Fernando Alonso is likely to get behind the wheel of McLaren’s new MCL34 during the upcoming Barcelona tests, Spanish media claim.
While the double world champion retired from Formula 1 at the end of last year, he is maintaining close ties to the British team as they prepare for a second bid at the Indianapolis 500 later this year.
Also, McLaren drivers Carlos Sainz and Lando Norris have welcomed the possibility of Alonso bringing his wealth of experience to the 2019 car and it seems he’ll get the chance to do that next month.
“It seems that Alonso will test for half a day, but it is not known if it will happen in the first week or the second,” Marca correspondent Marco Canseco reported.
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While the apparent desire to call on the 37-year-old may appear to suggest a lack of trust in McLaren’s all-new line-up, CEO Zak Brown insisted that was not the case.
“The offseason development has gone according to plan but you ultimately don’t know what the competition has been up to and the competition is tough and is getting tougher,” he said initially.
“We need good feedback from them [Sainz & Norris] – this will be a much different car to 2018 and their feedback is excellent.
“We want them to race the field hard. Naturally, teammates race each other hard but they do get on and are good guys and for us to move forward as a team we need them both bringing back the cars and the points. They know that. That’s the team goal.”