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Friday, 2 August 2013

Alonso Not Tempted to Move - Briatore

Fernando Alonso has "no temptation whatsoever" to try and engineer a shock move away from

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Ferrari to rivals Red Bull, Flavio Briatore, who heads the Spaniard's management team, has insisted.

The sport's rumour mill was sent into overdrive last Sunday at the Hungarian GP after Red Bull boss Christian Horner refused to deny that a meeting between himself and Alonso's representative, Luis Garcia Abad, had been about the chance of the Spaniard filling the vacancy that will be created by Mark Webber's retirement at the end of the season.

When the speculation was put to him directly, Alonso insisted he was "very happy" at Ferrari, where he has a deal that runs to the end of 2016, with the team themselves also making clear the 32-time grand prix winner is under contract.

Now Briatore, Alonso's former boss at Renault but who still heads the management company that represents the double World Champion, has told the Italian media that the Spaniard isn't angling for a move away from Maranello.

"Fernando has a contract and contracts must be respected," Briatore told Gazzetta dello Sport. "Alonso has never said he wants to leave. Ferrari-Alonso remains a winning pairing."

And asked whether the Spaniard was tempted to join Red Bull, Briatore replied: "No. No temptation whatsoever."

Nonetheless, despite the highly unlikely nature of any 2014 Red Bull switch, the state of Alonso's relationship with Ferrari has come under the spotlight after the team took the unprecedented step of making public a rebuke that was delivered to the 32-year-old by their President Luca di Montezemolo for negative comments made in the aftermath of the team's poor performance in Hungary.

Ferrari have since attempted to play down the nature of Montezemolo's criticisms - insisting they should be viewed as a "positive injection" - but Briatore has argued that what Alonso said was nothing out of the ordinary as he needed a quicker car to compete for the title.

"It's normal for a racing driver to desire a competitive car and the team must work hard to supply it. End of story," said Briatore.

"He needs to have at his disposal a car that allows him to start from the top two rows.

"We knew it would be tough in Hungary, as it was when I was at Renault. They need to quickly find the instruction manual at Maranello."

Thursday, 25 July 2013

Hungary an 'important' weekend for Ferrari - Alonso

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Fernando Alonso reckons the Hungarian Grand Prix weekend is crucial weekend for him and the Scuderia - and that it will seriously affect the team's motivation should Sebastian Vettel extend his championship lead any further.

Alonso lost further ground to Vettel in Germany earlier this month and now lies 34 points back going into round ten at Budapest's Hungaroring.

“A good result this weekend would be very good for team motivation and our hopes,” he told Ferrari's official website.

“If we can close the gap to Sebastian before the break it would be a good thing, but if it increased, it would make it a stressful break for us and less motivating. So, it's an important weekend.”

Conditions for the race look set to be very hot, but Alonso is not overly concerned and said it won't influence how they get ready for the grand prix.

“Nothing changes in terms of preparation, whatever the temperature on Sunday, we will do our normal preparation,” he confirmed. “We just need to be a bit more open on strategy, in case we need to make an extra stop because of the tyres, but we won't know until we start practice tomorrow.”

Meanwhile, Alonso has backed the changes made in the wake of the incident that saw Formula One Management (FOM) cameraman Paul Allen injured at the Nurburgring, when he was hit by a wheel that had come loose from theRed Bull of Mark Webber.

“Always when something happens in terms of safety, we must react and we are all in agreement on improving safety. However, finding the way to do it is difficult to agree on,” stated the Spaniard. “But I think reducing the pit lane speed limit cannot be bad, as it is the same for all the teams and there is less risk for the mechanics.

“Reducing the number of media in the pit lane during free practice can also be a solution, because sometimes there are too many of them in FP1 and FP2.

“In pit stops we are all trying to find the limits; of driver reaction time, the wheelguns and the procedure itself, so if they find a solution to increase the time of a pit stop [as has been mooted] to improve safety and it is the same for all the teams, I don't think anyone will disagree.”