fuenfer

So where do you think the drivers will end up at for next season? I suppose the big question right now is Fernando Alonso and whether he'll stay or not.

I was hoping we coud put together an on-going list of who's confirmed and who's not at each of the teams. If I recall correctly Renault and Toyota have not confirmed their driver line-ups? And BMW have confirmed their two drivers?

LVDell

FA will NOT be at McLaren next year. Question is, where will he be? And if to one of the "big" teams, who will be forced (I mean bought ) out of their contract to make room? Personally I would like to see him on one of the "lesser" teams (Mc, F, and BMW are the class right now) and see exactly how well one of those cars would run with a WC driver. The only team he can't go to is Torro Rosso as they can't even keep their engines from grenading every week!

As far as a confirmed list you'll need to be on the lookout for A. Wayne's thread as he is usually on top of the F1 news to post quickest here.

Nordschleife

Dell
The silly money is on

Alonso moving to Prodrive/Aston Martin
Stepney new manager of 'communications' for Prodrive/Aston Martin
Jean Todt to take over as Team Manager for Prodrive/Aston Martin
Ross Bawn to Ferrari to stem the rot (Todt even upsets the workforce)

some of the above is true.......

what we are seeing in F1 is a realignment along North-South lines. The Latin teams and personnel, including drivers, will tend to attract each other.
Renault is Bi-Polar, can be Latin or Northern European (run out of England, engines in France), for historic reasons (Austrian) Red Bull teams can be Latin.

If Alonso were to end up with a 'Northern' team, I'd wonder about what was going on at that team, a place for him in a 'Southern' team is much more natural.

Depending on your perspective, Spain is the most importance funding influence in F1. Next year there will be 2 Grand Prix in Spain, its the test destination of choice, the 'Wise Guys' in F1 all have cousins holed up on the Costas, Spanish businesses awash with EU cash are pouring money into the sport (Santander, Telefonica, MutuaMadrilena off the top of my head), attendance at motorsports is on the up and up in Spain, new Spanish and Latin drivers are queuing up to enter F1. So FA will almost certainly end up with a well funded team.

Until negotiations are completed McLaren will treat FA with kid gloves, too much scope for a constructive dismissal style of claim. Whether a non-Todt run Ferrari will emerge, and whether it might want to court FA is debatable, but its easy to see him there.

I expect Prodrive/AM to make progress in a manner similar to BMW, and challenging in a few years.

R+C

Flying Finn

Alosno will be Kovalainen's Renault team mate next year.

And I hope Ross Brawn returning to Ferrari materializes, they need him.

LVDell

Now why in the world would FA want to go back to Flavio?

Flying Finn

Why not?

I posted way back why he should/most likely will go back and those reasons still stand. He had a great thing with Renault and really only reason he left was Ron pushing him to sign and at the time Renault couldn't confirm their commitment to F1 so he had to sign with Ron.

Now he wants back & they want him back, I completely understand both of them. Him & Heikki would make a good pair, Alonso would get preferrial treatment and even when Heikki would challenge him, it would work out much better that it does now. Us Finns are cool (meaning calm etc.) people and won't get into pissing matches and whining etc. easily. So hot & whiny Smapiard & Cool & calm Finn would make a great pair.
Kimi & Alonso at Ferrari would work well too but Kimi would only accept equal treatment which Alonso would not be ready for.
But at Renault Alonso will get the preferred treatment so then he would be happy. Now in McLaren he gets equal treatment and can not handle it well.

Plus Flavio throws much better parties than Ron does so again, why not?

They've been talking for a long time, trust me, that's where he will end up, announcement is not far away.

LVDell

Well there you have it! The best parties

mitch236

+1 on Alonso going back to Renault. Funding will follow as there are alot of Alonso supporters. He is a personality regardless of how you view his antics. When Renault is suddenly challanging will Ron accuse Alonso of "stealing" team secrets and revealing them to Renault???

DJF1

I dont disagree with your reasoning, I feel the same. Alonso for sure will go to Renault. Having said that, my view is that:
A. Alonso has turned out to be a bit of a ***** and a big time primadona.
B. He might not be too much off feeling that Hamilton gets preferential treatment. Lets face it. Its a British team with a British protege that was groomed by McLaren. Arguable a great talent challenging for the F1 championship in his first year which is unheard off. We really dont know if LH is actually getting a better treatment, but I do bet that his relationship was much warmer than FA's when he joined the team. That coupled with the fact that the Brits are starving for the next Nige, their next hero I'm pretty sure that if I was in FA's shoes I might be having the same kind of thoughts about my treatment... Going back to Renault would be going back to a family where he was established and felt appreciated. I must say that his move to McLaren was something I could not figure out in the first place and for sure it turned out to be the disaster that it is...

Geo

Alonso is a whiny little bitch. He's with the best team in the field and he's whining because the team doesn't bow down and kiss his ***.

The first year he won the WC I thought he was a whiner, but the second year he seemed different and I thought I was wrong. This year has proven to me that my first impression was correct. I was pulling for him at the beginning of the season. Now I hope Hamilton kicks his ****.

My biggest disappointment this season is that Massa turned into something of a head case himself. At the beginning of the season I thought he was a legitimate contender. I would have liked to have seen him win the whole thing. FA is a whiner, LH has shown to not have the class that years of training by McLaren should have brought him, KR is as unpredictable as ever.

This started out to be a fun and interesting season. Between all the whining and head cases, and then the stupid spy scandal, it has been really hard for me to get excited about F1 this year.

A.Wayne

YOu keep talking as if Alonso would not accept equal treatment , it was not equal @ Mclaren, Ham had an advantage being British, This has been the problem , for Alonso, imagine if Kimi saw his mechanics jump and celebrate when Massa beat him to pole, because he was given the lighter Q3 strategy.
Ron can jump and shout about equality and integrety All he wants , there are times when he does what he has to do, as there where distinct orders for Mika 1 david 2 , when it suited him and Mika , or what about him asking Montoya to give KImi the SPA race in 05 and driving for Kimi, so please , there is team orders when necessary and while nothing like MS @ Ferrari ( I have never seen a situation like MS had in modern F1) Ron blew the perfect driver pr , by not controlling his team in the early part of the season..

Alonso being currently the best driver in F1 y, will be able to pick his seat and do not think for a minute ( RD included) that These team owners will not jump at the opportunity to take him , If he goes to Ferrari it will be for Kimi's seat .


It was funny reading Dennis's report about not talking to Alonso since Hungary , go look at your tapes of the races since then and see him reaching out to Alonso and Alonso not really responding , it is apparent that Alonso is the one giving RD the cold shoulder.

I don't see him @ renault , i see Alonso winning the WC and staying @ McLaren. If he moves he goes to Ferrari , MS speech in spain last month in defence of Alonso , tells me there might be more talks with Ferrari than you would think , Kimi would be the driver heading back to Mclaren as equal no 2. status .... if it is not announced next race weekend he stays with Mclaren ....

A.Wayne

excuse me , I think JV challenged for the DWC in his First year , Ham's results are not unheard of and is no different as both where in the best car when they did , JV rookie year was just as exciting if not more ......

M758

JV was not a true Rookie when he started in F1. He had won the Indy 500 and did very very well in CART in the days when open wheel racing was at it peak. So similar to when the "Rookie" Mansell came in to CART the "Rookie JV" appear in F1 and did well.

LH was a much greater unknown. He clearly had talent, but the transition from GP2 to F1 is pretty vast. GP2 is still a development support series. Back in the day CART was very strong when JV left it for F1 and "the premeir" US racing series at the time. NASACR was big, but nowhere near as big as now.

Larry Herman

Don't forget that JV was a seasoned open-wheel racer, just a rookie to F1. I don't think that you could call Hamilton seasoned.

ltc

^ +1