As he returned to Formula 1 after two years away, Fernando Alonso took a few races to play himself in. But once he’d done that he left little room for doubt that he is every bit as quick and tenacious as he was when he won his last world championship 15 years ago.
Fernando AlonsoBeat team mate in qualifying11/22Beat team mate in race9/18Races finished20/22Laps spent ahead of team mate626/1127Qualifying margin+0.35sPoints81
When Esteban Ocon was eliminated in Q1 in Bahrain and Alonso pressed on into the final 10, it looked as though the two-times champion was going to dish out the kind of pummelling Stoffel Vandoorne suffered at his hands back in 2018. But that proved a false dawn.
At Imola, where he dropped out in Q2 and skidded off the track on a wet reconnaissance lap, then fell behind Ocon in the race, Alonso admitted he wasn’t fully comfortable in the Alpine yet. Ocon left him behind in qualifying at Algarve and in Spain Alonso couldn’t match his team mate’s delicate touch…