Fernando Alonso will drive for Alpine, the renamed Renault with Esteban Ocon in 2021. For that year there are no major changes in the regulations, but for 2022 a lot is planned to change. The most important is probably that the teams will not be allowed to work on the cars until 1 January 2022. Alonso is therefore keen to be sharp from the very first moment.

Renault executive Marcin Budkowski explains at Formula1.com that the Spaniard has already indicated that he wants to start developing the 2022 car right away. "We were in the wind tunnel when he said that we shouldn't work on the 2022 car yet," says Budkowski. Alonso was immediately able to pose a challenge to his future employer.

Alonso tests a lot in 2018-Renault

"I indicated that we should only develop from the first day in January. So we're going to start testing right away on 1 January", the Spaniard said, according to Renault's F1 top executive. It also showed that Alonso still has a lot of motivation in it. "He promised that we would have a test on the first day and that he would help us with that himself. This is a good sign of his motivation".

Alonso is already making a lot of test kilometres in Renault's 2018 car and with that the team wants to prepare Alonso for the new season, in which there will be a lot less test days. "He wants to get back into shape and we see it as an opportunity to work on various things, such as the steering wheel, the position of the buttons and practising all the procedures, which can be done less in 2021," concludes Budkowski.