Felipe Massa does not think his old Ferrari teammate Fernando Alonso is poised to quit McLaren-Honda and F1. Spaniard Alonso is obviously frustrated amid the current McLaren-Honda situation, and his old friend Mark Webber thinks it is possible he will quit mid-season.
There are even reports in Spain that Alonso could leave the British team this year to return to Renault. "We are getting enormous pressure from the team and from the drivers," Honda F1 chief Yusuke Hasegawa admitted, according to the German news agency DPA.
But amid that high pressure, Massa does not think Alonso will walk away. "I think the first thing to understand is that he has a contract," he told the Brazilian broadcaster Sportv.
"If he leaves now, he'll be stuck until next year, and for what? We also can't forget that he has a huge contract. So he will stay there and fulfil it, although it's true that anything can happen," Massa acknowledged. "But if he's thinking of moving to a competitive team, that's not for this year. Stop in the middle? I don't think so, but as I said, nothing is impossible." (GMM)
LOL for everything there is the Renault fall back, get outta of here. The only theoretically competitive seat for 2018 is Mercedes if that isn't available Alonso is going to quit F1 save for some 11th hour miracle from Honda.
Räikkönen is more likely to exit F1 than Vettel is to quit Ferrari. But I doubt Alonso would like to return to Ferrari, it was bad enough for him to return to McLaren, imagine him having to swallow his pride yet again and go back to Ferrari.
I think Raikkonen is a bigger issue for Ferrari if he doesn't pick up Vettels pace. I wouldn't be surprised of Giovinazzi will step in for Kimi, or Ricciardo.
vettel surely won´t leave for mercedes. Vettel said once Ferrari is going to be his last team.
@blackbook:
Raikkonen is perfect as it is. He´s definetely going to pick up the pace im sure, and he is a teamplayer accepting Vettel being number 1. and most importantly vettel gets along with kimi, which is from a teams perspective very important.
The only thing i can imagine is Grosjean or Giovinazzi. Since Giovinazzi has less experience they´re going for Grosjean. I´m pretty sure this is going to happen in the near future when Kimi stops. But let´s be honest, Kimi seems quite happy at the moment and Ferrari also. So why should he stop?
"If he leaves now, he'll be stuck until next year, and for what? We also can't forget that he has a huge contract. So he will stay there and fulfil it, although it's true that anything can happen,"
Gene Haas has deep pockets... Away goes KMag to another series for next year, Alonso for reserve this year, Main Driver for next year (He likes new projects).
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and why would Ferrari want him?