Fernando Alonso revealed recently that Mercedes came calling last year, in the wake of Nico Rosberg’s retirement, but nothing came of it because the Spaniard has a locked-tight contract with McLaren until the end of this season.
And now Mercedes F1 chief Toto Wolff has heaped praise on the double F1 world champion when he told iNews, “I must say that I like Alonso. He is straight onto the goal. Focused.”
Mercedes’s star driver right now is Lewis Hamilton who went toe-to-toe with Alonso and he were teammates at McLaren. Hamilton the precocious rookie and Alonso the double F1 World Champion. What transpired in 2007 is now etched in the sport’s folklore.
Wolff gave his opinion on why it all went pear shaped that year for Alonso, “I would say the management lost the championship in 2007. Alonso felt it was going against him, that Lewis was the loved child. This is why it fell apart. It cost Mercedes and McLaren a huge sum of money.”
“They lost the championship and have never really recovered. Alonso also kind of never recovered because he destroyed a lot of relationships with the things that happened. That had an influence on our thinking.”
“I wouldn’t be afraid of having Alonso, but when you consider having him, there would be lots of distraction. We had that with Nico and Lewis. Alonso is definitely one to consider but the disruption would be too much I think.”
With Alonso unavailable for this season, Mercedes opted for Valtteri Bottas, Wolff explained, “Hopefully Valtteri can give Lewis a run for his money. The engineers are already impressed.”
“Lets see when we get into the serious business in Melbourne where he is in comparison (to Lewis) In 2007 we didn’t know where Lewis was and he came in and gave Alonso a hard time,” added Wolff.
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