The news has been surprising because everyone expected it. That’s how contradictory the statement sounds. The continuity of Fernando Alonso in Alpine in the 2022 course was so done in the paddock, that the surprise has arisen due to the unsuspected official announcement. That photo of Laurent Rossi, the company’s CEO, with the two-time F1 world champion can be interpreted in different ways: as an endorsement by the French brand towards the 40-year-old veteran driver, as a vote of confidence from the award-winning driver towards the slowed-down brand, as both, or simply as an effective marketing move. Deep down, it doesn’t matter. The important thing is that Alonso is still at Alpine, thanks to a mutual commitment that was always a two-season project.
A first year, 2021, of reunion and coupling, but with limited prospects of great results due to the current World Cup regulations, which opens a huge gap between the potential of cars. Even so, things are not bad, with the Asturian in the points of eight of the eleven races, and with a victory for Esteban Ocon driven by his teamwork. And later a year of hope, 2022, which opens many questions, in many cases exciting, about the competitiveness of the teams, because nobody knows for sure how fast the cars will be with the incoming regulations, which aims to balance the races and value the expertise of the driver over the mechanics. A perfect scenario for Alonso, who never hid that his return to Formula 1 was linked to that presumed equality that is seen on the horizon. Alpine has renewed Fernando’s contract, or perhaps it has been the other way around, with the exciting feeling that the best of the alliance of this new 40-year-old Alonso with his old Renault house is yet to come.