F1 Esports 2021: Alpine reveals Drivers

F1 Esports 2021: Alpine reveals Drivers

Apr 8, 2021 4 Min Read Posted by Jacob Hancox

Longuet and Donoso return for Alpine Esports Team’s first season in F1 Esports. The pair both drove for Renault in 2020.

Photo credit: Jacob Hancox / Codemasters

Alpine Esports Team have revealed the two drivers who will comprise the core of their team going into their inaugural season of the F1 Esports Pro Series. Chilean Fabrizio Donoso Delgado and Frenchman Nicolas Longuet will lead the charge for the French manufacturer throughout the 2021 season. They will eventually be joined by a third driver, who will be selected in the 2021 Pro Draft.

No Longer Renault

This will be Alpine’s first season in F1 Esports, just as it is in real-life Formula 1 as well. The team in blue is freshly re-forged from the Renault Vitality outfit which joined the tournament in its inaugural year in 2017. The decision to retain both Longuet and Donoso for 2021 brings an element of continuity and is evidence that the team is not looking to overhaul everything Renault had set up in the previous years.

The F1 Esports Pro Series 2020 saw Longuet shining the brighter of the two. Twice a race winner and with a couple more podiums to boot, Longuet found himself sitting fourth in the standings by the end of the season. He will no doubt be a dark horse contender for the title going in to 2021. The story was different for Donoso, however. A solitary two points finishes across the whole season left the Chilean with his worst ever finishing position of nineteenth, with only five points to his name. That being said, Donoso challenged Brendon Leigh for the title back in 2017. If he can find that level of form again, Alpine will be a force to be reckoned with this year.

A New Partnership

Along with the driver pairing, Alpine have also announced a partnership with Race Clutch, a sim racing outfit which has been associated with Fabrizio Donoso for several years. The role of Race Clutch will be to help the drivers to improve as all-round competitors. This association may suggest that Donoso will be a certainty for the other seat throughout the season, as was the case in 2020 when Renault’s third driver Casper Jansen only participated in one single race.

The Renault team never managed higher than third in the constructor’s standings in the F1 Esports Pro Series. Fans of the team will be hoping that the faith Alpine has shown in the driver pairing will pay off for the season ahead.

How do you think Alpine will fare in 2021? Tell us on Twitter at @OverTake_gg or in the comments down below!

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Jacob Hancox
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My name is Jacob and I have been writing for OverTake since November of 2020. I come from the UK, but I'm now living in Berlin. I love to watch, write about and sometimes shout about all forms of racing.