Red Bull is in an awkward situation where it needs a top-line driver to replace the outgoing Daniel Ricciardo, but there are none immediately available. Its best current junior prospect, Pierre Gasly, could use another year in the oven at Toro Rosso before he can be served up as a genuine top F1 driver — with all the pressures that entails. And Carlos Sainz, whom Red Bull still has under contract? Not likely, given the friction between him and Max Verstappen when they were together at Toro Rosso. Instead, Sainz reportedly is keen on heading to McLaren, where he would serve as a future team leader once Alonso decides his time in F1 is done.
It’s a reality that the Spaniard is far closer to the end of his F1 career than its start; so too is it true that he is no closer to getting himself into a competitive car. The Renault power unit hasn’t proven to be the final piece in solving McLaren’s lack of pace. With high-profile exits in management and the design department, it seems the team’s doldrums are likely to continue into 2019. But Alonso’s needn’t have to. A one year Alonso-Red Bull marriage of convenience makes sense for a myriad of reasons. There’s money, for starters. Red Bull could conceivably pick up one of the few proven elite drivers on the grid for relatively cheap — despite his large salary — as it already has a bit of leverage over McLaren.
Along with Red Bull having Carlos Sainz under contract, McLaren has let it known it is hiring chief technical officer James Key away from Toro Rosso … except his Toro Rosso deal doesn’t end until 2020. McLaren had been in talks with Red Bull to get him sooner, but negotiations went cold when the press got hold of the story and McLaren confirmed it. “We had a discussion with Zak (Brown, McLaren boss), and instead of coming back to us, there was a press release done,” Red Bull’s Helmut Marko told motorsport.com. “So we’ll stick to the contract, and McLaren will have to wait for quite a long time.” A bit of fast talking could see McLaren walk away with Key and a Spaniard who might one day be a world champion, while Red Bull gets a Spaniard who is a world champion.
It would give Red Bull a pair of evenly-matched, race-winning drivers, a situation it has enjoyed for the past three seasons. Think of all the times team Principal Christian Horner bragged about having the best driver line-up in F1, now add Alonso into that equation. Taking into account the extra year Gasly needs to mature before promotion in 2020, Red Bull wouldn’t need Alonso for more than a year. But one glorious year in race-winning machinery before retiring from F1 entirely could be enough of a temptation. It has been five seasons since Alonso was in a genuine race-winning F1 car, and the prospect of he and Verstappen going head-to-head is the stuff of F1 fans’ dreams. The press attention and column inches devote to Red Bull — they don’t spend money on F1 for the fun of it — would also be far greater with Alonso on board.
Honda doesn’t forget, and it likely would not be keen on reuniting with Alonso this soon — and that’s before taking into account his Toyota World Endurance Championship contract. Which highlights another key reason why Alonso wouldn’t be so attractive to Red Bull.
The Spaniard is seen to have been a destabilising influence on the teams he has been with, allied with the immense pressure of failing to win despite having a proven race-winning and championship-winning driver.
If the word is correct and Red Bull waved off any suggestion it would bring Sainz to the team due to the problems it would cause with Verstappen, then it seems unlikely it would bring Alonso to Milton Keynes. Although — as Ricciardo’s shock switch to Renault proved — unlikely things do tend to happen in F1 …
