Despite finishing 38th overall at the Daytona 24 Hours Fernando Alonso believes he learned a great deal about endurance racing during the course of the weekend and puts him in good stead if and when he returns to endurance racing in the future.
Double F1 world champion and current McLaren driver Alonso shared a United Autosports Ligier LMP2 with Lando Norris and Phil Hanson, the Spaniard doing the qualifying and the opening stint for the team and led briefly during the early stages.
He told media afterwards, "I have a positive feeling after this weekend's race and the whole event, I really did enjoy this a lot. I love driving and doing this for eight or nine hours in a race is great! Unfortunately, we had too many issues that were out of our control, some unlucky situations like the puncture."
"In one of the first opening stints we were the fifth car of five on the lead lap but with the puncture, we lost four laps as there was also quite a lot of damage on the car."
"Entering the night was quite a good part of the race, as the car felt quite competitive, surprisingly, as it had never been like that before. We made some changes after practice and qualifying and today we were consistently one of the three fastest cars."
"Despite the issues we had, I have a good taste in my mouth as I learned how to cope with the fatigue, traffic management, full course yellows, night driving, driver change procedures, driving preparation between the stints like how much rest you need to have and the amount of time you need to allow in the garage before taking over the car again.
"So, if and when I ever do another 24-hour race, I'll be much more prepared as it'll be my second time. Now I think I can drive prototype cars at a higher level than two weeks ago," reasoned Alonso who has been in talks to drive with the Toyota factory outfit at Le Mans this year.
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