It will be Alonso’s third stint with the team.
Fernando Alonso has been away from Formula 1 for the last two years, but many associated with the sport had a feeling that they hadn’t seen the last of this Spaniard. They were right.
On Wednesday, the Renault team signed Alonso to a two-year deal beginning in 2021. He’ll join Esteban Ocon, who will be in his second of a two-year contract.
What made this signing special is that Alonso has been here twice before. Following his first few seasons at Minardi, Alonso raced for Renault in 2004–winning his first race in Hungary and, then, giving the team two world titles with both the Constructor’s and Driver’s titles.
Following that success, Alonso signed with McLaren in 2007, joining an upcoming driver by the name of Lewis Hamilton. The relationship turned out to be a catastrophe, though. And with Hamilton born-and-bred under the McLaren name, Alonso decided to go elsewhere, returning to Renault, where he signed a two-year deal.
The second stint there was a catastrophe of a different sort. In Singapore, the event was fixed. Alonso’s then-teammate, Nelson Piquet Jr., crash purposely to assist in Alonso in winning the race, which he did. The situation led to the exclusion of manager Flavio Briatore and his technical, Pat Symonds. Alonso raced without any wins in 2009 as Renault lost sponsors because of that race-fixing.
Ferrari was next on Alonso’s radar. There, he came close to winning a third title, but Sebastian Vettel was even better–winning three titles in succession.
Alonso then returned to McLaren, a team that was now without Hamilton. But even with a good teammate (Jenson Button), he could not get the Honda and (later) the Renault engines to catch up with the best teams. A bad chassis design also contributed to the adverse outcome.
With that–and without a team primed to win–Alonso decided it was time to retire from F1 racing.
Courtesy: The Drive
For the next couple of seasons, the Spaniard raced for the Toyota Gazoo team in the World Endurance Championship, and he won the famous 24 hours of Lemans race twice, as well as the world championship for drivers in 2018. Alonso also experimented with other kinds of racing–from The Dakar Rally early this season, to the Indy 500, in which he held the lead in his first attempt before encountering engine trouble.
Now, Alonso is back in Formula 1. This time he is minus long hair but still long on enthusiasm and frankness. “I have not been underground for two years,” Alonso said. “I have been watching television, and I know that only one team will win in 2020 and will also win in 2021, probably. The 2022 rules will hopefully bring some fairness to the sport and will bring close action.”
Renault had invested in Daniel Ricciardo, and then the Australian jumped ship to McLaren. Now, with Alonso back for the third time, the time may be right for Renault to move up.
