McLaren would be open to letting Fernando Alonso test the 2019 car next year, CEO Zak Brown has said.
Though this weekend’s Abu Dhabi Grand Prix is considered the final race of the Spaniard’s long career, there is still a lot of maybe hope rather than expectation that he could return at some point in the future.
Alonso himself admits he can’t give a certain answer on the topic as he can’t predict his motivation in a year’s time and his current boss doesn’t see the double world champion straying too far away.
“Fernando is extremely intelligent and extremely experienced, loves Formula 1, loves racetracks, if he’s not at a World Endurance race or F1 race, he’s at an IndyCar race or he’s at his go-kart track,” Brown commented on Friday.
“So I think you’ll see him around McLaren, he remains part of the family, and where his influence will come in is helping our two drivers, he knows Carlos pretty well, he’s gotten to know Lando very well, so he’ll be a big benefit there.
“And then with the engineers and just helping us all work together to understand what next year’s car is doing, what the feedback is from the drivers and what would Fernando do in a certain situation, that experience will be very valuable to us.”
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Asked then if an advisory role could expand into a test drive at some point, the American chief replied: “Yeah, I wouldn’t rule that out.
“If he wants to test the car, we’re certainly open-minded to that, getting his feedback on the car.
“[We’ll] kind of cross that bridge when you come to it if he were to make that phone call.”