So how did it come to this? Joining up the dots that culminated in Shocking Saturday for Red Bull and Ferrari's leading men at Suzuka...
Sunday 5 October 2014 11:10, UK
F1 moves at lightning speed when it needs to
Start joining the dots together and the question of how it came to this, how the F1 world was turned on its head on Shocking Saturday in Suzuka, can start to be answered as a series of rational decisions, each a reaction to the last, and as a sudden and spellbinding cascade of consequences that culminated in 2014’s most dramatic day so far.
No other sport does intrigue with quite the same panache as F1.
The trigger to Suzuka’s supernova wasn’t Red Bull’s Saturday morning press release disclosing Sebastian Vettel's exit, but events two days previously when the slowburner of Fernando Alonso’s simmering discontent at Ferrari suddenly came to a boil and both parties agreed to terminate the remaining two years of his contract.
Rumours had swirled for weeks, if not months, that Alonso’s relationship with the new hierarchy at Ferrari had irretrievably broken down. Viewed with the crystal-clear clarity of hindsight, the breakdown can be seen as the perfect storm of dissatisfaction; Alonso’s unhappiness with the team’s ongoing – and worsening – failure to deliver a winning car on the one hand and, on the other, the resolution of Marco Mattiacci that only a three-year masterplan could propel the Scuderia back to the front. Alonso might be generally recognised as the best driver in the sport, but suddenly that no longer counted for much within Maranello. Committed to their three-year plan, Ferrari didn’t need a 33-year-old driving force; what they now needed was a younger, more conciliatory team player, ready and willing to commit to a long-term project in the manner of Michael Schumacher two decades previously.
Which is why, less than twenty-four hours after Alonso signed his divorce papers, Vettel had instead put pen to paper to marry his future to Ferrari’s. Who better to do a Schumacher than Mini Michael himself? For both parties, the attraction was obvious. Ferrari had their champion and Vettel, after a stale season at Red Bull, had the new challenge he craved.
Technically under contract until 2016, Vettel had in fact become available on September 30 when a get-out clause, based on his position in the Drivers’ Championship, was triggered. Dwell on this detail for a moment. Vettel, Christian Horner remarked in passing on Saturday, does not have an agent. He makes his own choices and signs his own papers. It’s very possible that it was Vettel himself who, even during the giddy heights of his Milton Keyness success story, had the foresight to include the clause as protection against F1’s looming new turbo era and the stubborn refusal of Adrian Newey to find complete job satisfaction. Behind the grinning deflections and boyish quips is one of the sharpest minds in the sport.
In contrast to Fernando and Ferrari, Vettel’s divorce from Red Bull was a swift affair. Summoned to the German’s hotel room by a text message after 10pm on Friday night, and with the get-out clause still less than a week old, a surprised-but-not-shocked Christian Horner was told in person by an ‘emotional’ Vettel that he was leaving the family nest. Let’s pause here as well to consider another intriguing detail in the story. According to Horner, he made no attempt to dissuade Vettel. Did the Red Bull boss simply think it would be a futile gesture? Or was Horner’s disinclination a telling reflection of Vettel’s debased stock at the end of a season in which he had comprehensively out-performed by the faster – and cheaper – Daniel Ricciardo? Vettel had the tears but, thanks to Ricciardo, a revelation since his arrival from Toro Rosso twelve months ago, Red Bull no longer fear a future without Vettel. And their actions over the next few hours testified as much.
Emboldened by the success of Ricciardo’s promotion, Red Bull’s immediate response to Vettel’s bombshell was to appoint Daniil Kvyat – without his knowledge – as the German’s successor. The second was to steal back the initiative by throwing the paddock into meltdown by issuing a perky 207-word press release announcing Vettel’s departure in the early hours of Saturday morning.
Vettel, it has to be assumed, wasn’t expecting Red Bull to go on the front-foot with their own bad news. Judging by the awkward silence emanating from Ferrari for the rest of the day, the Scuderia certainly weren’t. As a relaxed-sounded Horner faced up to the cameras, it was almost as if it was Red Bull, and not Ferrari, who had just signed the reigning four-times World Champion. Played out to an audience of millions, waking up to a universally unexpected but half-explained bombshell, Horner delivered a masterclass in crisis management that will be replayed for decades.
In reality, for all the smiles and shrugs, Red Bull have been severely weakened. So too, it can easily be argued, have Ferrari. Instead of keeping their driver who was half-a-second up on his team-mate this year, they’ve replaced him with the driver who has been second best at Red Bull this term.
Red Bull’s 2015 line-up has also been downgraded from 2014’s. Although only time will judge the wisdom of their decision to appoint Kvyat as Vettel’s successor, it’s beyond dispute that the Russian is now at least one year ahead of where Red Bull wanted him to be. None of their masterplan drafts had the youngster anywhere other than Toro Rosso in 2015. Alonso, though, wasn’t an option. "Red Bull's philosophy has always been to invest in youth. That's where Seb's come from, that's where Daniel's come from and Daniil Kvyat looks an outstanding talent as well," explained Horner.
Vettel will forever argue that he didn’t leave Red Bull to run away from Ricciardo but, in a curious twist of fate, it’s clear that Ricciardo’s success this year is the foremost reason why Alonso will end his F1 career without a Red Bull drive on his CV.
Which brings us back to the enigmatic, divisive and brooding Spaniard. Remember, it was his decision, albeit one made with Ferrari’s mutual consent, that triggered Saturday’s tumult.
Could it really be the case that he signed away the remainder of his career at Ferrari without first securing a binding deal with McLaren-Honda? As night fell in Suzuka, it appeared, to jaw-dropping effect, that Alonso had done just that. "None of our drivers are signed for 2015,” declared Ron Dennis to Sky F1. When the music unexpectedly stopped on Saturday morning, Alonso had been caught standing in no man’s land.
Fernando has a track record of bad career choices, of course. How else to succinctly explain why the best driver in F1 hasn’t won the World Championship in nearly a decade? As the paddock struggled with the disconnect of McLaren insisting they are yet to sign a deal with any driver for 2015 and Alonso putting pen to paper on his Ferrari divorce, the thought flourished that the Spaniard might be considering a sabbatical. Yet on the weekend when 17-year-old Max Verstappen became the youngest driver in F1 history, the risk to Alonso from taking a year out at the age of 33 cannot have been more obvious. By comparison, committing the final years of his F1 career to the untried Honda-McLaren package would be a walk in the park.
The smart money, therefore, remains on Alonso returning to McLaren for 2015 at the expense of Jenson Button. And money is surely the operative word in this particular next play because, with Mercedes following Red Bull’s lead in ruling out Alonso, the Spaniard’s negotiating strength has been greatly reduced. Sky F1’s Martin Brundle was only half joking when he remarked that, when Alonso next sits down with McLaren, he may find that £30million has been reduced to £15million. Nevertheless, with Honda both driving and, reputedly, funding the pursuit of Alonso, it remains inconceivable that he will be left standing if he asks to take a seat alongside Kevin Magnussen next year.
Then again, as McLaren managing director Jonathan Neale remarked in Friday’s team bosses' press conference, “This is Formula 1 and anything can happen at a moment’s notice…never be surprised by what Formula 1 will throw up.” How prophetic those words would prove to be in the hours that followed.
They still might be again.
PG
