Yet another week in F1 history is passing by with little more known about the future of arguably the sport’s biggest name.<\/p>\n
Insiders suggest Fernando Alonso is wavering between a McLaren-Honda contract on his terms or the very real prospect of a sabbatical as he waits for a seat at dominant Mercedes.<\/p>\n
“He hasn’t got many places to go has he?” F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone told business journalist Christian Sylt.\u00a0 “There’s nowhere else other than McLaren.”<\/p>\n
Spain’s AS newspaper claims the Spaniard has received a concrete offer from Porsche, where his friend Mark Webber already races at the fabled Le Mans 24 hours.<\/p>\n
But while Alonso’s situation remains unclear, his current employer Ferrari waits.<\/p>\n
The Maranello team has surely signed up Sebastian Vettel to replace him, but for now, it remains unofficial.<\/p>\n
“If you’re asking me if Vettel could be a good driver for Ferrari, the answer is yes,” newly-departed president Luca di Montezemolo said.<\/p>\n
“He’s young, he’s a four time champion of the world, very good guy, good Ferrari client, so he has all the characteristics.\u00a0 So why not?”<\/p>\n
According to Red Bull, Vettel-to-Ferrari is a done deal.\u00a0 Dr Helmut Marko says even the details of his release to Maranello have been concluded, as the German will be prevented from driving a red car in the post-season Abu Dhabi test.<\/p>\n
“Sebastian may not drive for Ferrari in this test,” Marko confirmed to Germany’s Auto Bild.\u00a0 “It is clear and we have told Sebastian.”<\/p>\n
It is an odd situation that, now some weeks since Vettel’s next move became clear, it remains unofficial.<\/p>\n
But the insiders are already musing Ferrari’s chances of success with its new star.<\/p>\n
The latest rumours out of Maranello are alarming, as the well-connected Autosprint claims aerodynamic figures from the 2015 car concept are not even as good as the ones from the disappointing current car.<\/p>\n
“They need time to rebuild everything,” F1 legend and former Ferrari driver Alain Prost told Spain’s AS, “as they have been through a lot lately and it can’t be fixed in the short term.”<\/p>\n
The Frenchman also doubts Vettel is the silver bullet.<\/p>\n
“Alonso has proved in the past years that a driver cannot fix things at Ferrari.\u00a0 The managerial, technical and driver sides must come together.<\/p>\n
“2015 will be difficult for Vettel,” Prost predicted, “but I think his move is positive.\u00a0 When you spend so much time with a team and are a multiple champion, it is normal to lose motivation and require another challenge.<\/p>\n
“He is young enough to have the time to build a future with Ferrari.\u00a0 His position is different to Fernando, who wants to win immediately.”<\/p>\n
\u00a9 RIF | GMM<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Yet another week in F1 history is passing by with little more known about the future of arguably the sport’s biggest name. Insiders suggest Fernando Alonso is wavering between a McLaren-Honda contract on his terms or the very real prospect of a sabbatical as he waits for a seat at dominant Mercedes. “He hasn’t got …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23176,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,1628,5262,149,93,5340,502,165,4374,5107,164],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25404"}],"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=25404"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25404\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25405,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25404\/revisions\/25405"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}