Alonso ends the year with the Magi

Madrid, 19 December – Fernando Alonso’s last work commitment of 2011 took place this afternoon in the Santander Bank’s head office at Boadilla del Monte, near Madrid. Yesterday in Maranello, he was Father Christmas for the families of Ferrari employees and today the Spanish driver was dressed in the robes of one of the Magi kings as part of the end of year festivities with representatives of one the Scuderia’s major sponsors. Alongside Fernando were his two colleagues, Marc Gene and Pedro De La Rosa, much to the delight of the many children present, who all received a Scalextric kit as a gift.

Earlier, Fernando had exchanged seasonal good wishes with a group of Spanish journalists, as well as throwing in some pragmatic views on the Formula 1 season just ended and the one that will be getting underway shortly. “This is the time when one is always optimistic, but then we must wait for the start of the season to see where we really are. It’s true that in the past few days, there was a good feeling at Maranello and there’s an air of confidence about it,” said Fernando. “We want to reacquaint ourselves with the taste of winning that has eluded us for a while. Last spring, we made important changes to the structure of the technical part of the team and now we have adopted a new approach, a less conservative one, in the design of the new car. The philosophy behind the 2012 car is very different to that of 2011, especially in some key areas like suspension and aerodynamics. We know that Ferrari is burdened with the expectations of victory and if it does not happen, in the winter the papers devote page after page to the whys and wherefores as to how things can change, while the others have to make do with the crumbs in terms of media coverage. It’s one of the things that make Ferrari different to all the other teams.”

However, now’s the time to take it easy for a few weeks,” concluded the man from Oviedo. “Time to recharge the batteries and be one hundred percent ready for next season, which I expect will be much more of an equal fight than the one just gone. Red Bull will still be very strong, but I think they will have less room for improvement than us, as we were so far behind this year.”

In the morning, Alonso received a special recognition from the Autonomous Community of Madrid, who awarded him the International Prize for Sport. Fernando was presented with the award by the President, Esperanza Aguirre, during a ceremony at the Community headquarters.

Source: Ferrari.com

Photos of the filming of Fernando Alonso message for fans on Facebook Banco Santander

Exclusives photos of the filming of Fernando Alonso message for fans on Facebook Banco Santander!

Source: facebook.com/bancosantander

Alonso in Madrid: “We won’t know where Ferrari stands until Melbourne”

During the event organised by the Santander Bank in Madrid, Fernando Alonso obviously spoke at length about the weeks of preparation prior to the start of the World Championship, although he repeated much of what he had already said at the tests. “We will only really know where we stand compared to the others when we are in Melbourne,” said the Spanish driver. “At the moment, I am happy because we proved to have a reliable car. If all goes to plan, we will be in the group of teams capable of fighting for the title, along with Red Bull the reigning champions, McLaren, Mercedes and also Renault, who had already made a step forward towards the end of last season. Even Toro Rosso has made significant progress.”

As usual, tyres were centre stage. “From what we have seen so far, degradation is very significant, which means we will have races with lots of pit stops,” continued Fernando. “I’m not keen on that because I think this increased uncertainty does not favour the strongest teams: it’s as if in football, it was decided to have a penalty per team each half hour in which case Barcelona and Real Madrid would not be jumping for joy. However, the situation is the same for everyone: it will be important to be fastest because I don’t think we can make one stop less than our main rivals.”

Source: Ferrari.com

Kimi: What went wrong?

Kimi Räikkönen. The Iceman. Despite not turning a wheel in a Formula One car since the season closing race in Abu Dhabi 2009, he has – repeatedly – been the centre of attention during the silly season. “Will he”, “won’t he”, “please come back!” “Please stay away”. The opinions are varied and the facts are often false but 9 seasons of Formula One delivered just one title, won by a single point. ‘Just’ is the wrong word perhaps, as to become world champion is an incredible achievement. So why is a man with so much skill at his disposal sitting about in the WRC, having one just one short tarmac stage and crashed more times than we can remember? It’s an extraordinary turn of events, but a lot of it wasn’t down to Kimi himself, rather a large bank from the coast of Northern Spain…

So just when did it start to go wrong for Kimi? Well, it never really went right during the McLaren years where his blinding speed was limited by the woeful reliability of the cars, most notably the 2005 car – the MP4/20 – that won 10 of the 19 races but broke down so often that Räikkönen finished a distant 2nd in the championship despite superior speed. It was then that the contract with Ferrari was signed and 2006 was just a wasted, winless and luckless season. But bring on 2007 and all would be okay, right? After all, he was joining the team that had dominated the first half of the decade. But crucially, McLaren improved and Ferrari seemed to take a step back. The F2007 was superior on the faster circuits such as Spa but couldn’t get anywhere near McLaren at the tight circuits, such as Monaco. Mistakes and mechanical failures meant that Kimi – despite winning 6 races – appeared to luck into the title thanks to the implosion at McLaren. Granted, he won more races than anyone else but would he really have won the title had McLaren not hit the self destruct button? You can’t deny that he is a deserving world champion, but 2008 seemed to unravel all the good work he had done in 2007.

Ferrari’s 2008 challenger just didn’t suit Kimi at all. He won two of the first four races but after that things just fell apart. A crash in Monaco, taken out in Canada, a mechanical issue in France and Ferrari’s awful wet weather ability in Britain cost him vital points, but the key issue was in qualifying. Kimi couldn’t get the tyres to work and quite often found himself on the third or fourth row of the grid, resigning him to a race stuck battling to get to the podium. By the time Ferrari fixed his issues it was too late and the race at Spa almost epitomised his season – the king being dethroned. He only finished 23 points behind Lewis Hamilton after 18 races, but it wasn’t enough and he had clearly not lived up to his pre-season billing of being the overwhelming favourite. A poignant and suggestive moment was on the podium in Brazil when Räikkönen in 3rd was behind Alonso – driving for Renault – in 2nd. Massa was very affectionate towards Alonso on the podium whilst Räikkönen was almost given the cold shoulder. At the end of 2008, Ferrari effectively had 3 drivers but one was representing Renault. A poor start to 2009 (and being outscored by Massa 22 points to 10 pre-Hungary) left him in a less than safe position within the team as two was company, but three would be a crowd…

As is so often the case in Formula One, contracts were there to be broken and money talked. Rumours of Räikkönen quitting at the end of 2009 were quashed in Monza in 2008 when Ferrari announced that the Finn would stay with them until at least the end of the 2010 season. Well, they were meant to quash the rumours but they didn’t and the deal ended up costing Ferrari a sizeable about of money.

Santander started sponsoring McLaren in 2007 and it was perfect – Lewis Hamilton would represent the brand in the UK (a key target at the time for the Spanish bank), whilst Fernando Alonso would be the face of Santander in Spain. But when the team imploded in 2007, Fernando left and Santander were left with a deal that saw their brand on the McLaren’s until the end of 2010, now extended for another year. Alonso wanted to go to Ferrari and Santander was eager to put him there. An initial contract was signed that meant that Alonso would drive for the Scuderia from 2011, but that wasn’t enough for Santander. When Ferrari announced that the bank would sponsor them from 2010, the writing was on the wall even if Alonso wasn’t confirmed until the Japanese Grand Prix in October. Kimi had chances with McLaren but the plans fell through. There were rumours about Mercedes but they came to nothing. But were Ferrari right to get rid of Räikkönen for Alonso or should Massa have made way for the Spaniard? Hindsight is a wonderful thing…

The bare facts don’t lie but they go nowhere to revealing the truth – in 2008 Massa beat Räikkönen across 18 races and in 2010 Alonso has done the same to Massa. Ergo, Alonso is better than Raikkonen, closed book, end of story, right? Wrong. Massa in 2010 is suffering from the same issues that niggled with Räikkönen in 2008. Would Kimi have performed better than Alonso this year? You can only speculate but it’s hard to imagine Räikkönen throwing it off the road at Spa, jumping the start in China and making such a mess of a few of the other races. There’s no doubt that Kimi would be performing better than Massa, but again, hindsight is brilliant, so why did Ferrari force their 2007 champion out in favour of the Brazilian?

A large factor was Massa’s accident in Hungary. Ferrari assured him that he would have a place at the team when he returned so naturally that left Kimi as the outsider. To many it seemed logical – Massa had been ‘best of the rest’ in the first 9 races of 2009 whilst Kimi appeared to be on a downward spiral after the highs of 2007. But then Kimi came alive, took two consecutive podiums before winning at Spa and – with a car that was hopeless (as shown by Fisichella and Badoer) – he finished 6th in the championship, just one point behind Lewis Hamilton. Yet Kimi was out of a drive and apparently lacking in motivation. F1 can be very cruel sometimes but – as stated before –money played a big part.

With Kimi having signed a contract for 2010, Ferrari now had to break that contract but still had to pay his salary – an estimated $17m. Felipe Massa would have been on a relatively low retainer in comparison whilst Santander (rather helpfully) paid Alonso’s salary of around $20m – $25m. There is also the thinking that Räikkönen never really fitted in at Ferrari; the team was built around Schumacher and they expected Räikkönen to be like Schumacher and live and breathe Ferrari. That was never going to happen and there are those who believe that his self inflicted isolation from the team played a large part to their separation. Kimi’s ice-cool nature hugely contrasted the Ferrari ideal of being a big family, something that Massa – being Brazilian and therefore similar in personality to the Scuderia – conformed to.

So Kimi was out of the way, Fernando & Felipe in the team for 2010 and the Finn now had an empty calendar and a rather healthy pay cheque for doing nothing. But the latter wasn’t an option for Räikkönen and his apparent lack of motivation in Formula One coincided with growing aspirations in World Rally. He dabbled in the sport by driving a Fiat Punto in Rally Finland in 2009, rolling out of the even when running well (at the time something put down to his inexperience, but he would encounter the same issues in 2010!) Once F1 was out of the frame, he quickly signed a deal that would put him at Citroen Junior Team alongside Sebastien Ogier with hefty sponsorship from Red Bull.

Yet despite distancing himself from Formula One the rumours continued. With Red Bull sponsoring his World Rally adventure, so the stories came and went, linking him to Red Bull Racing. A one year extension for Webber meant there would be no room left at the inn but still the stories persisted whilst Renault said they were in contact with Kimi. An angry press release indicated that Renault had blown their contact out of proportion and that Räikkönen was really unhappy at the way the French squad had used him for their own benefit. Or was it the other way around?

Well, Petrov’s future was hanging in the balance and Renault undoubtedly used the opportunity to get more money from Russian sponsors. Now they have Lotus onboard but only as sponsors. Not only that, but Lotus has entered a vast array of motorsport divisions, and there are wonderings of whether they can sustain the huge financial input needed – F1, GP2, IRL, Sportscars amongst others. Kimi stays in the WRC with a shiny new Citroen DS3 and it’s hoped he’ll stop falling off the road.

Will he come back to Formula One? Possibly, but it’s difficult to see where and with age no longer on his side, when…

Source: F1Zone

Alonso’s thumbs insured

Madrid, 26 April – Fernando Alonso’s thumbs are safe. The Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro driver received as a present from Banco Santander a life insurance, including his thumbs, worth ten million Euros: this has been announced at the Banco Santander headquarters at Ciudad Financiera in Boadilla del Monte, near Madrid, this morning, during a press conference with Alonso, the Head of the Banca Commercial España Enrique Garcia Candela and Seguros y Banca Directa Global General Director Jorge Moran.

“Being close to risk in my profession made me understand that protection is a fundamental aspect. I knew that Santander is the best bank in the world, but now I discovered that they are also leaders in insurances. So I could only choose one of the best possible partners in this field.”

At the meeting with the press Alonso was also asked about the Formula 1 Championship. “I wasn’t happy with things Sunday night in Shanghai, but now, with a cool head, I can be really satisfied with this start of the season,” Fernando said. “We didn’t always gain what we could have according to our potential, but we’re fighting for the title and this is what counts more than anything else, considering that in the last two years after four races it was already clear that I didn’t have a chance. The problems with the engines? I’m not worried at all, I know that the team is working hard to fix them and I’m convinced that I’ll have a reliable and strong engine available, just as I know that they are giving it their all in Maranello to introduce several new solutions for the F10 for the Spanish Grand Prix.”

The next F1 race will be held on Fernando’s home track, the Circuit de Catalunya: “I will race there for the first time with a Ferrari, so the grandstands will be covered in red, I’m pretty sure about that, just my fans from Asturias might contrast to it a little, because they’re usually dressed in blue.”

The event ended with a meeting with some children of the Banco Santander’s employees at the Ciudad Financiera, and with the shooting of a TV commercial, which will be aired in Spain during the race in Barcelona.

Source: Ferrari.com

Kimi Räikkönen interview from Sportbild

After you left Ferrari you could have signed a contract with McLaren-Mercedes. Why you preferred to drive rally?
No comment. (laughs) Well, I just didn’t get the cockpit I wanted.

Why?
Different reasons. I had some offers, not only from McLaren. But I also ever made it clear, that I will only stay in F1, when I get the chance to win races and fight for the championship. When the last door was closed I decided that the rally world championship would be the best option for me. Red Bull and Citroen give me that opportunity. Anytime in my career I wanted to do that anyway, now it just happened earlier.

When did Ferrari tell you that they don’t need you anymore?
Sometime in summer 2009 they told me that they maybe will replace me with Alonso. I don’t think that it was up to my performance on track. Rather some other things lead to Alonso driving there. For example some sponsors were not innocent.

You surely mean Spanish bank Santander, a sponsor of Fernando Alonso. What do you think now of Ferrari?
I had 3 great years there. I achieved my dream to be world champion with Ferrari. It is one of the best teams in F1. There is nothing negative to say about the team.

Which aims do you have for the rally world championship?
If I drive longer, the ultimate aim is certainly to be world champion. Nobody has won both championships in F1 and Rally before. But one after another. First I want to win a rally.

Which title would mean more to you?
To be the best driver around the world is always a great satisfaction, in rally as in F1.

You have a fantastic rival: Sebastian Loeb
He dominates the rally world championship since many years. 6 consecutive years he was world champion, that’s a bit similar to Michael Schumacher in F1. When you dominate your sport for such a long time you are something special. That’s why I can learn a lot from him. He is my benchmark, exactly like he could learn from me a lot in F1.

How much of your excitement for rallies is because you are a Finn and that the sport has a long tradition in your country?
Much. In the past I was driving rally-cross. Also I always liked to drive on snow.

Don’t you miss the power of a F1 engine?
Well, a F1 car is the fastest race car in the world. Everything else can’t be that quick unfortunately.

Do you still have contacts to F1?
Hey, I’m just away for some months now! There are still the same team principals like last year. Apart from those of the new teams I know them all personally.

You have very good connections to Red Bull. What do you think about a F1 comeback as Sebastian Vettel’s team mate?
Who knows? I will make my decision sometime later this year and will check what opportunities I have. Red Bull was very competitive 2009. When I would have a chance to drive a competitive car, that would be very interesting.

Why would you and your friend Sebastian Vettel be a good team?
That you must ask the team. They make the decisions.

What do you answer to critics who say you would not be motivated enough anymore for F1?
I still did try to stay there. That is fact. But it didn’t work. Now I will drive rally for a year. What will come after that has nothing to do with my motivation.

There are voices who say you didn’t do enough with your talent. Are they right?
I could have won 3 world championships in F1. It wasn’t my fault that it didn’t work.

Source: Sportbild
Courtesy: miezicat KRSF

Drivers begin to arrive in sunny Bahrain

Fernando Alonso and Nico Rosberg have already touched down in warm and sunny Bahrain ahead of the weekend's 2010 season opener.

Spaniard Alonso's Ferrari teammate Felipe Massa is expected early on Tuesday morning, while Rosberg's Mercedes teammate Michael Schumacher is set to be accompanied by his wife Corinna on a private jet.

Toro Rosso driver Sebastien Buemi's commercial flight is scheduled to touch down on Tuesday evening.

FIA president Jean Todt was spotted at Bahrain International Airport on Sunday, while at the Sakhir circuit, the pitlane and paddock are already abuzz with F1 personnel activity.

"My flight leaves on Tuesday," confirmed Williams' German rookie Nico Hulkenberg. "It is important to have a little time to settle in and get ready with the team for the weekend."

The returning Schumacher, 41, warmed up for Bahrain with a weekend on the Genk go-kart track near the Belgian-German border.

Also expected in Bahrain this weekend is the Spanish bank Santander's boss Emilio Botin, to witness the competitive debut of the Alonso-Ferrari-Santander sponsorship combination, as well as former Ferrari driver Jean Alesi.

Source: Motorsport

Kimi: "Santander put money in so I would leave"

25/02/2010
Exclusive interview with Kimi Räikkönen to Autopista


Kimi Räikkönen caught up with Autopista during the course of Rally Sweden, where he spoke about his WRC premiere, and also hinted about his past in Formula 1, as for example the true motive behind his departure from Ferrari.

Finn Kimi Räikkönen caught up with our journalist Fernando Albes at the end of Rally Sweden, where the former Formula 1 world champion made his WRC debut. You will be able to read the full interview on the last issue of Autopista, issue 2.641, on sale now. Here we take a look at the juiciest quotes from a driver that speaks more than it seems...

Kimi, you've caused quite a stir in the rally world. Do you like the rallies better than Formula 1?

I think the repercussion is the same, I race in the rallies because I like it. I don't like it more than F1, I still like F1, but rallying is something I have always wanted to try.

How did you do in Sweden?

The snow is the hardest surface to drive on, because you can't see the driving lines, which could help you. There's still a lot to learn, but I'm getting experience with the car and with the notes, and little by little I'll begin to go faster.

Where is there more pression, here on in Formula 1?

The pression is the same for me, because it's the pressure I impose on myself.

They say you relate the arrival of Alonso in Ferrari to the money Santander put in so you left.

It wasn't me who put in the money, but Santander had something to do with it. But to me it doesn't matter.

Besides talking about more current events from the rally world in his interview, the same article offers a complete study on Räikkönen's performance in Sweden, comparing his pace with Dani Sordo's in his first ever Rally Sweden with a WRC in 2006. The results are surprising...

Source: Terra.es
Translation/adaptation from Spanish: Fran