As we have reported on Cyclingquotes.com, yesterday winners of the 2013 UCI rankings were handed their awards from Brian Cookson at the ceremony taking place in Madrid. According to the Spanish newspaper AS, Fernando Alonso, present at the ceremony, used this special occasion to held a meeting with UCI president Brian Cookson, while he spent 40 minutes in the office of the Spanish Sports Council (CSD ) to acknowledge from the first hand new regulations to be imposed on the World Tour, which should affect some of the plans concerning his project.

Ana Muños, CEO of CSD, José Luis López Cerrón, president of the Spanish Federation, Justin Abbott, director of the UCI, and Luis Garcia Abad, Manager of Asturias, accompanied Alonso and Cookson after the World Tour winners ceremony.

"It was a very positive meeting,” Alonso told Spanish newspaper AS.

“It seems of secondary importance for this project to be in the WorldTour in 2015. With the great team that we’re going to have, we are going to be assured of being in the best races.”

Alonso had hoped to have a team for 2014 when he planned on buying the WorldTour licence from Euskaltel-Euskadi, but negotiations collapsed in late September. Kiko García, who is set to head up the new Alonso team, is equally ambitious. During the meeting, Alonso acknowledged it would be unlikely for his project to be granted World Tour license, while the total number of World Tour teams should be limited to 16 by 2015. However, the Formula 1 driver and Garcia stay optimistic about their chances to build the star-studded roster attractive enough to receive invitations from major races’ organizers and thus participate in Grand Tour events.  

" We have to wait and see if the law is ratified by 2015. If so, the aim will be to build the team strong enough to be granted the those invitations," Garcia said  

Asked, how the team’s composition should look like, he explained it is "too early to talk about names."

“Our objective is to form a team that can take the wildcards,” García said to AS.

"We have many contacts and there are cyclists who will be free at the end of 2014. The idea isn’t to start breaking contracts.”

Cookson also confirmed to As the encounter with the Spaniard Formula One driver.

"We had a private meeting with him and his team . Our goal is to help people like Alonso and such exciting projects like their to become part of our sport. We want to help them to invest in cycling," he said.

“We are working to return the confidence in cycling. Like many countries, Spain has lived through a difficult economic time. But, like in all sports, the most important thing is to bet and invest in the foundation and I will help in anyway possible to make that bet.”