Formula One has Not Seen the Last of Fernando Alonso

Fernando Alonso hung up his racing boots at the end of the 2018 Formula One season. However, there is a possibility that he could be involved with McLaren in the future. It is said that McLaren is considering him, among others, as a reserve for the 2019 Formula 1 season.

Back in 2018, Formula 2 racer Sergio Sette Camara was appointed as the reserve driver. However,  the Brazilian is not eligible for a superlicence as he has not accumulated enough points. This will actually be detrimental in case the team needs a replacement.

Meanwhile, fellow McLaren junior Nyck de Vries has enough points for a superlicence. But, the Dutchman’s role with the team remains unspecified.

Coming back to the subject of Alonso, the double world champion may have retired, but remains linked with the team through its Indianapolis 500 project. The Spanish star will be returning to the Indy 500 with McLaren this year.

Speaking to the media during the MCL34 launch, team boss Zak Brown admitted that McLaren is not short of options in the reserve driver department.

“Fernando is still part of the team with our Indy 500 project,” Brown said. “Gil ultimately leads our kind of driver plan so we have a few plans in directions that we could go if we needed a reserve driver.

“I think we’d probably stop short of announcing our reserve driver, but I think there is a variety of drivers out there that if we need someone on short notice could fill that role.”

According to Brown, at the end of 2018, McLaren spoke to Alonso regarding the possibility of testing the 2019 car ahead of the start of the season.

Now, the new plan is to use just race drivers Carlos Sainz and Lando Norris.

“Right now we are taking testing one day at a time,” he said.

“We are focusing on our racing drivers. Any time you go into pre-season testing and doing everything from reliably and performance, you have a set plan and you take it one day at a time.”