F1-Blog

Ok, so we know now that Fernando (as expected) will not be at McLaren next year. So where will he go?

Well it’s no secret that Flavio would like him to return to Renault, openly stating as much, however Fernando has said that Renault is not his first choice.

Ferrari have got their driver lineup sorted for the foreseeable future, so that’s out, and leaves some of the teams that are not considered front runners.

Toyota obviously have a slot, but it’s known that they are wooing Timo Glock to replace Ralf, however that too does not look good, with BMW blocking Timo’s move to the Japanese team.

Other teams that would be willing to have the Spaniard (and be able to pay his large wage) are Red Bull, Williams and Toyota.

Let’s have a look at these options. Red Bull have a completed driver lineup, with Mark Webber and David Coulthard both with signatures on their contracts, if the team were to secure the Spaniards services, it’s likely that the driver under pressure would be David. There is another issue with the Red Bull team though, Fernando does not like to be beaten by his team mate (as his year at McLaren has shown), and I believe that Mark would be a tough team mate to beat, he is quick and knows the car well. However saying that, the team have all the things Fernando would need, a ‘genius’ designer, money and decent management, so never say never.

Williams could put a bid together as well, they are capable of raising funds, and history has shown that they never stay down for long. The team has started to show pace as they get used to the Toyota lump in the back of the car, and if Alonso moved here it would allow a straight driver swap, with Nico Rosberg going to McLaren. The only difficult bit with this team would be them raising the funding to pay for Alonso, but Frank has never struggled to raise sponsorship, so that should not be an issue, as I am sure there are a fair few Spanish companies that would love to join the team that Fernando races for.

The last of the choices is Toyota, the big issue here is performance. Would Fernando want to join a team that is still struggling to make their money work. The team has the largest budget on the grid though, so he could probably bring the team forward in performance. The team has been criticised for it’s management structure, saying the committee way of leading a team does not work, and until now at least that has been the case (Honda struggle with this as well). However Toyota are not used to loosing for too long, and the committee ways have won them a glut of titles in other formula’s over the years (WRC the highest profile), so they will get their act together sooner or later.

The other interesting driver question is who will join Lewis at McLaren? Obvious candidates (as Hamilton has stated) are Nico Rosberg, Heikki Kovalainen and Adrian Sutil. All are class drivers, and deserving of a top drive, it would be rare for McLaren to have two young drivers in the cars, but perhaps it’s time for McLaren to take a few risks, after all, if the MP4-23 is a fast car (and it would seem to be a good bet) then they already know that Lewis is capable of challenging for the title race.

So who will lock Fernando’s signature to paper? only time will tell, but it’s going to be an interesting ’silly season’