{"id":22037,"date":"2014-05-24T06:51:35","date_gmt":"2014-05-24T10:51:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/?p=22037"},"modified":"2014-05-24T06:51:35","modified_gmt":"2014-05-24T10:51:35","slug":"dennis-wants-alonso-to-lead-mclarens-honda-charge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/formula-1\/dennis-wants-alonso-to-lead-mclarens-honda-charge\/","title":{"rendered":"Dennis wants Alonso to lead McLaren&#8217;s Honda charge"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Former McLaren and Ferrari driver Alain Prost has some advice for those beleaguered F1 teams &#8212; &#8220;do something different&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"ngg-singlepic ngg-left alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/gallery\/f1-2014-rif-images\/f1-2014-persons\/Ron-Dennis-1.jpg\" alt=\"Ron-Dennis-1\" width=\"469\" height=\"312\" \/>&#8220;If you compare them to Red Bull and Mercedes, you see that Ferrari and McLaren have only continued to work in the same way as they always did,&#8221; the quadruple world champion is quoted by Spain&#8217;s Marca newspaper.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Sometimes you have to stop, make a plan and start again.\u00a0 Sometimes you have to do something different,&#8221; Prost added.<\/p>\n<p>The F1 legend believes Ferrari&#8217;s problems can be traced back to &#8220;when Michael Schumacher left&#8221;, while McLaren&#8217;s decline began when Adrian Newey switched to Red Bull.<\/p>\n<p>According to swirling rumours in Monaco, McLaren could be looking to boost its fortunes ahead of the works Honda partnership in 2015 by making a swoop for Fernando Alonso.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Fernando would be welcome back at McLaren,&#8221; McLaren &#8216;supremo&#8217; Ron Dennis, who clashed so infamously with the Spaniard back in 2007, reportedly told the Italian press.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;You&#8217;re surprised that I&#8217;m talking about Fernando?\u00a0 I don&#8217;t have any problem &#8212; the most important thing is for us to win again.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;In 2015 we have the Honda engine and we need a great driver.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>McLaren&#8217;s current lead driver, Jenson Button, was asked by Spain&#8217;s AS newspaper if Alonso will be at McLaren next year.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He has a Ferrari contract,&#8221; the smiling Briton replied.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Yes it would be a great challenge to have him as a teammate.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>According to two British F1 correspondents, there may be some truth to the Alonso rumours.<\/p>\n<p>Jonathan McEvoy, of the Daily Mail, cited &#8216;sources&#8217; as he reported that &#8216;meetings&#8217; have already taken place.<\/p>\n<p>And The Times&#8217; Kevin Eason agreed that &#8220;It is an open secret that McLaren have approached Alonso&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>However, while Alonso has sounded frustrated with life at Ferrari recently, returning to struggling McLaren might not be at the top of his wish list.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m happy,&#8221; he told France&#8217;s L&#8217;Equipe.\u00a0 &#8220;I have a great life, I&#8217;m a Ferrari driver &#8212; it doesn&#8217;t get much better.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;A third title would be the icing on the cake for my career.\u00a0 So many great drivers have won three titles.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Flavio Briatore, close to Alonso throughout his career, said in Monaco: &#8220;Fernando has a contract with Ferrari, so it&#8217;s out of the question to go elsewhere unless something extraordinary happens.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He, like everyone else, has difficult moments, and like every driver he wants a competitive car, and he can&#8217;t solve the problems of an entire team by himself,&#8221; the Italian is quoted by La Gazzetta dello Sport.<\/p>\n<p><em>\u00a9 RIF | GMM<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Former McLaren and Ferrari driver Alain Prost has some advice for those beleaguered F1 teams &#8212; &#8220;do something different&#8221;. &#8220;If you compare them to Red Bull and Mercedes, you see that Ferrari and McLaren have only continued to work in the same way as they always did,&#8221; the quadruple world champion is quoted by Spain&#8217;s &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[2120,3],"tags":[375,5262,149,5340,153,5284,4374,880],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22037"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22037"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22037\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22038,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22037\/revisions\/22038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}