with Ferrari at the end of 1982 and took pole first time out. He remained competitive in Indycar in his 50s. And although this next example dates back to the 1950s, Juan Manuel Fangio was 40 before he won even the first of his five titles...

PLUS: Why a perceived Alonso problem could be the biggest asset of his F1 return

Schumacher is just the most recent example. But his and Alonso's situations are not the same. For one thing, Schumacher suffered a major neck injury in a motorcycle accident in 2009, and some believe that, despite claims to the contrary, this affected him when he came back.

On top of that, Schumacher just did not get on with the Pirelli tyres and their propensity to overheat, which prevented him from driving in the way he had done in his first career. Not only will Alonso's break have been a year shorter than Schumacher's, but he has also stayed competitive in other categories.

In 2019, Alonso wrapped up the World Endurance Championship 'superseason' title and won the Le Mans 24 Hours for a second time, in addition to suffering McLaren's embarrassing failure to sort a car he could qualify for the Indianapolis 500. This was followed by six months of preparation for the Dakar Rally in January. And this year he returned to the Indy 500 in August before starting his work with Renault.

"Last year was a very active season for me," Alonso said when his Renault deal was announced in July. "I was behind a steering wheel nearly every week of the year. I feel ready and I feel I am at 100% in terms of driving.

"Physically as well I had to preserve my body. I have to start very specific fitness preparations. I started in February and now I am 100%. I did a couple of fitness tests and I had the best results in my career. I am motivated, happy and stronger than ever.

"The stopwatch is the only thing that matters, not age. Hopefully, we 
are still fast - and faster than them."

Renault F1 managing director Cyril Abiteboul says Alonso's age is "not a worry": "It is something we take on board and we have taken the time to discuss it. What matters most is not the physical status or situation, it's more the motivation. I guess the one thing that impacts 
on your level of performance at a certain age is your level of motivation.

"He will be as quick as he was, for sure. Because he has been training every day since he left F1, driving every day some sort of car" Pedro de la Rosa

"That's why we have taken the time to discuss what he has been able to do so far outside F1, inside F1, the way he sees the project, what we will be able to give and not give in 2021, and the prospect for 2022. Based on all of that, in my opinion, his motivation is strong, based on facts. And therefore, in my opinion, age is not a factor for the duration of our contract."

Daniel Ricciardo, the man Alonso is replacing at Renault, also foresees no problems. "It doesn't look like he slowed down at all with age," the Australian says, looking back at a 2018 season in which Alonso out-qualified McLaren team-mate Stoffel Vandoorne at every single race and scored 81% of the team's points. "His last season in F1 was a pretty strong one from what I saw. It was pretty evident he got the most out of the car."

And former F1 driver Pedro de la Rosa, who is close to Alonso, agrees: "He will be as quick as he was, for sure. Because he has been training every day since he left F1, driving every day some sort of car, and because he has good genetics."

How it happened

Renault's final decision to join forces with Alonso for a third time came after Ricciardo decided to move to McLaren, in the merry-go-round of moves triggered by Ferrari's decision to dispense with Sebastian Vettel.

It could look from the outside as if Alonso 
was Renault's only hope, and that team his. 
But it would be wrong to represent it entirely as a case of 'needs must'. In fact, Abiteboul says Renault had been talking to Alonso about a deal on and off since the works team returned to the grid in 2016 - and confirms they had serious discussions at last year's season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

Alonso, Abiteboul says, "is a very smart observer of what is going on in the paddock". He had noted recent personnel changes at Renault - including the employment of Pat Fry, with whom Alonso worked at both McLaren and Ferrari, as technical director.

"Discussion started way before Daniel's decision to leave for McLaren," Abiteboul says. "I don't know where things would have got us if Daniel had made a different decision - and, let's be honest, the timing of Daniel's decision was not helpful. We were focused on other aspects. But that being behind us, I am very comfortable with this decision."

Abiteboul admits the "emotional ties" of the past were a factor. But there was cold decision-making, too. Prost, now Renault's non-executive director, says the team was talking to three top drivers: Alonso, Vettel and Valtteri Bottas. And they chose Alonso over Vettel.

"Valtteri is driving a Mercedes and it's difficult for him to leave the Mercedes team at the moment," Prost says. "We did not know exactly what was the motivation of Sebastian. But Fernando has always shown his motivation to come back to the team."

Some have criticised Renault for choosing Alonso over a product of its driver academy. But, in reality, that was hardly a choice at all. Ricciardo is going, and Renault's only signed driver was Esteban Ocon, who has yet to establish his credentials at the very highest level. It's almost inconceivable that a team with aspirations of winning races in 2022 could go into that season with a driver line-up of Ocon plus an F2 graduate, such as the promising Guanyu Zhou or Christian Lundgaard.

"When there is a problem, it tends to be spread over all the corners. If there is too much oversteer, you see it is more or less everywhere. While some drivers may say, understeer here, oversteer there" Andrea Stella

Renault is also still in the process of turning itself into a top team. And a man of Alonso's experience and wisdom can play an important role in that. On the one hand, there is the "winning culture", as Abiteboul puts it, that he brings with him, and will seek to impose 
on Renault. And then there's the certainty that his skills will boost the engineering team.

This is Stella talking about Alonso's insight into the behaviour of his car: "He is very good at getting where he is contributing and where the car is contributing. The sensitivity to the car is exceptional. It is somehow a matter of awareness.

"One interesting thing with Fernando is that, when there is a problem, it tends to be spread over all the corners. If there is too much oversteer, you see it is more or less everywhere. While some drivers may say, understeer here, oversteer there.

"You can create your own understeer, for example. Like, if the car is a bit nervous, and you don't commit to turn early enough, or to turn enough. So you delay the turn-in, and then are always going to get an understeer-y car mid-corner.

"But not all drivers realise that this mid-corner balance is very much a result of what happens in the earlier 50m. And that's very tricky for an engineer, because if you only go with the driver, you get lost, because you keep going after this mid-corner understeer."

The thorny question of his attitude

Renault did have doubts about Alonso, centred on his history of tension with the teams he's driven for. There was, of course, the infamous fallout with McLaren in 2007. But his time at Ferrari also ended with a degree of enmity. And while McLaren loved him second time around, the same could not be said of engine partner Honda.

Shouting "GP2 engine, GP2 engine, aargh" over the radio as he went down the straight at Suzuka must go down as one of Alonso's least well-considered outbursts - and it came back 
to haunt him, as Honda still will not supply 
an engine for him to use at Indy.

"What happened with Fernando and different teams was my biggest problem and question mark," Prost says. "I talked to Fernando many times about that. I really trust him that he's going to have another philosophy.

PLUS: How Renault plans to manage the "new" Alonso

"Two years outside F1 in my opinion was maybe not bad for him to have a different feeling, a different view. He knows what he's going to get in terms of performance of the car. He knows that 2021 is also going to be a little bit difficult. He's prepared for that. I really think he's going 
to be very different than people understand."

Abiteboul adds: "It is one of the reasons why it was important for him to take time off, to walk away from the sport. Let's not underestimate how ruthless, how toxic F1 can be. No matter how hard you work, how hard you try, how good you think you are, sometimes it is just not possible. I think that is what at some point burns out every one of us, except maybe Toto [Wolff] and Mercedes and Lewis [Hamilton]. And doing this sort of break is the best guarantee that these things will not happen again.

"Plus, clearly making sure we don't let him down by over-promising and under-delivering. That is why we have taken the time to be clear and specific about where we stand today and where we will be standing in 2021, and where 
we think we will be standing in 2022."

Alonso says: "I am aware of things. I have not been underground for two years. I have been watching television and I know only one team will be winning 2020 - and in 2021 probably.

"The rest of the 19 drivers on the grid, we try to work with our own team and our future. I think the 2022 rules will hopefully bring some fairness to the sport and some close action, with teams more level and less scope to invent something that has a large performance advantage.

"I am relaxed, aware of what 2021 will be and hopeful for 2022. It is matter of building something together, that you trust, that has 
the capabilities and investment and all those things I found in Renault."

The crux of the issue

Ultimately, however much some people will attempt to complicate matters, it seems a simple scenario, into which both parties are entering with their eyes open.

Alonso is on a two-year contract with options to extend on both sides. He knows what to expect in 2021 - because he can see how the Renault he will be driving, give or take limited upgrades, is performing this year. In the meantime, Renault earns a bucket-load of publicity from having Alonso in its car, and he gets to come back to F1.

In 2022, under rules aimed at closing up the grid, the team hopes for a new start, and to be fighting for wins. If it works out, great - Renault has one of the best drivers it could possibly hope for, and Alonso gets to challenge for more success and, who knows, maybe even a third title?

If not, either Alonso or Renault, or both, can choose not to continue together. Ultimately, what has either of them got to lose?