Renault Keen to Rekindle Special Relationship With Alonso

Fernando Alonso would be welcomed back into the Renault team with open arms if he were to leave McLaren-Mercedes, according to the French team's principal, Flavio Briatore. "I can't deny that I think Fernando is great but he has a contract with someone," Briatore told Spain's Marca. "He is very special. We had a special relationship at Renault and it was always transparent.

"Although he signed for McLaren we continue to be friends. Of course I would love to have him in the team, I think everyone would want Fernando because he is exceptional." Alonso won back-to-back titles for Renault before leaving for McLaren, where he has endured a turbulent relationship with his team-mate, Lewis Hamilton. Briatore would not be drawn on Alonso's problems at McLaren nor on whether he thought the Spaniard would see out his contract with the team headed by his rival Ron Dennis.

Whether Alonso would want to go back remains unclear. Renault insiders said there had been no interest in such a move from the Spaniard and there was no comment from the Alonso camp yesterday.

Bridgestone has concluded that Hamilton's tyre failure in the Turkish grand prix was caused by "chunking". This is when small bits of rubber get stuck to the tire and form larger chunks. These harden on the surface and can damage the tire's internal structure, causing it to fail. The Japanese tyre manufacturer remains unsure of the specific circumstances that triggered the failure. Initial work on the tyre has ruled out a failure caused by debris on the circuit. Detailed examination of the shards of rubber is taking place at the company's technical headquarters in Japan.

"It was delamination caused by excessive chunking," Bridgestone's director of motorsport tyre development, Hirohide Hamashima, told autosport.com. "Lewis was suffering from heavy understeer in turn eight and to correct that he was turning the steering wheel a bit more. This produced the chunking, which then got hardened as he braked for turn nine. It seems that there was an [unexplained] extra force applied to where the chunk was and this delaminated the tire."