News Scan: Signs From McLaren Suggest The Team Doesn’t Want Fernando Alonso In 2008
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Oct 15, 2007
McLaren
Fernando Alonso believes all the signs coming from McLaren suggest the team doesn’t want him around in 2008.
The Spaniard’s future in Formula One remains a topic of hot debate despite both Renault and Ferrari recently saying they haven’t signed any deals with the driver.
The rumours, though, still persist with the German newspaper Bild claiming last week that Alonso had signed a letter of intent to race for Renault in a three-year deal to start next season.
However, that same day a Swiss publication reported that he had signed that same letter of intent with Ferrari. SportingLife.com
After one of the most troubled title defences in living memory, Alonso will not give in without a struggle; and then there is Kimi Raikkonen, waiting to pounce, Ferrari very much at the top of their game. But who will win? And why? We examine the factors to be considered…
Alonso has never come from behind to win a championship. In 2005 he had a healthy margin over Raikkonen throughout the year and wrapped up the title with two rounds to spare. Things were closer last year - he was level with Michael Schumacher heading to the penultimate race - but he never actually dropped behind the German.
He’s already lost: as McLaren have discovered, Alonso is a hard man to read. If he genuinely believes that Hamilton is destined for the title, could it be that he has already given up hope? Numerous comments attributed to the Spaniard in the press suggest he believes the title has already been decided off the track. The sign of a beaten man? Or perhaps just one trying to out-psyche his team mate? Formula1.com
Britain’s star racer is arriving early to get used to the heat and the time difference.
He leads McLaren-Mercedes team-mate Fernando Alonso by four points and Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen by seven. “If I were a Hollywood screenwriter and had to make a film of great emotion for a great prize, I could not do better than the story of this season, “ said two-time world champion Fittipaldi.
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“For me it’s the race of the century and the drivers all have extraordinary reasons to be motivated. “ Mirror.co
Team McLaren depart for Interlagos today with two drivers capable of claiming the world championship. After a season of internecine strife it does not take an astrologer to place Hamilton above Fernando Alonso in the team’s affections. He carries a four-point advantage over his team-mate into the championship denouement at Sunday’s Brazilian Grand Prix, with Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen, the third contender seven points back.
However emotionally inclined McLaren might be towards the Briton, Alonso has nothing to fear. If he fails in Brazil he will have only himself to blame, which could easily send him into a spiral of introspection since thus far he has found fault in all quarters at McLaren except his own. Telegraph.co
