Category: REGULARS

Period competition cars will feature prominently at two Grand Prix weekends this summer as Masters Historic Racing further strengthens its links with contemporary Formula 1.

Against a backdrop of changing race weekend schedules and a push to enhance the appeal of modern F1 events, Masters Historic Formula 1 cars will race at the British Grand Prix and the new Masters Endurance Legends series, for Le Mans prototype and GT cars built between 1995 and 2012, will appear at the revived French Grand Prix.

In recent seasons, European Grand Prix weekends have existed on a staple support race package of GP2/F2 and sometimes uninspiring GP3 and Porsche Supercup races. However, the Silverstone and Paul Ricard race weekends will now feature race action from spectacular bygone machinery, and the quality of the new support races is likely to gain favour with race fans.

Continental European F1 races are now slated to start at 3.10pm rather than 1pm, while the French race will start at 4.10pm to avoid live a TV clash with the Football World Cup. The later starts have come on the back of audience research, both live at the track and on TV, and have opened the door to an increased support race programme.

Historic Formula 1 cars will return to the British Grand Prix weekend at Silverstone ( July 6-8), marking the 70th anniversary of the circuit, and a grid of about 30 cars from 1966 through to 1985 is expected.

Masters Historic Racing founder Ron Maydon said: “The fact that we have been asked to organise a support race at the British Grand Prix certainly reflects the quality of the show we put on at Montréal, Austin and Mexico City last year.”

However, the big surprise was the announcement that the fledging Masters Endurance Legends series, pictured below, had earned a slot at the revived French Grand Prix at Paul Ricard ( June 22-24).

The series, which caters for cars as young as six years old, will have two races at Paul Ricard as the French Grand Prix returns after a 10-year absence. The Paul Ricard circuit has not hosted the race since 1990, when it was won by Alain Prost’s Ferrari 641/2.

“I’m proud that in its first year Masters Endurance Legends will be able to showcase its spectacular variety during the French Grand Prix weekend,” said Maydon. “The Paul Ricard circuit is perfect for these cars and I’m sure we will put on a good show for the crowd.”

WHIZZO WALTZES OFF

Barrie Williams, one of Britain’s best-loved racing drivers, has retired from competition after 60 years.

Once dubbed a ‘whizz kid’ by journalist Andrew Marriott, Williams gained the nickname of ‘Whizzo’ and has thrilled race fans with his sideways style ever since. He made his first start in a Morris Minor at Rufforth, on Easter Sunday 1960.

Williams, who will be 80 in November, is stepping down from racing but will remain involved in the sport through his roles with a number of clubs and organisations.

“I’ve had a bloody good time racing,” he said. “It’s all I’ve ever really done and I’ve got huge memories. But I’ve got to be sensible. I still want to put something back into the sport that has given me so much.”

Williams was renowned for his success in saloon and sports cars and only briefly dabbled with single-seaters in the mid-1960s. The death of Jim Clark in 1968 persuaded him to focus on sports and saloon cars and he raced a works Colt in the BSCC and won a series of one-make titles. In his earlier years he rallied extensively and won the 1964 Welsh Rally in his Mini Cooper – his first experience of forest rallying.

In 1986 Barrie made his debut in historic racing and over the last 25 years competed extensively in historics. He raced ERAs, Jaguar C-types, BRMs and much more and was a regular Goodwood Revival winner. His exuberant style, both on and off the track, won him many friends and he’s always had time for everyone, no matter what their position in the sport.

But now he has decided to call time. “I raced every year for nearly 60 years and it was a way of life,” he said, “but now it’s time to stop.”

LAT

ULSTER REUNION

Walter Röhrl, one of the most respected rally drivers of a generation, will celebrate a landmark performance in Irish rallying when he stars at the Titanic Déjà Vu Ulster Rally reunion on Saturday September 1.

The German star will return to the scene of his dominant win on the 1984 Ulster Rally for Déjà Vu Motorsport’s latest rally celebration, organised to raise charity funds.

Thirty-four years ago Röhrl and Christian Geistdörfer entered the Ulster Rally in their Group B Audi Quattro S4 and decimated the best of the domestic two-wheel-drive opposition, headed by the Opel Mantas of Russell Brookes and Jimmy McRae.

The Ulster event will be based in Belfast’s Titanic Quarter and will include a noncompetitive 150-mile run over classic Circuit of Ireland and Ulster Rally terrain.

Röhrl will head a cavalcade of historic rally cars over famous Antrim stages like Glen Dunn and the spectacular Torr Head coast road. He will be then joined by other rally stars at a gala dinner in Titanic Belfast on Saturday.

“I’m delighted that he has accepted an invitation to headline our event,” said Dr Beatty Crawford from Déjà Vu Motorsport. To date, the Déjà Vu programme has raised £70,000 for charity.

DHF’S FRESH LOOK

The 2018 Donington Historic Festival will feature 14 grids and up to 19 races over three days, taking in some of the UK’s leading historic categories. Races for the May 4-6 event range from the Mad Jack Trophy for Pre-War Sports Cars to the opening races of the season for the Super Touring Trophy. Racing will run throughout Saturday and Sunday after qualifying on Friday.

The 1000Kms race for Group 4 sports cars, which has run in the prime early Saturday evening slot in recent years, is not on the 2018 schedule and a new race will take centre stage as the sun sets on the second day of the festival.

For the first time the HSCC’s Derek Bell Trophy will feature and will bring out a grid of mainly Formula 5000 and Formula 2 single-seaters of the 1970s. The DBT pack will appear twice, with 25-minute races on Saturday and Sunday.

LE MANS CLASSIC

A star-studded entry has been revealed for the 2018 edition of the Le Mans Classic ( July 6-8), including Derek Bell and five other former Le Mans 24 Hours winners.

The Classic features six 50-car grids, which all race several times during a 24-hour period. In addition a Group C race, for the cars of the 1980s and early 1990s, will run as a curtain-raiser on Saturday morning.

Five-time winner Bell will be joined by three-time winners Klaus Ludwig, Henri Pescarolo and Marco Werner for the event, which features cars that contested the Le Mans 24 Hours between 1923 and 1981. Stéphane Ortelli and Jochen Mass will complete the gathering of former 24-hour winners at the biennial celebration.

Bell is provisionally scheduled to race a Porsche 917LH, in a rare racing appearance for the 917 long-tail evolution developed for the 1971 race. Now 76 years old, Bell will race at Le Mans more than 30 years after his final Porsche 962 victory in the 24 Hours and 48 years on from his debut in the race alongside Ronnie Peterson in a works Ferrari 512S. Bell contested the 24 Hours race 26 times in 27 years from 1970 to 1996.

Porsche is using the event to celebrate 70 years of the marque with a special Porscheonly race on Saturday afternoon, ahead of the main event. The promoters are targeting a grid of 70 cars spanning the early 356s to the 2.8 RSR from 1973, along with the short-wheelbase 911s from the new 2.0L Cup race series.

MATHIEU BONNEVIE

F5000 TO STAR AT MM

One of the biggest gatherings of Formula 5000s ever seen in the UK will feature at the 76th Members’ Meeting at Goodwood (March 17/18). As many as 30 of the thundering 5-litre monsters will take to the track for high-speed demonstration sessions to mark the 50th year of the category, which started in North America as Formula A.

Most F5000s have never run at Goodwood and cars are being shipped from the other side of the world to join the celebrations. From the UK will be the ex-Peter Gethin McLaren M10B and several cars from Frank Lyons, including a stunning Gurney Eagle FA74.

Meanwhile, two rare Begg Formula 5000s will be there as Scott and Lindsay O’Donnell are coming from Christchurch, New Zealand, with two of the seven cars built between 1968 and 1974.

“For me it completes a mission of restoring and racing this car over the last 15 years to celebrate the ‘Kiwi ingenuity’ of characters like George Begg,” said Lindsay.

LAT

The next few months are going to be crucial for F1’s future according to McLaren’s chief Zak Brown. Although the new era encompassing different technical regulations and commercial terms doesn’t begin until 2021, Brown believes that a map of what that future looks like needs to be in place some time this year.

“We have a chance to course-correct 2021 now,” he says, “but Liberty and the FIA need to move quickly to minimise the period of negotiations because they will be turbulent and the longer that goes on the more disruptive it becomes. If new engine manufacturers and teams are going to come in it takes a couple of years to gear up – and time is ticking. I’d like to see what 2021 is going to look like by the middle of this season. After that, it begins to get very hard technically… In terms of costs, [Liberty is] talking of a 150 million [euros] cap. We would be in excess of that cap at the moment, some others more so. But we have – as do the others – an automotive business, a technology business and other forms of racing. So if those decisions were made this year, it would give us all enough time to redeploy resources we have today that we won’t need in 2021.”

Brown is effectively challenging Liberty and the FIA to set out its stall early, to give Mercedes and Ferrari the choice of either agreeing – or leaving. Because it’s becoming increasingly clear that the Ferrari/Mercedes position is different to everyone else’s. Whether that’s a difference in fundamental beliefs or one of negotiating position isn’t clear.

There are three basic areas of discussion:

1) ENGINE REGULATIONS

The four current engine manufacturers are in broad agreement on future engine regulations – which is for a continuation of the current hybrid with ERS-h – but the would-be new manufacturers would not countenance coming in under that formula. The independent teams, by and large, favour the presence of at least one independent engine manufacturer – and therefore by default disagree with the continuation of ERS-h. Ferrari’s Sergio Marchionne has been vocal in dismissing the idea of abolishing this technology as ‘dumbing down’ and against Ferrari’s brand values. Mercedes is in broad agreement.

2) REVENUE DISTRIBUTION

Liberty is on record as saying it wishes to create a more even spread of F1 revenues between the teams, but hasn’t publicly stated the scope of the redistribution. Force India and Sauber have recently withdrawn their long-running joint complaint to the European Union about anti-competitive practices, whereby the big teams (but most notably Ferrari) receive disproportionately more than the rest. They withdrew it because of their belief in Liberty’s Chase Carey and his team. “Their approach has brought a new culture of transparency to the sport and illustrates willingness to debate fundamental issues such as the distribution of the prize fund monies, cost control and engine regulations,” read a joint statement from the two teams. Obviously, Liberty isn’t talking about giving its share of the money to the less favoured teams – that money has got to be surrendered by Ferrari, Merc, Red Bull. Not an easy sell…

3) COST REDUCTIONS

The FIA has recently engaged McLaren’s former boss Martin Whitmarsh to help it frame a post-2020 control upon costs, with Liberty having floated the idea of a future team cost cap of about 150 million euros per year.

WHAT’S BEST FOR F1?

“I CAN UNDERSTAND WHY FERRARI AND Mercedes want to protect their position,” says Brown, “but I think we need to ask: if Mercedes wins seven championships in a row, is that good for the sport? Is it healthy for anyone in the sport? On current spend and regs, they are odds-on favourites to win the next three years.”

The imbalanced payments – largely created when previous owner CVC needed the signatures of the top teams as it tried to float the sport on the stock market – are constantly expanding and reinforcing the advantages of the big teams over the small. But even that is being compounded by a highly complex cutting-edge engine that only one, maybe two, manufacturers have truly mastered even after four years. That unfortunate combination has frozen in place a static competitive order – and, if not radically changed at the 2021 opportunity, threatens to freeze things indefinitely. The two main beneficiaries of that competitive order, carrying enormous political weight, don’t want it radically changed.

Liberty’s Carey and Ross Brawn have been at pains not to conduct negotiations in public and have stated they will negotiate for as long as is required to get something that all parties can live with. But the concern that Brown outlines is that this very delay could be what ensures nothing will really change. “I think Liberty needs to focus on what’s best for the sport and what’s best for the fan. If that means a team/manufacturer not supporting that, then I think Liberty and the FIA need to be prepared to recognise you’re not going to make everyone happy. So they need to just centre on what’s best for the sport. If someone feels that’s to the detriment of their team and leaves, I’d rather that than have just two teams that can win.”

So, call the bluff of Ferrari and Mercedes? What if they do leave? “I think that’s highly unlikely but anything’s possible,” says Brown. “So we need to land on a set of rules that allows other teams to enter in the unlikely event of one or the other of the existing ones not continuing. Ferrari is a unique case but we’ve all seen manufacturers come and go in the sport. We have to write rules that are best for the sport, not what’s best for today’s manufacturers.”

So what does Brown hope 2021 F1 will look like? “F1 of all the major sports has the biggest revenue discrepancy from first to last. We’ve got to close that. Costs are totally out of control. We’re probably the only industry in the world, let alone sport, that hasn’t addressed costs in today’s age. I think that’s the highest priority. If people are making more money than others, I’m OK with that, so long as they are not able to spend it to increase this great gap in competitiveness. The engines are obviously complicated, and expensive, and there probably needs to be an independent manufacturer in there to give teams greater choice because the engine situation does get very political. The FIA announced a direction of more simplified engines. We support that. I’m not exactly sure of the FIA’s position on cost cap vs cost containment, but I think cost containment is very difficult and cost cap is the way to go. If you have the money you’ll figure out how to use it. Like the wind tunnel hours restriction. Teams just spent money instead on extracting more data from the more limited running. That’s a good example of how cost containment doesn’t really work.”

So McLaren, like most teams outside the Ferrari/Mercedes alliance but against the current engine suppliers, supports a simplified technical formula that would allow an independent engine supplier and make entry to F1 for new teams easier. This plus a radically tough cost cap of about half the budget of the top two teams. Sailing a smooth path through these troubled waters to 2021 is going to take some feat of diplomacy.

Brown: “It’s going to get pretty aggressive, I think. There’s going to be talk of breakaways. I hope not because a breakaway isn’t feasible, but I’m sort of resigned to the fact it’ll be used as a threat. But hopefully the conversations are more constructive in trying to get a solution and can be concluded quickly.”

HOT TOPIC

The Porsche Curves stand up there with the Esses and Tertre Rouge, the Mulsanne Straight, and the right and the left-hander at Indianapolis as an iconic sequences around the 8.47-mile Circuit de la Sarthe at Le Mans. Some are arguing that the completion of a round of safety upgrades at the four-corner section of permanent track created back in 1972 has robbed them of some of their challenge and much of their character.

The hemmed-in nature of the track, with unyielding walls on either side, helped give the Porsche Curves a flavour of their own. They were traditionally corners in which the best – and perhaps bravest – drivers excelled.

Critics of the changes argue that a bit of what makes Le Mans unique has been eroded. The track was opened up on the outside of the final right-hander for last year’s 24 Hours and the process has now been completed with the addition of new asphalt run-off on the inside for this year.

The character of the final right will inevitably change, but the powers that be at the Automobile Club de l’Ouest argue that improving the safety features around the existing layout was preferable to the alternative. That might have involved a wholesale rejig of the Porsche Curves or, perish the thought, the addition of a chicane.

They point out that the Porsche Curves have survived the latest safety improvements with their route intact. The corners themselves haven’t changed. We should be thankful for that.

It’s late in the evening. Toyota has booked the Portimão track in southern Portugal for an epic 30-hour endurance test. We have 20 minutes to discuss the season ahead – in which Fernando Alonso will, uniquely in the modern era, contest two world championships, F1 and the WEC. He’s typically sharp-witted and articulate, even if there’s a hint of weariness in his body language.

Outside, his Toyota prototype continues to pound around. He is driving the car for multiple stints during this test, and has just emerged from his first night session in a 1000bhp sports car – arguably the most sophisticated racing car ever built.

When he announced his intention to race WEC and F1 he said he looked forward to the ‘challenge’; he’s certainly got that…

You need to be sharp

Adapting to the new car – the new driving style, new environment, new team, new rules – everything is different. You need to do your homework and you need to be flexible and adaptable every time you are in the car. The thing about endurance, and about 24 hours, it’s that every single lap is different. It’s not like Formula 1 where you do continuous laps, in known territory. Here, in one lap you find two GT cars, another you are alone, another is at night, another is 30 degrees. Every lap is different so you have to adapt.

I came close to doing Le Mans when I was with Ferrari

I waved the green flag at Le Mans in 2014, and I was very close to racing there in ’13 and ’14, but Ferrari was not very keen on sharing anything with other brands. When I joined McLaren it was very close, but it didn’t happen for different reasons. Now it has finally happened – with the best team possible so I am extremely happy now.

I train a lot in karting

It still helps. I have done some 24-hour kart race to prepare for this. All the kids I follow and help, even when they are 14-15 they want to switch to cars and I stop them. The highest level in karting is 100 times higher than an F4 or F3 championship, so karting is not only the best school, it is probably the third- or fourth-biggest arena in motor sport.

I am preparing for Le Mans much more deeply than I did Indy

At Indy we were leading the race, it was very demanding, it was very challenging. At least with this I am able to test here and I have done Daytona. So I have done some traffic management and driver changes. And the speed is there. For this I am more prepared than Indy. You have to be.

The acceleration is just amazing

The car is giving you different challenges and different feelings. The electronics are very sophisticated, you have everything optimised from the four-wheel drive and the traction control. You know, with 1000 horsepower – it’s amazing. It’s very impressive because the whole thing is about endurance but also about consistency.

The four-wheel drive and the tyres are probably the biggest difference

How the car works, and how the tyres work to be very consistent over 60 laps, is very impressive. Normally with the other [F1] cars you drive around the tyre degradation and you change your style because the tyre is not able to cope. This car you can drive with your own style for 60 laps because the car will give you that opportunity – and that’s good. When you drive a corner with this car you rely on the systems – you rely on the traction control, the four-wheel drive, the front motor and the rear motor.

To have the confidence to do this sort of thing takes a little bit of time

Here [at Portimão] in the last corner, in testing, you have a blind corner. When it’s night and you can’t see… you are still flat out because the car will do the best to go out of the corner. You have to trust that it will know what to do on that corner to optimise the acceleration. Sometimes it’s difficult to rely on that [trust].

Fernando Alonso’s 2018-19racing schedule 20018

January 27-28 Daytona 24 Hours

March 25
Australian Grand Prix

April 8
Bahrain Grand Prix

April 15
Chinese Grand Prix

April 29
Azerbaijan Grand Prix

May 5
WEC Spa

May 13
Spanish Grand Prix

May 27
Monaco Grand Prix

June 10
Canadian Grand Prix

June
16-17 Le Mans 24 Hours

June 24
French Grand Prix

July 1
Austrian Grand Prix

July 8
British Grand Prix

July 22
German Grand Prix

July 29
Hungarian Grand Prix

August 19
WEC Silverstone

August 26
Belgian Grand Prix

September 2
Italian Grand Prix

September 16
Singapore Grand Prix

September 30
Russian Grand Prix

October 7
Japanese Grand Prix

October 21
United States Grand Prix

October 28
Mexican Grand Prix

November 11
Brazilian Grand Prix

November 18
WEC Shanghai

November 25
Abu Dhabi Grand Prix

2019*

March 16-17 12 Hours of Sebring

March
Australian Grand Prix

April
Bahrain Grand Prix

April
Chinese Grand Prix

April
Azerbaijan Grand Prix

May 4
WEC 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps

May
Spanish Grand Prix

May
Monaco Grand Prix

June 15-16 24 Hours of Le Mans

Dates for 2019 Formula 1 Grands Prix based on 2018 calendar

I’ve never driven the Le Mans track, not even on the simulator

I’m curious to see how the feeling is. At night too. Singapore, Bahrain, Abu Dhabi – even at Daytona it’s quite well illuminated but here [Portimao testing] it’s dark and I think Le Mans is somewhere in the middle. After some testing I think Le Mans will be easier, hopefully, but you put some traffic and some cars around that will be the biggest challenge.

Sharing the car with other drivers? It’s part of the game.

Knowing what others may need, and what setup they are happy with, and why they are happy with that setup. How they can make that setup work, how they enter a corner and don’t have the problems you have. It’s part of where you can learn.

I’m learning a lot. The atmosphere is amazing, from the first day, everyone really friendly. We have a WhatsApp group that we are constantly chatting. Today we were taking pictures of the others, if they are cutting the track here or there. Atmosphere is so different, so open, and so friendly.

The first race at Spa will feel different.

It will feel strange – but maybe not the circuit. We will see. The prototype training I have done so far has been on new circuits, so everything has been strange. Even the rain. At Spa it rains a lot. One of the three days, if it rains it will be the first time in a closed cockpit car with the rain. So we will have to see how good the wiper is…

I watched some of the WEC races, and the visibility doesn’t look that bad – but we will see. Maybe it’s the covered rear wheels, and maybe that doesn’t spray as much as F1.

I know every single day in the year where I will be and what I will do.

The calendar is something I look at very carefully. Everyone looks at the races, but the biggest time and most energy-consuming things will be the marketing events with the F1 team, the personal commitments, media activities and the travelling – that will be the worst part. For 27 Sundays – the racing will be the easiest thing. You close the visor and you go. But there is Russia, Japan, Fuji, Austin, Mexico, China, Brazil so there will be seven or eight consecutive races in different parts of the world. But I know every single flight I have to take. I have everything in the calendar very efficiently.

If I have any days free in my diary I will be at home.

I will be doing my training, I will jump on the bicycle with friends, I will be busy with my family. I will not spend any free energy. Even now, in February, and I have a little more time now, I will save because the batteries I will need in September and October.

I have been a long time in the garage in the last three years…

You know, waiting for my car to be repaired [laughs]. I know from Daytona, even after a [team-mate] crash, I was surprised that everyone in the pitlane was ready to go. With this car the team is ready, they are ready to change the front corner, and they are ready to go.

I don’t have any plan beyond this superseason.

We will see if we are in that position to be in [to do Indy]. Last year the Indy experience, being happy there, feeling competitive there, it opened my eyes. Now if I can be competitive here as well, and we have the chance to win Le Mans, maybe I could have another attempt in the future and hopefully be competitive again.

Fernando Alonso will race a Toyota TS050 Hybrid this year, and not just at the Le Mans 24 Hours. The McLaren Formula 1 driver will contest the full 2018/19 World Endurance Championship superseason with the Japanese manufacturer. That’s presuming there are no clashes between the three events in 2019 and next year’s F1 calendar. But there aren’t any conflicts this season, because the WEC has changed its one date that did fall on a Grand Prix weekend.

Moving the Fuji round to avoid a clash with the US Grand Prix in Austin has been controversial, and even viewed as cynical in some quarters. But it is a clear indication of the importance of the arrival of a two-time F1 world champion in a series that needs an important story line in the wake of the disappearance of first Audi and then Porsche from the LMP1 class at the front of the field.

The shift of the Fuji date is contentious because it has already been changed once. The original calendar listed the Fuji 6 Hours on the same weekend, October 13/14, as the Petit Le Mans round of the IMSA SportsCar Championship in North America.

A clamour from WEC drivers who were working on deals for the long-distance rounds that make up IMSA’s North American Endurance Cup resulted in it being moved back a week shortly after the original calendar was announced last year.

The desire to accommodate both Alonso and his WEC employer, which owns and runs the Fuji circuit, has resulted in a volte face. It comes at a time when the WEC and its promoter, the Automobile Club de l’Ouest at Le Mans, are trying to deepen a long-standing relationship with IMSA: they are lobbying the governing body of North American sports car racing to adopt the new LMP1 rules they are planning for 2020/21.

WEC boss Gerard Neveu has steadfastly defended the U-turn, insisting that it was necessary to “protect the interests of the championship”.

“How can you imagine having someone like Alonso in your paddock, racing for Toyota, and saying that we are going to Japan without him?” Neveu said. “Fernando wants to fight for the world championship; he cannot miss one race. It was logical.

“When you take a decision like this, you know always some people will be happy and some will be unhappy. It made sense for us to do it and I am very sorry for drivers who have a clash.”

He pointed out that IMSA knew what having a driver of Alonso’s profile on the grid meant. The Spaniard, of course, contested the Daytona 24 Hours IMSA opener in January with the United Autosports team co-owned by McLaren boss Zak Brown. His presence brought the race to the attention of a whole new audience.

Neveu raised the hope that the date of Petit, which falls a week later than usual, might be able to change. But a matter-of-fact statement from an IMSA spokesman ruled that out.

“The WEC did ask IMSA to change the date of this year’s Motul Petit Le Mans, and IMSA did respectfully consider this request and explored doing so,” he said. “Due to some factors such as television coverage, IMSA’s year-end banquet on the same weekend, and competitor and manufacturer logistics already being in place, it was determined there were too many hurdles to overcome to move the event.”

A raft of WEC drivers who have deals to race in the NAEC events have hit out at the date change. Ganassi WEC driver Olivier Pla, who is signed with the Extreme Speed Motorsports Daytona Prototype international squad for the IMSA enduros, suggested that the move wasn’t “nice and wasn’t fair”.

“When there was a clash on the first version of the calendar, we went to the WEC and asked them to change it. When they did, I went back to them and thanked them,” he said. “I understand that they have done it for Alonso, but they have put a lot of drivers, maybe as many as 10, in a difficult situation.”

Bruno Senna, Nicolas Lapierre and Harry Tincknell are among the high-profile WEC drivers with additional IMSA rides. Then there are the factory GT drivers who join the IMSA series for the long races. Gianmaria Bruni, for exampled, had been set to race at Petit.

Alonso’s pulling power is just too important to the WEC to ignore in its hour of need, as is its on-going relationship with Toyota. The Japanese manufacturer is a major player in the rule-making process for 2020/21. It has made no guarantee to continue beyond the superseason, but it is the nearest the WEC and Le Mans have to a manufacturer with a commitment to LMP1.

Its signing of Alonso can be interpreted an indication of a commitment to the WEC. It knows that if it is winning as it pleases against a band of P1 privateers, the profile of a championship that has hung its hat on the fierce battles between itself and Porsche and Audi will undoubtedly suffer.

The gaze of the world’s media will be on the WEC courtesy of Toyota’s signing of one of the best Formula 1 drivers of his generation. His bid to complete the unofficial triple crown of motor sport by adding Le Mans and Indianapolis 500 victories to his pair of Monaco Grand Prix wins adds another dimension to the story.

But Alonso’s presence in the Toyota Gazoo Racing squad will be a double-edged sword for arguably the biggest underachiever in the history of Le Mans. Toyota has never won the 24 Hours, but it has come close multiple times. It was six minutes short of victory in 2016 and should have won last year and in 2014, the year it took the WEC drivers’ and manufacturers’ titles.

The problem for Toyota should it finally notch up a Le Mans victory will be one of perception. What will the headlines scream should Alonso triumph together with team-mates Sebastien Buemi and Kazuki Nakajima? ‘Toyota wins Le Mans!’ or ‘Alonso wins Le Mans!’ That’s any easy one to answer.

And what if the Alonso car doesn’t win? Or more to the point, what if the TS050 shared by Kamui Kobayashi, Mike Conway and Jose Maria Lopez wins ahead of the sister car, and narrowly so. At some point in the race, Toyota would have to tell its drivers to hold station if they are running one-two at the front of the field. Alonso, the consummate pro that he is, would understand the need for that, but would the watching world?

Alonso’s arrival in the WEC in pursuit of the triple crown, something previously achieved only by Graham Hill, has clearly overridden any such fears. It’s the same at the WEC. The boost he will provide is more important than keeping its regular drivers happy, and perhaps even than keeping its transatlantic accord with IMSA on the rails.