After reaching the top category of motorsport in the 2001 season with the Minardi F1 Team, Fernando Alonso signed a test driver contract for 2002 that ended up changing his life.
Despite leaving good feelings in his debut season, the Spaniard had to settle for watching all the 2002 races from the sidelines. Already in the uniform of Renault, the team that saw him reach the top, Alonso walked around the circuits with the role of test pilot of the French structure, learning basic notions that would help him in the following years.
His first job in this new role came before the 2002 season began. While it is true that this test was not his first test with Renault, it was his first time at the wheel of an Enstone car as a test driver.
Although it was already a car owned by the French team, the single-seater with which Alonso left the Circuit de Barcelona – Catalunya on January 11, 2002 was basically a Benetton B201 that had been previously redesigned for the regulations of that course by the mechanics. and team engineers.
That season, Renault returned to Formula 1 as a manufacturer after many years absent, so this test was very important for them, since, as Flavio Briatore , team director, explained at the time, it served to test the return of the structure to competition at the highest level.
After that test, quite satisfactory, Fernando Alonso managed to make the jump to a starting seat in the Renault team in the 2003 season, the year in which he achieved his first victory in a Hungarian Grand Prix that will remain in the memory, in addition to four others podiums and two poles.
In 2004, the Enstone team took another step forward, however, it was not until 2005 when the French structure managed to build a single-seater with chances of victory, something that the Spaniard did not miss after a titanic fight against Michael Schumacher’s Ferrari.
During 2005 and 2006, Alonso conquered his only two F1 world titles to date, achieving 14 victories, 12 pole positions and 29 podiums between both seasons, numbers that nobody expected on January 11, 2002, the day of the Asturian’s first test as Renault driver.
Without a doubt, that was, is and will be one of the most important days of Alonso’s sports career and, for that reason, the Spanish driver wanted to take advantage of the moment to remember it through his social networks, another nod to the 2022 season that is approaching with great goals for the Asturian driver and Alpine, previously known as Renault.
