Today, it is latest that Fernando Alonso could take a holiday from Formula 1 one year from now if McLaren stay uncompetitive, the team’s executive Ron Dennis says. Alonso is contracted until the end of 2017, yet McLaren battled in their first year with engine accomplice Honda.
Dennis said: “I have an open mind. Some ideas have involved those sorts of considerations – sabbatical years.”
Alonso said, “I discussed many ideas but not at this part of the year. We feel so much more positive than before with the recent pace of the car. It is something we didn’t discuss for four or five months already. My intention is to race and I think I will race.”
Previous F1 driver Mark Webber, who is near Alonso, said he trusted the 34-year-old would settle on a definite choice in the wake of attempting the 2016 McLaren in pre-season testing next February. Webber said, “I think he is a ticking bomb. I think give him two or three days in the car and if the car is uncompetitive I think he’ll have a year off.”
Later McLaren said, “No-one should have any doubt that I have three years with McLaren and my career in F1 will end with this team, hopefully winning everything.”
By and by, insiders have kept on communicating questions about whether Alonso, who left Ferrari for McLaren toward the end of last season on the grounds that he trusted they would give him a superior shot of winning a third world title, could confront another season at the back of the network.
There have been recommendations since Japan that if the Honda engine stays uncompetitive in 2016, Alonso could take a year out and return to satisfy the last two years of his agreement in 2017 and 2018. In spite of the fact that he and team-mate Jenson Button have by and large stayed positive and hopeful in their open expressions in 2015, their dissatisfactions have every so often surfaced. Dennis said he trusted McLaren and Honda would be more aggressive in 2016.
Dennis said: “We have quite a lot of confidence in where we will be at the beginning of next season. It is most definitely going in the right direction. We are going up a painful curve, but up it we will go and we will get there. I know where the motor-home will be but I don’t think the car will be matching that position.”
