Renault leaning towards Alonso?

"Alonso is very special," said team boss Flavio Briatore at Silverstone. "Obviously, the British press supports British drivers, the Italian press supports Italians and so on. But, honestly, I couldn't care less about nationality. What we want is the quickest driver."

Alonso, of course, is already Renault's test driver and has impressed the team after also earning unqualified praise from his former team boss Paul Stoddart at Minardi.

Alluding to Alonso's recent test with Jaguar, Briatore said: "The watch doesn't always tell the story because performances are always disguised by fuel loads, tyres and so on. But the team always knows..."

Alonso is understood to have been substantially quicker than Jaguar's regular drivers in his test and the question seems to be whether Briatore will put him straight into the Renault team or let him gain further experience elsewhere, at Jaguar for example.

Briatore has a management interest in Alonso as well as in his current driver Jarno Trulli. One line of thinking, however, is that he will not put two of his 'own' drivers together in the same line-up because, inevitably, one will shade the other. And, if you have two assets, why devalue one? Time will tell.