Fernando Alonso admits even he doesn’t know exactly what ‘El Plan’ is.
The Spaniard made a welcome return to Formula 1 in 2021 with Alpine, showing the fighting spirit he’s known for in a battle with Lewis Hamilton in Hungary before capping off the season with a first podium since 2013 in Qatar.
Throughout the year, Alonso became associated with ‘El Plan’ and it gained something of a cult following, even appearing on the rear wings of the cars in Abu Dhabi.
“It’s a good question, I started to see it too,” Alonso was quoted by Soymotor.com when asked about the trend on Spanish TV.
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“It’s one of the things that social media networks have now. They started with ‘El Plan’, ‘El Plan’, ‘El Plan’ and, it’s a bad thing to say, but I don’t know what ‘El Plan’ is either.
“I think it’s part of ‘El Plan’ that I don’t know exactly what ‘El Plan’ is. You will have to bet. That’s ‘El Plan’…to scare without knowing.”
The general view is ‘El Plan’ refers to Alonso and Alpine’s push to once again be competing at the front in F1.
And after a year that saw him claim his first win in Hungary, Fernando’s teammate Esteban Ocon does think the team is on the right track.
“I think it’s been huge progress, and I’m very pleased that we’ve done that this year,” he said reflecting on 2021.
“Of course, we got two podiums, almost three, this season for the team, with a car that didn’t perform as good as last year. I think we had not as good of a package.
“But we’ve still managed to overcome these issues, get on top of it, and still score very decent results.
“[In 2022,] we want to keep going,” the Frenchman added. “And, as I said, once we are going to have the pace, I think we’re going to be quite dangerous.”
Indeed, Alpine, like many midfield teams, see the major rule changes for this year as an opportunity to springboard up the grid.
“Formula 1 is about winning until the end of the next regulatory period,” CEO Laurent Rossi told Motorsport-Total.com.
“We want to win races and possibly the championship. And that’s until the end of 2024 or 2025, depending on when the regulatory period ends.
“We saw at Mercedes and Red Bull that it took them a good four or five years to create the team they wanted. So that’s the timeline we’re on.”