FORUMula1.com

[What's Burning?]

Alonso to make the step up to Williams?

Seems odd that he'd be just visiting a day before all the media work starts at Germany.

https://twitter.com/WilliamsRacing/stat ... 4840633344

Edit: Well don't I feel a fool https://twitter.com/WilliamsRacing/stat ... 6982093825

If you got fooled, I bet LDM must have shat his fine gabardine trousers.

[racechick]

Nice one!!

[sagi58]

Ferrari F1 team hopes 'decisive' step convinces Alonso to stay on

Ferrari hopes that a 'decisive' step forward in form from next year's car will be enough to convince Fernando Alonso to commit his long-term Formula 1 future to the team.

Alonso's current contract runs until the end of 2016, and Ferrari is well aware that it needs to improve its form if it is to extend the Spaniard's deal and stop him being lured away by a rival like McLaren.

Last week, Alonso was briefed by Ferrari technical chiefs at the Maranello factory about the future plans for the team and the shape of its 2015 challenger.

Technical director James Allison hopes that what Alonso was told would be enough to leave the Spaniard in no doubt that Ferrari was the best place for him to be for the long haul.

"Both of our drivers were in Maranello, and both of them were discussing with us our plans for next year," said Allison at the German Grand Prix.

"Both of them had our programme set out in front of them, and both of them had the opportunity to give us feedback - as they do on a continual basis about the weaknesses of our current cars.

"It is a great thing when the driver buys into what you are doing and we make an effort to try to make sure that they can see the plans that we have in place.

"Kimi is quite new to our team, and Fernando, I guess, has had some years of being with Ferrari and not yet attaining the goal that he wanted when he joined us.

"I guess he has sat through a few of these meetings already, I hope the presentations that I put his way, as well as a few of my colleagues, have been convincing but I guess you need to speak to him to get his view on that."

Ferrari is undergoing a restructure under new team principal Marco Mattiacci and Allison said he believes what was in the pipeline was encouraging for 2015.

And although he offered few details about how it would be different, he was bullish about the step it would deliver.

"In terms of design changes, I am not going to go into that - but I sincerely hope that we will be able to make a decisive step forward with the car next year," he said.

[geetface9]

I hope for alonso's sake they can make it happen in 2015!! It'll be perfect right after rosberg wins the 2014 championship

[Cyril Sneer Racing]

Well the last two races confirm for me that Alonso is, once again, driver of the year (up to this point at least). Hopefully he can get another season win in the Williams, or Ferrari pulls a miracle car and swaps out the bus engine.

[sagi58]

Well the last two races confirm for me that Alonso is, once again, driver of the year (up to this point at least). Hopefully... Ferrari pulls a miracle car and swaps out the bus engine.

There, that's better!!!

Now, I can agree 100%!!

[Cyril Sneer Racing]

Has there been any speculation on Alonso going to Williams? I'd like to see Ferrari turn it around, but given how bad the car is and Alonso's recent comments it does not sound good to me.

[sagi58]

I posted this in the Mia Scuderia Lounge, recently:

Ferrari F1 team hopes 'decisive' step convinces Alonso to stay on

Ferrari hopes that a 'decisive' step forward in form from next year's car will be enough to convince Fernando Alonso to commit his long-term Formula 1 future to the team.

Alonso's current contract runs until the end of 2016, and Ferrari is well aware that it needs to improve its form if it is to extend the Spaniard's deal and stop him being lured away by a rival like McLaren.

Last week, Alonso was briefed by Ferrari technical chiefs at the Maranello factory about the future plans for the team and the shape of its 2015 challenger.

Technical director James Allison hopes that what Alonso was told would be enough to leave the Spaniard in no doubt that Ferrari was the best place for him to be for the long haul.

"Both of our drivers were in Maranello, and both of them were discussing with us our plans for next year," said Allison at the German Grand Prix.

"Both of them had our programme set out in front of them, and both of them had the opportunity to give us feedback - as they do on a continual basis about the weaknesses of our current cars.

"It is a great thing when the driver buys into what you are doing and we make an effort to try to make sure that they can see the plans that we have in place.

"Kimi is quite new to our team, and Fernando, I guess, has had some years of being with Ferrari and not yet attaining the goal that he wanted when he joined us.

"I guess he has sat through a few of these meetings already, I hope the presentations that I put his way, as well as a few of my colleagues, have been convincing but I guess you need to speak to him to get his view on that."

Ferrari is undergoing a restructure under new team principal Marco Mattiacci and Allison said he believes what was in the pipeline was encouraging for 2015.

And although he offered few details about how it would be different, he was bullish about the step it would deliver.

"In terms of design changes, I am not going to go into that - but I sincerely hope that we will be able to make a decisive step forward with the car next year," he said.

[LRW]

You also posted it about 5 posts back.......

[What's Burning?]

You also posted it about 5 posts back.......

If she does that to her own posts, imagine what she does to the ones from... other members.

[Roth]

Has there been any speculation on Alonso going to Williams? I'd like to see Ferrari turn it around, but given how bad the car is and Alonso's recent comments it does not sound good to me.

Just the thought of having to move to his old lap dog's team would surely stop that. Williams are having their moment but it's an Indian summer.

[1Lemon]

I think Alonso will wait another year before any move to Williams, to see if it is just a flash in the pan, or if the new Simmons-mobile car next year will be even better than the mix of designers that worked on this years.

[What's Burning?]

With the loss of aero, I think we won't see much in the way of shakeup to the running order, we'll see tightening and the competitiveness spread through more teams but the Newey era has been greatly abated for now. Don't think there will be a flash in the pan effect. I'd also say that new well funded teams such as Haas will have a good chance of moving into the grid right at the midfield.

[CookinFlat6]

If Haas got a Merc deal from the off, they should break the bank to get Alonso on board, they would inherit Santandar, inherit a lot of Spanish speaking latino fans in America, collect his massive support in europe. The only new teams that have really done well are not those with all the finance, but those that use their finance to surgically graft existing successful systems to their team, I am counting alonso as a system here

The new over funded teams from the US in recent years have come along and tried to do a me, me me. Like BAR .

There must be some underlying relationship reason for Haas to be considering Ferrari, ferrari customers have gotta be the most miserable and wretched set of customers in F1 history

[What's Burning?]

If Haas got a Merc deal from the off, they should break the bank to get Alonso on board, they would inherit Santandar, inherit a lot of Spanish speaking latino fans in America, collect his massive support in europe. The only new teams that have really done well are not those with all the finance, but those that use their finance to surgically graft existing successful systems to their team, I am counting alonso as a system here

The new over funded teams from the US in recent years have come along and tried to do a me, me me. Like BAR .

There must be some underlying relationship reason for Haas to be considering Ferrari, ferrari customers have gotta be the most miserable and wretched set of customers in F1 history

It's not money since the Merc engines are by far the cheapest deal... don't know, the US is a big Ferrari market so perhaps there's rationale there but there really are not household F1 names stateside and even Hamilton would be pushing it, so I doubt that Alonso's name would do any more. Now on the contracting side it's the big name long term contracts that pay the bills, the rest is gravy. Martini was a big score for Williams, UPS was a big score for Ferrari, but I tend to think that there will be new big American name sponsors associated with Haas and perhaps some movement of existing sponsors, like GE or AT&T.

I don't think a new team could/would ever score a name that is arguably the best in the sport.