Mercedes are pondering marking McLaren driver Fernando Alonso to supplant Nico Rosberg, team boss Toto Wolff says. A move would rejoin Alonso and Lewis Hamilton, who had a stormy organization at McLaren in 2007.
Rosberg, 31, resigned five days subsequent to winning the Formula 1 world title. “You have to consider Fernando,” Wolff told Sky Sports. “He is a driver I respect a lot. He combines talent, speed and experience. It’s all there.”
Be that as it may, the cost of purchasing out Alonso’s agreement and the Spaniard’s turbulent association with Hamilton could yet end up being hindrances.
At that point McLaren team boss Ron Dennis reneged on a guarantee to give Alonso need status and the two dropped out, prompting to Alonso leaving the team after only one year of a three-year contract.
The top picks for the seat nearby Hamilton remain Mercedes junior Pascal Wehrlein and Williams driver Valtteri Bottas, who has close connections with Wolff.
Taking Bottas would likewise require Mercedes to do an arrangement with Williams, to whom the Finn is under contract until the end of 2017, yet this might be less demanding than with McLaren as the team utilize Mercedes engines.
Alonso and Hamilton had one disturbed season together at McLaren, prompting to the Spaniard leaving the team in the wake of concurring an early discharge from his agreement.
Two-time champion Alonso is entering the last year of his agreement, which may compel Mercedes to look somewhere else.
With testing because of starting in February, the constructors’ champions should move rapidly to discover a substitution. Previous Mercedes test pilot Pascal Wehrlein, 22, remains the most reasonable focus to join British three-time champion Hamilton, who as of late said he “couldn’t care less” who Mercedes picked.
Wolff added: “He [Alonso] is in a contract with McLaren-Honda at the moment and we just need to weigh all the other options up. Both drivers will have equal status and equal opportunity to the best of our abilities. We owe it to the fans. You can’t have a pecking order.”
Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel has seemed to discount himself of the condition.
The four-time champion is under contract until the end of next season and the German said at a Ferrari occasion at the end of the week that “it ought to be clear” he was impossible.