Former world champion tells Renault to use McLaren’s ideas, according to Spanish media

If you believe Spanish paper Marca then Fernando Alonso has been telling Renault about some of the technical “ideas” he picked up in his one season at McLaren. Bear in mind that Marca does like to run all sorts of nonsense about Fernando Alonso, purely because he sells copies, but still, this is a credible story.

It’s important to state that there is nothing illegal in Alonso passing on gained knowledge that he has in his head, but it might help explain the dramatic recent improvement in Renault’s R28 car.

This sort of “knowledge sharing” goes on all the time in F1 - you can’t expect racing drivers, who are generally an intelligent bunch, to turn a blind eye when it comes to the technical aspects of their sport.

Designers do it too, of course - if one F1 designer notices that a shark-fin engine cover seems to be working for another manufacturer’s car, then he may well come up with a similiar design. There’s a fine line between plagiarism and inspiration.