Fernando Alonso is likely to take up the role of unofficial reserve driver at McLaren during the 2019 season.
The Spaniard may have left his Formula 1 seat at the end of last year to focus on personal goals elsewhere, but, as CEO Zak Brown noted at the launch of their new car at Woking on Thursday…
“Fernando is still part of the team with our Indy 500 project.”
And McLaren has also left the door open to Alonso to bring his wealth of knowledge and experience to the F1 operation by assisting their new line-up of Carlos Sainz and Lando Norris.
Should there be a situation when either of their drivers is unable to race, it also seems probable that the double world champion would be the first man they call.
“[Sporting director] Gil [de Ferran] 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,” Brown continued.
“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.”
The reason why Alonso would be so likely, however, is their current young drivers, Sergio Sette Camara and Nyck de Vries, are not eligible for the mandatory F1 super-license.
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In recent weeks, there has also been speculation that the 37-year-old would conduct at least half a day of testing in the new MCL34 during the upcoming Barcelona tests to offer McLaren a comparison to last year’s car.
On this too, Brown was non-committal.
“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.”