Alonso, returning to F1, will test Renault’s latest car today

Fernando Alonso, still left, with teammates Carlos Sainz and Nani Roma in the course of the Dakar Rally in January. (AP)

 

Double entire world champion Fernando Alonso reported he was ready for a clean start off as he tested the most current Renault Components Just one car in Barcelona on Tuesday.

The Spaniard, a two-instances Le Mans 24 Hrs winner, has not competed in a grand prix since he still left McLaren at the finish of 2018 but is returning next yr as substitution for departing Australian Daniel Ricciardo.

“It’s likely to be like a new beginning, obtaining astonished about the pace of the car, the braking general performance, the corner pace, a good deal of factors that will shock me after yet again,” the 39-yr-previous reported in advance of the confined-mileage filming working day.

The examination in the RS20 car arrived twenty several years immediately after Alonso very first tested with Benetton — the team that then grew to become Renault — at the exact circuit.

It will also be one particular of his very last opportunities to drive a Renault F1 car, with the team switching title to its Alpine sporting activities car brand in 2021.

Alonso reported planning for the outing experienced been complex by COVID-19 limitations, with fewer times in the simulator to alter, but the run was truly worth it.

“I know that I will learn, and I will discover a good deal of factors in the course of those people laps,” he reported.

Group manager Cyril Abiteboul reported immediately after Sunday’s Eifel Grand Prix at Germany’s Nürburgring, where Ricciardo concluded 3rd for Renault’s very first podium since their return as a constructor in 2016, that Alonso was champing to return.

“We acquired a message in advance of, in the course of and immediately after the race,” reported the Frenchman.

“I consider Fernando is like a major shark. And as soon as he begins to sense the blood he wants to assault. That’s what I see — I see a shark really hungry.”

The Spaniard, who won his titles with Renault in 2005 and 2006, has competed in the Dakar Rally and Indianapolis five hundred since he was very last in Components Just one.