Mansell questions Alonso's 'motivation'

Former Formula One world champion Nigel Mansell has questioned Fernando Alonso's "motivation" for venturing out into other motorsports this season in addition to his F1 commitments, and thinks that the reason for the Spaniard's move into endurance racing is perhaps because his new McLaren MCL33 is not up to much.

Alonso has not played down his desire to claim motorsport's 'triple crown' which includes victories at the Monaco Grand Prix, the Indianapolis 500, and Le Mans, and will compete with Toyota in the World Endurance Championship in the 2018 season.

Mansell, however, does not know why he is spreading himself thin.

“I don’t know what the motivation is,” Mansell told Sky Sports.

“For me it bodes that the car isn’t going to be as competitive as we all hoped for, so he wants to be in a competitive car doing something else and having the opportunity to win.

“When you are a winner you want to be competitive and you want to be able to win and compete at the front. I just think the rationale behind it - if you focus on trying to do a great job… I just hope they don’t score an home [own] goal.”

Mansell has previous experience of sharing his duties over two motorsport disciplines, as in 1993 he became the only driver in history to hold both the F1 and CART titles at the same time. He has warned Alonso that all commitments must receive enough attention, though.

"Circumstances are very different now.

“Reliability should be much better but you mustn’t have one detracting from the other. If it can all be worked out then great you can have a lot of fun with it.”