Ferrari dismiss Alonso exit rumours

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In the round-up: Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo says suggestions Fernando Alonso could leave Ferrari for another team are media speculation.

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Ferrari expects Alonso to stay (Ferrari)

“I am very pleased with Fernando. He has a contract with us until the end of 2016.”

Engine manufacturers fear Honda challenge (F1 Technical)

“The current engine manufacturers fear they may face a considerable disadvantage to Honda over the course of 2014 as the Japanese manufacturer is not yet obliged to the engine freeze before it enters competition in 2015.”

F1 star Eddie Irvine: Dissident bombers are idiots (Belfast Telegraph)

“Former race ace Eddie Irvine has branded dissident republicans who’ve brought terror back to the streets of Belfast as ‘clowns and idiots’.”

A special christmas message from Esteban Gutierrez (Esteban Gutierrez via YouTube)

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Comment of the day

@Wsrgo on the Indian Grand Prix’s chances of returning to the F1 calendar in 2015:

I hope Vicky Chandhok’s decision to not stand for re-election doesn’t affect the Indian Grand Prix’s chances to return in 2015. Either way, it probably still hinges on whether Government support can be obtained. If India’s top brass still continue to treat F1 as entertainment, not sport, and thus levy entertainment taxes on the incomes, the Indian Grand Prix will probably not return.

Chandhok has done tremendously well as the FMSCI president in the last few years, and it’ll be tough for his successor (whoever he is) to emulate him.
@Wsrgo

From the forum

Happy birthday!

Happy birthday to Louise.1987!

If you want a birthday shout-out tell us when yours is by emailling me, using Twitter or adding to the list here.

On this day in F1

Happy birthday to Wilson Fittipaldi who turns 70 today. Sixth place on his debut for Brabham in his (non-championship) home grand prix in 1972 was a promising start but he ended the year point-less. Nevertheless he remained with Bernie Ecclestone’s team for a second season and took a best finish of fifth at the Nurburgring.

He returned to F1 in 1975 driving for the new Copersucar team he founded with his brother. At the end of the season his younger brother Emerson, already a two-times world champion, stunned the F1 world by taking over from his brother at the fledgling team.

Image © Ferrari/Ercole Colombo

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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41 comments on “Ferrari dismiss Alonso exit rumours”

  1. Merry Christmas to everyone on F1Fanatic and have a great day (even if you have to brave this terrible weather in Britain to do so)!

    1. Indeed, Merry Christmas to all the members on the site :)

    2. We should exchange places, here in Uruguay we have 28 degrees celsius and we have 1 and a half hours to go till midnight. I need something fresh LOL

      Anyway, the merriest of christmas to all of you guys!

      1. @carlitox last night we hitted 30ºC at midnight… wanna change, @vettel1?

        Merry xmas to all of you ! :)

        1. I’d happily trade @fer-no65 or @carlitox! :P

        2. To be fair @fer-no65 I’m not sure you’d want to, big chunks of the country are flooded!

    3. Merry Christmas, everyone!

    4. Merry Christmas from Winter Wonderland, aka Canada where hundreds of thousands had to spend Christmas without power courtesy of an ice storm :(

  2. Merry or Happy Christmas, to all.

  3. Nick Jarvis (@)
    25th December 2013, 0:31

    Thanks for the round up even on Christmas morning.
    Merry Xmas.

  4. Merry christmas everyone ! May you all get lots of F1 related presents ! (I have my fingers crossed for a copy of F1 2013 :P )

  5. No wonder there are only two images in this roundup. Judging by the progressive growth in the size of the eyebrows, the next image could have only been Nigel Mansell, and he really isn’t up to much F1 stuff lately.

    On a more serious subject.
    If, judging by the latest spate of nonsense from Working Groups, Overtaking Group and similar “bodies”, F1 doesn’t consider itself a sport anymore, but just an entertainment, does it really matter that much that India treats it just the way it is asking to be treated?

  6. Merry Christmas from Australia!

  7. If Alonso does exit Ferrari, I’m more concerned about the condition of Ferrari than I am about Fernando. That’s because I know that FA will be his usual quick and relentless self no matter what car he drives, let it be Ferrari, McLaren, Lotus, or whatever. On the other hand, the idea of an Alonso-less Ferrari from 2010-2013 would have been quite frightening.

    1. +10

  8. Merry Christmas fellow F1F users!

  9. I’d be careful with that talk if I was Eddie Irvine. Condemnation of such acts is expected among politicians but sticking your neck out like that could make you a target for those fanatics. You’d be surprised what they’d do to keep their agenda in the news.

    1. I’m not following what is going on in Northern Island, but as a general rule, if no speaks out about what terrorists are doing, then don’t the they win? Given the whole modus operandi of terrorists is to instil fear into people, and then use that fear to get what they want. As the article mentions, Eddie Irvine has business interests in the area; it is in his best interest that the attacks stop and the area remains peaceful. The only tool he has at his disposal is to use his profile to publicly condemn them and hopefully give others the courage to also condemn them too.

    2. Being Northern Irish, I’m glad Eddie has spoken out about this.

      It’s not the 70s anymore. Speaking out isn’t unsafe, infact, the cowards would never touch someone like Eddie – he’s far too big.

      I just wish they’d stop calling these people “dissidents”. They’re terrorists.

    3. As @mouse_nightshirt said, it’s nice to hear someone other than a politician talk about this and Eddie’s never been shy on talking frankly about where he’s from.

      Every progressive step over the years has seen a split by hardliners who disagree with it, so all we’re left with is this distilled essence of nutter; anyone with any realistic political agenda or remote ability whatsoever has long since ‘retired’.

  10. i hope Esteban its going to show some of its doubters a few things next year

  11. Merry Christmas everyone!

  12. My first COTD!!! Thanks a lot, @keithcollantine!! A COTD on Christmas too!!!

  13. Gutierrez has one seriously freaky face to neck size ratio.

    1. +100000

    2. and he also needs to sort out his eyebrow. to make two of them, like Alonso did. that one, big one doesn’t help for his PR.

    3. lol I went though the list of comments expecting this one. Scary looking, I’m sure his neck was nowhere near that wide at the start of 2013. I think he wants to become Sauber’s new Incredible Hulk.

      Really though? Vettel has the fastest cornering car and he manages with a pencil neck when compared to Gutierrez’s tree trunk neck. That thing has got to weigh quite a bit too, it’s got to push the car’s center of gravity up right? lol.

    4. He also seems to suffer from a slight Prost nose.

  14. First link: Alonso will probably remain at Ferrari
    Second link: Honda will probably be the best engine in 2015
    So unless Ferrari have the best car next season, Alonso should seriously consider moving to McLaren because even now, they seem favorites for the title in 2015. Combined with Alonso and they mean some serious business. With Prodromu and many more technical officers headed to McLaren, that’s the place to be for Alonso, I believe, in 2015.

    1. I had told you all about Honda things, 6 months ago. I also told you all about Alonso exit, 3 months ago.

  15. Merry Christmas, F1 fanatics! :)

  16. Merry Christmas everybody!!! Will be sending Esteban a pair of tweezers for Christmas.

  17. Merry christmas to all who live and breath here on the site!

  18. It could prove a considerable advantage for Mclaren in 2015.
    Firstly, they will use the Mercedes v6Turbo this year. This means that they can inform Honda about every little problem that occurs during the 2014 season regarding their current engine, which will benefit them in 2015 when their partnership with Honda starts.
    Or am I completely wrong and isn’t Mclaren allowed to inform Honda about their Mercedes engine experiences in 2014?

  19. Can we really find fault with the Indian government taxing F1 as entertainment and not a sport?? Everything F1 has done in recent years has been to “improve the show”… DRS, super degrading tires, even to the point where we now have the ridiculous double points rule for the final race.
    If F1 wants to be a show and continue to ignore its sporting needs then I say that the Indian government is right to tax it as such.
    Maybe if more countries follow suit then F1, FIA and FOM will take notice and we can have our SPORT back instead of the gimmick filled nonsense we have now.

  20. merry christmas fellow fanatics!

  21. This is my position over Ferrari-Alonso gate. Everybody knows Alonso is the best you can get as a F1 driver. Some may say Kimi. Thats OK with me. RAI and ALO are the best. Thats why they earn around $ 30 M a year.
    Ferrari has the high ground (as usual). If ALO gets the championship, they will keep him. Everybody wins.
    If Ferrari keeps on struggling, they will also keep him. It will be an expensive experiment….but they wont give away ALO to make progress with anybody else. I really think that with RD, ALO in Mc Laren is imposible, but ALO in Lotus can fly.
    Ferrari will shoot itself paying him 30M and keeping him to prevent ALO driving for anybody else in 2015.

    ALO knows he is stuck between a rock and a hard place. Ferrari will continue in the sport, and his golden years are running away, VET has 4 championships and ALO is going slightly mad.

  22. The Honda situation just highlights how ridiculous this engine development freeze is, next year is supposed to promote efficiency and fuel savings which is a desirable area of research for the car industry and a great PR tool for the successful engine bldr but with development to be frozen before they even start a race the actual developmental advances that racing can produce will not be allowed to happen.
    Ferrari,Mercedes, Honda, and even Renault have the money for continuous research if it can be advantageous to their main product , and with the RPM race off the table mechanical reliability should not be a problem and all improvements in the power/fuel efficiency equation should be directly transferable to road cars.
    Time to untie the manufacturers hands and once again let F1 be the great deveopmental tool it used to be.

  23. Always on this website there is a common appreciation that F1 and politics should not mix, eg. Bahrain, then why now is there a mention of dissidents in Northern Ireland. I can see why there might be interest in what Irvine is up to, as he’s a former driver and there’s not much else going on in the off season, but to have such a political headline on a website, for what should be a non political sport is perplexing.

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