Alonso 'comfortable and ready' ahead of WEC campaign

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Fernando Alonso says he couldn't be happier with the set-up at Toyota as he prepares to make his début for the LMP1 team in the FIA World Endurance Championship.

Alonso will be taking part in this year's WEC alongside his full season commitments in Formula 1 with McLaren.

"I feel 100 per cent comfortable and ready," the two-time world champion told Crash.net this week. "From day one, I found a great group of guys that are very productive working with all of them."

Alonso will be racing the #8 Toyota TS050 Hybrid alongside Sebastien Buemi and Kazuki Nakajima. The sister #7 car will be driven by Mike Conway, Jose Maria Lopez and Kamui Kobayashi.

“The team atmosphere is great. It’s something that is difficult to find in Formula 1," he said. "I think it's probably the best part of the team, how everyone is a group here."

Alonso added that he didn't see any differences between the two cars and their driver line-ups. "Right now, we'll go to the hotel, maybe I go with Mike and Kazuki. Then I come back here with Kobayashi and Buemi. There are not two teams.

“I think any of the six could match perfectly with the others," he said.

“We’re all on one table. It’s not a clear difference," he continued. "Maybe on race day we will see some emotions there and one car will finish ahead of the other."

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Alonso confirmed that finding a set-up that worked for everyone had been surprisingly easy.

"It's not a problem to share the car," he said. "Mechanically or aerodynamically, the car setup is good for all three drivers. When it's good, all three drivers are saying it's good.

"The seat position and things like that, we're quite similar. I think Sebastien, Kazuki and myself, in terms of the body, height and things like that."

The first round of this year's WEC campaign takes place this weekend at Spa-Francorchamps, a circuit very familiar to Alonso from his eighteen seasons in F1.

After that, Alonso will make his first-ever start in the iconic 24 Hours at Le Mans road race on June 16.

It's part of Alonso's bid to follow in the footsteps of motorsports legend Graham Hill and win the 'Triple Crown' of motorsport. As well as Le Mans, it consists of the Monaco Grand Prix and the Indianapolis 500.

Alonso is already a two-time winner at Monaco. He entered his first Indy 500 last year, although he was forced to retire with 21 laps remaining due to engine failure.

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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.