On the Marbles: Fernando Alonso
August 12th 2007 07:58
Everybody seems to be warming up to the idea that the only driver racing in F1 today with championship-winning credentials, Fernando Alonso, is about to parachute out of high-flying McLaren.
The reason? He’s not happy that the driver in the other car is also capable of winning.
Remove all sense of logic, reason and reality, and we might just see this prediction come into fruition.
Will Alonso return to where he felt loved?
Many seem to have bought it, despite the simple fact that it is utterly stupid.
Fernando’s manager tells us his driver will remain at McLaren. Ron Dennis tells us that Fernando will remain at McLaren. And Fernando will no doubt tell you, should you ask him, that he will remain with McLaren.
This all might sound like simple PR denial, but to me it sounds like logical sense.
Sure, he might not be enjoying being taken to the wire by his rookie teammate, Lewis Hamilton, but Fernando wouldn’t tear his contract in half and storm off to another team without a better reason.
He sits second in the championship, seven points behind Lewis for two reasons.
One: He has made too many mistakes, be it pushing too hard and ruining a lap in qualifying, or lunging too desperately at a gap and falling off the road, or simply drawing a penalty upon himself through thoughtless action.
Two: He hasn’t had the luck of his teammate. Lewis went off at the Nurburgring, and that remains the only fluff on an otherwise impeccable year. Fernando, meanwhile, was controversially forced into the dirt in Spain, was given the choice to run out of fuel or be disqualified in Canada, suffered gearbox trouble in Q3 in France and spent a great deal of time behind slow cars on slow circuits.
Hamilton has done a fantastic job, a miraculous job if you remember he’s a rookie – but his lead in the championship has been aided by Alonso’s uncharacteristic error-rate, and numerous misfortunes.
Nevertheless, racing is racing, and shit happens, so Hamilton’s grasp on the title lead is as legitimate as Alonso’s was in 2005.
But is this seven-point deficit to his teammate, with whom he shares an abrasive relationship with, enough to make the Spaniard ditch a race-winning - a championship-winning - car, and end up...where?
Renault? Of course, they’d make space in the garage by sweeping out Fisichella, but their winning ways have escaped them, and they don’t look like returning in a hurry.
BMW? Nick Heidfeld’s manager, Werner Heinz cheekily suggested an Alonso/Heidfeld pairing for 2008, but the reality is that BMW would not be keen to take funds from their development budget to pay an exorbitant price for a driver when they already have two more-than-capable guys at the helm.
Ferrari? F1 rules state that only two cars per team can compete, and unless Kimi storms out, or Felipe is kidnapped and disappears from the face of the planet, there’s no room at the Maranello Inn for Fernando.
Toyota? He’d get a enormous pay-packet, but it wouldn’t be nearly enough to surrender himself to midfield obscurity.
Honda? Ha!
There is nowhere for a driver who has developed such an acute desire for success as Fernando Alonso to go.
Where he sits, he has only two reasonable options:
One: Reconcile any past grievances, and work hard to grow into the team, making every effort to respect and cooperate with his engineers, bosses and even Lewis Hamilton, while working on decreasing errors.
Two: Continue his bitter rivalry with his teammate and continue pushing beyond the edge, even if it doesn’t please all those around him.
Fernando joined McLaren knowing it was the best chance to further his own career, his best option for a winning, reliable car with which to launch a title attack.
And he will stay for the same reason.
Anything else is suicide.
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