Why Alonso already looks like a sportscar great

Fernando Alonso isn't just contesting the Le Mans 24 Hours with Toyota, he's doing the full World Endurance Championship season. And on the basis of his performance at Daytona last weekend, he's got the skills and desire to become a sportscar great.

Gary Watkins Feb 1, 2018, 10:53 AM

Upd: Feb 1, 2018, 11:59 AM

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Fernando Alonso is ready and willing for the challenge of the Le Mans 24 Hours. That much became clear long before he'd completed his final stint at the end of his run-out last weekend in the Daytona equivalent. Toyota's star signing for the 2018/19 World Endurance Championship superseason didn't look like a sportscar rookie.

It wasn't that he impressed in qualifying: he overachieved with a time less than a second off the pole at the wheel of the United Autosports Ligier-Gibson JSP217 he shared with Lando Norris and Phil Hanson. But would we have expected anything else of a two-time Formula 1 world champion who wrung the neck of an uncompetitive McLaren-Honda for three largely wasted seasons? Of course not.

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Author Gary Watkins

Gary Watkins has, for reasons best known to himself, devoted all his working life to covering sportscar racing. This season is his 32nd as a motorsport journalist, during which time he has reported on major long-distance events on four continents and approaching 75 24-hour races. He reckons a degree in political philosophy makes him well qualified for covering the sometimes Machiavellian world of international sportscars.

Gary, who also writes for Autoweek, Motor Sport, Autocourse, RACER and others, lives in Surbiton but spends more time on the road than at home for most of the year.