Raikkonen was talking for Ferrari, Alonso was not talking about F1 with or without Ferrari. He was talking in general, top teams leaving and their drivers going with them. They will all find a solution to it eventually. Another thing no one talks about is the Ferrari "veto" that FIA had promised them. All the stories over thee years of FIA favoring Ferrari, were true after all. I for one never had any doubts ever and neither did the head of Honda in 2003, when he said " The championship is fixed in favor of Ferrari and we no longer think it's a sport" strange that teams have not made a huge fuss about how Ferrari was given a right to veto any regulation they did not like. Brings back bad memories.
I'd love to see a race at Paul Ricard, the state of the art facility. It could be amazing, it's the Disney world of F1 tracks.
Talking of Ferrari, the Alonso story just does not go away.T urns out the next few races might be very crucial for Raikkonen. Here is part of his interview done with Gazzetta dello Sport, the newspaper is owned by the Angelli family who also own, yes, Ferrari's parent company Fiat.
h2Alonso starts talking about Ferrari/h2
There is a fantastic interview with Fernando Alonso in the Gazzetta dello Sport today, in which he gently moves closer to talking about Ferrari and his possible move there.
According to Pino Allievi, the number one writer on the paper, Alonso has moved to a house on the border between Switzerland and Italy, near Lugano. He spoke about the affection he has for Italy and Italians: “As a Spaniard I feel more at ease with Italians,” he said. “We have a lot of shared culture and character. We have identical feelings.”
As for Ferrari he started talking about the team, when asked how he imagined life would be inside the team. “It’s difficult to imagine from the outside. I can only say that when we race in Bahrain the circuit is full of Ferrari banners. You go to China and it’s the same. I see Ferrari as a symbol. At the moment I’m driving for Renault, where we are doing a great job. I only think about winning, the rest we’ll have to wait and see.”
The word I’m hearing is that these next few races are pretty important for Kimi Raikkonen. Although he has a contract for 2010, the suggestion is that he has certain criteria to meet and that an agreement, which is in place with Alonso for 2011, has a clause which could bring it forward to 2010. The next couple of months will be decisive.
One GP driver I spoke to recently said that in the briefings and at moments when the drivers are all together, Kimi seems like he doesn’t care any more. It’s as if he’s going through the motions. It’s a shame if this is true, as Raikkonen is one of the most exciting and most talented drivers in F1.
However the Italian media has started treating him with a little less respect, calling him “Forrest Gump” earlier this weekend and today’s Gazzetta piece looks to me like a preparing of the ground for Alonso and the future, in a very Italian sort of way.
Ferrari went for Raikkonen in 2006 rather than Alonso because Jean Todt, the boss at the time, had fallen out with Alonso over a test driving agreement in 2001, which Alonso went back on. Now Todt has gone and the feeling in Ferrari is quite different.