Why Alonso's eyes have returned to his first motorsport prize

One particular Fernando Alonso cliche was on full display during his 2021 test-ending race simulation. His run of 17 laps on the C4 tyres, followed by 10 on the harder C3s, was relentlessly consistent. For lap after lap, he circulated the Bahrain track with metronomic precision, never once deviating from the 1m37s bracket on the red-walled rubber, then did likewise on the yellow-coloured mediums, getting down to the 1m36s as the fuel in his Alpine A521 burned off. 

Finally, the session drew to an end. It had been dominated by Max Verstappen’s duel with Yuki Tsunoda over testing’s top time, but Alonso’s run to the flag felt significant – it was the first public long run of his Formula 1 return, and Daniel Ricciardo was doing likewise for McLaren. The electric-blue Alpine and the papaya-orange McLaren weren’t competing, but the drivers at their respective wheels are central to each other’s current stories.

Alonso is returning to F1 from two years sampling motorsport’s wider delights, and he is doing so with Alpine, the squad that Ricciardo opted to leave – announced before the 2020 season had begun – for Alonso’s most-recent F1 team. Both squads are on the up after years of trying, but both have been discarded by two of the championship’s best drivers. Soon, it will be clear who made the right call.  

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There’s a Damoclesian element hanging over F1 2021, one that should have already dropped: the delayed rules reset. And it’s this potential to change to F1’s pecking order that has led Alonso and Ricciardo to their respective new homes. But in the case of the former, in 2021 it’s all about coming back home. 

“They are very different – and that’s a good sign!” Alonso replies when asked how different ‘Team Enstone’ is now to the organisation he left (for the second time) at the end of 2009. “We have very talented people in the team. Some of the mechanics – there are still some from my last time, so that’s also a good touch of the old days as well. And a good atmosphere that we all want to repeat the success we have had in the past.” 

Fernando Alonso, Alpine A521

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

F1 2021’s car-carryover requirements have effectively set the pecking order up along similar lines to how 2020 ended (although testing showed that fluctuation in each ‘class’ is clearly possible). So, the success that Alonso and Alpine are ultimately targeting must come down the line, wrapped up in how the team’s challengers perform from 2022 onwards. But, for now, it must continue to maintain the momentum it found in 2020, particularly from the three podiums it scored – Enstone’s first since the 2015 Belgian Grand Prix (as Lotus).  

As Renault in 2020, Alpine managed to reverse its 2019 slide by introducing a development package on the eve of the delayed campaign that significantly improved traction, which in turn increased its drivers’ confidence. It made a set-up breakthrough at the 70th Anniversary GP at Silverstone that Ricciardo called hitting the “sweet spot”, but just missed out on the coveted third place in the constructors’ championship, ending up third in ‘class’ (fifth in reality) and 21 points behind ‘winner’ McLaren, 14 adrift of Racing Point.   

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The A521 attracted significant attention at the Bahrain test thanks to its bulbous engine cover. This is a reaction to mandated 2021 floor and diffuser changes, with Alpine sacrificing optimum centre of gravity positioning by moving the car’s engine-cooling architecture higher up to create extra space between the sidepods and the floor – a unique attempt to mitigate the downforce loss of the new rules.  

Alpine executive director Marcin Budkowski joked that he was “a bit surprised by the amount of body-shaming on our car” during what was a smooth test overall for the rebranded squad. Like Red Bull, Alpine opted to give Alonso and Esteban Ocon a full day each in the car before they shared duties on the final day, with the former making his public F1 return on the test’s middle day, and closing it out with Alpine’s only lengthy race simulation during the final evening.  

"He’s got huge experience in the sport and a huge amount of knowledge and interaction with the engineers, so that’s going to be very helpful in preparing the season. He’s on top form; he’s completely unaffected by his health issues at the beginning of the year" Marcin Budkowski

Budkowski explained that Alpine tried to “fit six days of testing into three”, and said “we accomplished all of it without any significant problems”. The team racked up 396 laps, the fourth highest of all the teams. Its primary goal was to assess how the aero tweaks worked. 

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Alpine’s test programme did not include engaging in any of the late-day qualifying simulation runs under the lights, when conditions were at their best for fast times. Alonso’s 1m30.318s on the C4 tyre stood as its best lap overall, good enough for eighth out of the 10 teams. It was an understated three days for the team and, based on a combination of its best long-run averages and final place in the one-lap pecking order, it appears that at this stage it’s firmly in the midfield fight – just behind McLaren and AlphaTauri, adrift of Red Bull and Mercedes. 

Marcin Budkowski, Fernando Alonso, 2021 Bahrain GP

Photo by: Alpine F1 Team

Getting Alpine to the front for a return to the Renault glory days of 2005-06 is Alonso’s aim. After his deal was announced last July, he attended three races to watch his new/old team in action and was embedded in its operations remotely for the other events. He conducted a filming day in Renault’s 2020 car and ran a private test programme in its 2018 machine alongside its academy drivers late last year.

An FIA intervention meant he could take part in the post-2020 season ‘young driver’ test in Abu Dhabi (which was essentially opened up to non-2020 race drivers), and he continued his preparations in Alpine’s simulator, although this was interrupted by his February cycling accident.

The knock-on effect of that incident, in which Alonso suffered a jaw fracture, and the current restrictions on travel to the UK, meant he could not attended Alpine’s launch event and was only able to get back into the simulator a few days before testing kicked off. Alonso will complete the 2021 season before having further surgery to remove two titanium plates, but that seems unlikely to slow him down.

“He’s got huge experience in the sport and a huge amount of knowledge and interaction with the engineers,” says Budkowski of Alonso’s worth to Alpine. “So that’s going to be very helpful in preparing the season. He’s on top form; he’s completely unaffected by his health issues at the beginning of the year.” 

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Alonso is rekindling a relationship at a team that knows him well – his legend is integral to its own. In that way, he has an advantage over rivals such as Ricciardo or Carlos Sainz Jr, who are starting afresh. Alonso also has his famous reputation – it’s not just on track where he is unyielding in expecting his best, and the best of others. 

“I can see a driver in a great shape, first of all from physical point of view, [with] strong motivation – really pushing,” says Davide Brivio, Alpine’s new racing director. “I think it’s very positive for the team to have this type of driver that tends to stimulate everybody, pushes everybody, to give the maximum.” 

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Alonso said in Bahrain that he does not “fear any particular challenge”, as could be seen from his triple crown quest, which he has had to pause. That was where his intention for the latest chapter in his remarkable career was planned, as he felt “after Le Mans [which he won twice and took the World Endurance Championship title alongside his Toyota team-mates in the 2018-19 superseason], in the car and all the things that I tried, I thought that [as I was] at my best, maybe Formula 1 was the place to be”. 

Fernando Alonso, Arrow McLaren SP Chevrolet Indianapolis 500 2020

Photo by: Gavin Baker / Motorsport Images

“The main thing, or why I’m here and I came back, was because I felt that I was at my best in the last couple of years. I felt that I was driving better than ever, and I had to make a decision on what was the next challenge. I have time in the future to rethink some of the challenges that were not completed. I felt that I had something to do here again.  

The Alonso/Alpine force are far from alone in targeting a return to former glory in modern F1, but what this combination has over rivals is at least a possession of historical proof of being able to reach success together at the highest level

“[But] to win races, to win championships, I think you need a few more things than just your motivation or your beliefs. You need the package, luck, momentum – it is something that we want to build with the new Alpine name and with the team. I cannot guarantee that, but we will fight for those wins and those championships in the future if we do the things that we have in our heads.” 

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The Alonso/Alpine force are far from alone in targeting a return to former glory in modern F1, with the midfield packed with teams that last won championships in the mid-to-late 2000s. What this combination has over rivals is at least a possession of historical proof of being able to reach success together at the highest level.  

The path to getting back to world-title heights starts now, with 39-year-old Alonso’s relentless nature returning to the championship where he became a superstar.

Fernando Alonso, Bahrain F1 testing 2021

Photo by: Alpine F1 Team