Ted Kravitz Q&A: Analysing Alonso's return & Button's retention at new-look McLaren
The Sky F1 reporter assesses whether Alonso/McLaren version II will work, ponders whether Mercedes could have put out tentative feelers to Fernando, and looks at how Jenson Button earned his new deal
Tuesday 16 December 2014 15:13, UK
Let’s start with Fernando Alonso’s return – is it going to work this time?
Ted Kravitz: “In many ways I think Alonso's return was the most fascinating angle to Thursday’s announcement. He was back in McLaren mode: The grey suit, the crisp white shirt, the nicely blow-dried hair – although how long the beard lasts in a company where beards are only allowed if they’re immaculately kept we will see.
“A couple of things struck me as particularly interesting. Firstly, all the nostalgia that came out when Fernando first signed for McLaren in 2007 was there again. His reference to Ayrton Senna being his hero, the toy karts which his father had built in the McLaren-Honda livery, the lure of the McLaren name… this is all stuff I heard when he signed for them and they launched the car in Valencia back in 2007, this life-long desire to drive for McLaren. While I suppose Fernando still feels that way despite what happened, the reality is he didn’t have any other top F1 teams to drive for.
“However, nobody has picked up on Alonso’s very heavy hint about the interest from the top three teams. The quote was “over the past year I have received several offers, some of them really tempting, given the current performance of some of the teams that showed interest”.
“If you put that together with another line that’s come out in the last few days which is how Mercedes dealt with the Rosberg/Hamilton fallout after Spa when the team made it clear to both drivers that if they continued to crash into each other they’d have to reassess their driver line-up, I wonder if to back-up that threat there was an exploratory contact from Mercedes to Alonso regarding his availability if it did all go belly up with Hamilton and Rosberg.
“Alonso’s either talking about Mercedes when he says that, or he’s talking about Williams or Red Bull. Williams would have had to break a contract with Felipe Massa to accommodate Alonso (assuming they kept Bottas) whereas Red Bull are increasingly locked into their own young driver programme. There were Alonso-Mercedes rumours in the paddock around Spa, too, for what that's worth, so I think Fernando was talking about Mercedes, mischievously!"
One of the sound bites from Ron Dennis at last week’s driver unveiling was the line “we have to succeed together”. Given how things turned out between Fernando and McLaren in 2007, is this a marriage of convenience?
TK: “Clearly, Honda wanted a marquee name: A Vettel, Alonso or Hamilton and they’ve managed to get the only one of those three who was willing and available. So that’s great for them. I suppose it’s a marriage of convenience in that Alonso, having decided to leave Ferrari didn't have anywhere else to go, but what that quote from Ron hinted at was how he has retrospectively identified what went wrong seven years ago. There was a breakdown in communication, there was hurt pride, and there was the added emotional factor of Ron’s protégé, Lewis Hamilton, coming into the team and Ron wanting to do the right thing and be fair. Ron and Fernando didn't work together back then and that was evident when it all came to a head in Qualifying at the '07 Hungarian
