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Fernando Alonso and Mark Webber have rekindled the ‘Multi-21’ controversy.
When the pair sat down for dinner in Dubai on Tuesday, Spaniard Alonso captured the moment on his phone and posted the photo on Twitter.
The caption read: “Dinner with friends in Dubai..”
But the significance of the photo may have been realised by some, as a look at the Ferrari driver’s Twitter feed now shows that the photo and ‘tweet’ have been deleted.
That, however, wasn’t before Webber ‘re-tweeted’ them on his own Twitter feed, #AussieGrit.
Although Webber and Alonso were already friends, the pair must have realised the political significance of the photo.
At the end of last year’s campaign, Webber reportedly defied a Red Bull strategy to help teammate Sebastian Vettel beat Alonso to the 2012 title.
Indeed, Webber’s own manager Flavio Briatore had observed afterwards: “The only one who helped Ferrari was Webber.”
The ‘Multi-21’ affair got its name after Sebastian Vettel defied Red Bull’s coded team order to follow Webber to the chequered flag in Malaysia last month.
Webber has since been strongly linked with a move for 2014 to Porsche’s new prototype Le Mans project.
Commenting on the Alonso/Webber photo, British MotoGP commentator Julian Ryder said: “I’m no F1 expert but is (the photo) the best wind up in living memory?”
1997 world champion Jacques Villeneuve told Bild: “The (Red Bull) team is paying the price for the negative energy that has developed in the past weeks.
“At Ferrari it’s completely different, with Alonso and Massa in perfect harmony.”
© RIF | GMM
