F1 News, Reports and Race Results

Alonso turns his attention to LMP2

Fresh from his first taste of a Toyota LMP1 car at the weekend, Fernando Alonso was trying out a new set of wheels on Tuesday.

The two-time world champion had a chance to drive the LMP2 car he will be competing in at next year's Rolex 24 at Daytona.

Alonso got a chance to drive the Ligier JS P217 at the Ciudad del Motor de Aragón in Alcañiz, Spain on Tuesday. The team revealed the test with pictures on its Twitter feed.

Daytona will be Alonso's sportscar racing début. He's competing for United Autosports, the team co-founded by his McLaren F1 boss Zak Brown.

His team mates include the squad's regular driver Phil Hansen, together with McLaren's new test and reserve driver Lando Norris. Norris will also be making his Formula 2 début this weekend in Abu Dhabi.

Today's run won't be Alonso's only chance to get acquainted with his new set of wheels. The traditional 'Roar Before the 24' will allow drivers to run at Daytona International Speedway on January 5-7.

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The 24-hour race itself takes place at the end of the month, over the weekend of January 27-28.

Alonso's participation at Daytona was initially seen as a way for him to get him acquainted with endurance racing. His ultimate aim is to compete at Le Mans, which was the focus of Sunday's test with Toyota.

Despite Sundays' test, it's not yet been confirmed whether Toyota will extend an invitation to Alonso for Le Mans.

Toyota Motorsport GmbH technical director Pascal Vasselon said Alonso had done a good job in the Bahrain test. He added it had been "very disciplined. No spins, no off-track, no damage on the car, which is the first target we give.

"We have time now to think about the future," he said. However, he declined to comment whether there would be any further outings for the Spaniard.

"At the moment it was just a fantastic opportunity."

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.