Fernando Alonso’s quest to win the Triple Crown of Motorsport (Monaco, Indy and Le Mans) continues, and we couldn’t love it more. Alonso confirmed to the World Endurance Championship today that he was going to test out the Toyota Ts050 LMP1 tomorrow, like he might be gunning for a Le Mans seat or something.
Alonso is at today’s 6 Hours of Bahrain as a guest of the Bahraini Royal Family, but he confirmed that he wouldn’t be flying out immediately after the race is done. Oh, no—he’s got to test out Toyota’s top-class Le Mans prototype first.
“I don’t know, maybe I’ll have to do some laps of the circuit...” Alonso coyly told commentators, as quoted by NBC Sports’ Luke Smith.
Sunday at Bahrain is the WEC’s big Rookie Test for teams looking for fill seats in 2018.
Toyota is the only current manufacturer LMP1 team likely to continue next year in WEC’s transitional mega-season, as it reworks its top class and shifts its calendar around to end with Le Mans in May.
We couldn’t love it more. Alonso is our fantastic throwback to the old-school racing drivers who’ll drive anything they can get their hands on. It’s a breath of fresh air in today’s world of restrictive contracts that don’t want signed top-level pros getting hurt in a side series. I’m a big believer that doing cool things is worth the risk, and McLaren’s chill with letting Alonso do it.
Alonso will also be driving in the 24 Hours of Daytona next year with United Autosports, so it makes sense to go on and do Le Mans after that, right? Right.
UPDATE [11/21]: Turns out Alonso was at Toyota’s headquarters after all! Toyota team president Hisatake Murata told Sportscar365:
We are very excited that Fernando will test our car. When he visited us in Cologne everyone who met him could sense his enthusiasm and passion for our sport; he is a true racer.
We very much respect his interest in different forms of motorsport and it is a pleasure to offer him this chance to drive a hybrid LMP1 car. It will be interesting to hear his feedback on the TS050 Hybrid.”