According to the latest rumours, Fernando Alonso may be heading to Honda next year for a one year stint. British newspaper The Guardian has said that the Spanish driver is reportedly considering a $15 million deal to drive for Honda next season. However the stay is predicted to be short-lived with many believing that Alonso will head to Ferrari in 2010. Rubens Barrichello s contract with Honda is up at the end of this season and it is believed that if Alonso agrees to the new deal, it will be Barrichello who will be out of a race-seat in the team.
“Fernando is a wonderful driver who would be a fantastic asset to any of the top teams, including this one,” Nick Fry, Honda team’s chief executive explained to the newspaper. “The job Ross and I have is to build a world championship-winning team.â€
“We d love to have him,†Ross Brawn said of Alonso. “Of all the drivers right now, he is the only one that I see as totally complete, as Michael [Schumacher] was.â€
It is believed that Honda think that Alonso s driving skills could net them as much as 0.6 seconds a lap and that his talents for setting up and testing the cars would be the perfect foil to the rafts of new regulations that are being introduced next season.
However not everyone is happy with Alonso. McLaren boss Ron Dennis is unhappy that Alonso suggested he might now have been able to fight for the 2009 championship had he stayed at McLaren thanks to a bias towards Lewis Hamilton.
“Firstly, when the contract with Fernando was terminated there were pre-conditions which determined the behaviour of both parties post-termination,” Dennis explained. “We have no intention of breaching that agreement. His opinion is his opinion – I’m not going to voice my opinion about anything that Fernando has done or said.
“What I would say is you can’t see any strings leading to Heikki’s shoulders and he’s an honest guy. He will more than convince anyone who talks to him that this is a team absolutely committed to equality. It always has been and it always will be.
“People will point to the last grand prix and say it’s absolutely obvious there were team orders in that event because it was clear that Heikki moved over and let Lewis past. The essential fact was that throughout that race Lewis was nearly seven-tenths of a second faster than Heikki and he knew that, he was told that. He was not told to let Lewis past.”
