Driver market focus, meanwhile, on Alonso's plans for '15 - and '16
Friday 17 October 2014 15:25, UK
Christian Horner says the chance of Red Bull one day reuniting with Sebastian Vettel can never be ruled out, as the German prepares to cut his ties with the team at the end of the season.
Vettel sent the paddock and, by direct consequence, the 2015 driver market into frenzy last Saturday at Suzuka when surprising news of the quadruple World Champion’s split with Red Bull at the end of 2014 was announced by the team. Horner then swiftly revealed that his driver was heading to Ferrari.
Vettel, who activated a break clause in his contract with one season of his deal still to run, has been backed by the Red Bull company since the age of 12 and achieved all of his record-breaking F1 success across their two F1 teams.
But despite the sudden end to the hugely successful partnership, Horner says they will go their separate ways on “absolutely good terms”.
“We will be sorry to see him go, he’s been a big part of what we’ve achieved at Red Bull,” Horner told Sky Sports News HQ in Sochi.
“He’s going on a new journey, we wish him the best of luck, but as of next year he will be a competitor."
And asked if he could ever envisage Vettel returning to the team one day, Horner replied: “In this business, you never know. Who would have thought that Kimi [Raikkonen] would have gone back to Ferrari after they paid him to leave?
“It’s a small world, a small paddock and he’s a friend for life – not just a fair-weather friend.”
With Horner appearing to steal Ferrari’s thunder by announcing that Vettel was moving on to Maranello, the German’s supposed new employers have still confirmed neither his 2015 arrival nor the expected departure of Fernando Alonso.
It is the uncertainty over Alonso’s future that remains the main talk of the driver market with the former World Champion believed to be holding out for a race seat with Mercedes in 2016 as the Spaniard plays a high-stakes game of brinkmanship with McLaren-Honda.
With Red Bull moving quickly to promote Daniil Kvyat to replace Vettel, and Mercedes publicly ruling out a change in their line-up for 2015, Alonso appears to be limited to just three options for next year: McLaren, Lotus, or, at the age of 33, a sabbatical.
However, amid suggestions that the double world champion is only prepared to commit to a one-year deal at McLaren-Honda, is ensuring he is in the right place when the music stops for 2016 actually Alonso’s overriding goal?
“There is absolutely no doubt that Fernando Alonso has put himself into a difficult position,” said Sky Sports F1’s Martin Brundle.
“I believe Alonso only has an ambition to drive for Mercedes in 2016, that is what he thought was going to happen. I wonder if he also thought that it was Lewis Hamilton going to Ferrari rather than Vettel. So he is trying to do a one-year deal wherever he goes next year, or even take a sabbatical - that is not out of the question – and I think McLaren want a longer term deal than that if they want him at all.”
Although Hamilton has just a solitary season left on the three-year deal he signed when leaving McLaren for Mercedes in 2012, the team’s non-excecutive chairman Niki Lauda revealed in Japan that they had opened talks with the World Championship leader about a contract extension. Nico Rosberg, Hamilton’s team-mate, put pen to paper on a multi-year contract extension just three months ago.
That didn’t stop wild speculation leading up to the Russian GP that it could yet be Hamilton on the move back to McLaren as early as this winter - although the Briton swiftly shot down the latest round of ‘silly season’ rumours on his arrival in Sochi on Thursday.
“I think it’s an interesting time in Formula 1 - Ferrari’s making changes, top drivers making changes, a lot of fiction, a lot of silly stories going around," Hamilton responded.
"Whoever is starting those silly conversations, I’ve made clear and always have been very clear that I’m here to do the job that I’m contracted to do until the end of next year.
“We’ve confirmed that we’ll sit down and talk about the future at the end of the year.”
