When looking at the 2019 driver changes that could be set in motion by Daniel Ricciardo’s move to Renault, several of my predictions raised eye brows. Most notably, my prediction that Fernando Alonso could be paired with Sebastian Vettel on Ferrari if Kimi Räikkönen decides to retire at the end of the season. Many people said it was an insane prediction, but I’m going to explain why it may not be as insane as you think.
With lots of uncertainty surrounding Räikkönen’s future in Formula One, there’s an increasing possibility that he could be about to pack his bags and make his exit from the sport at the end of the year. This was nearly the case last season, but Ferrari gave have a single year contract extension. Whilst whether or not Räikkönen will continue in 2019 is pure speculation, I said that if Räikkönen did call it quits Fernando Alonso could be the team’s replacement. Most of my subsequent predictions were based on this move, since I think it’s most likely that Räikkönen will retire at the end of the season.
In response to my prediction, there were a lot of people who said that Charles Leclerc would be the replacement. I’ve already went into full detail about Ferrari’s hiring history, so I won’t go in too much depth about that topic. All I will say is that the past shows inexperienced hires are a rarity at the Ferrari camp and the average experience required to drive for Ferrari is four seasons.
There were also the people who were quick to point out Alonso’s World Endurance Championship endeavours and a potential clash with Formula One. I addressed this as well, agreeing that Ferrari “wouldn’t be as easy going as McLaren has been on Alonso when it comes to missing races” to take part in events like the Indianapolis 500 and WEC races. The fact that the Australian Grand Prix will clash with the WEC race at Sebring could prove to be problematic for Alonso.
However, I briefly touched on how that clash could be a good chance for Leclerc to get a test run on Ferrari while the Italian team works to groom him for a seat in the future. This is even more likely if, as I predicted, Leclerc is put on a team with close ties to Ferrari (such as Haas or Sauber) because Ferrari would have no problem getting him on loan for a weekend.
Doing this would not jeopardize the team’s championship battle, since the team only needs one winning driver, which is undoubtably Vettel. If their second driver (in this case, Alonso) were to miss a race or two, it wouldn’t be the end of the world for the team, since it wouldn’t cost them any World Constructors’ Championship points. In fact, it could further justify Ferrari’s efforts to favor Vettel later in the season, since missing a race would virtually throw Alonso out of the World Drivers’ Championship battle and there would be no motivation to get him more points than Vettel.
But this is where people get confused and point out that Ferrari doesn’t need two great drivers like Alonso and Vettel on the same team, which is true. However, everyone is overlooking the reality of the situation.
Räikkönen is a top-grade driver. He has a championship. He has race wins. He has solid results. The only thing stopping Räikkönen from taking race victories from Vettel is the fact that the cars at Ferrari are not equal. I’m not saying it’s wrong. In fact, I’ve previously said that it was a common practice that most teams probably use. But at the end of the day, Räikkönen isn’t any less skilled than Alonso is. So, bringing Alonso to the team wouldn’t mean that Vettel will have to fend off Alonso in the title hunt. Alonso would be playing the same number two role that Räikkönen has been playing.
I know I’ll probably get a lot flack for suggesting that Ferrari favors one driver over the other, but it’s not even worth arguing because it’s so obvious. It’s no different than pointing out that Mercedes favors Lewis Hamilton over Valtteri Bottas. Every team does it, but it’s just more obvious in the higher teams because they are the ones fighting for the top of the table.
But this ties into the final point that people have made against my Alonso-to-Ferrari claim: Why would Alonso want to play runner up? The simple answer is because McLaren sucks.
It’s a harsh thing to say, I know, but there’s no denying that running the Honda power unit crushed the team and they are struggling to recover. Alonso simply doesn’t have the time left in his career to sit around and hope that things get better at McLaren and he’s been quite vocal when expressing his frustration. Alonso is a driver that wants (and deserves) to be at the top of the results.
If he’s given the choice to end his career with a team on which he finishes in P8 consistently or a team on which he could battle at the top for P3 or P2 results, I think that he’d take the top results, even if it means he won’t have a chance to challenge for a win unless his teammate fails to finish.
All my predictions are entirely speculation, of course, because I’m no psychic. However, I firmly believe that Alonso moving to Ferrari is a completely viable, realistic and probable outcome.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any other agency, organization, employer or company. Assumptions made in any analysis contained within this article are not reflective of the position of any entity other than the author.
