Alonso Declines Ferrari 2009?
By Kristien Barker
January 4 2009
Reports in the Spanish media claim that Renault star Fernando Alonso has turned down a late switch to Ferrari ahead of the 2009 season. Alonso continues to have constant speculation linking him with the Italian based outfit and in the past has made no effort to squash the speculation
Diario AS a spanish newspaper claim that the Ferrari squad were prepared to release Kimi Raikkonen and gain Alonso's services. Raikkonen had a season to forget in 2008 and was outperformed by brazilian team mate Filippe Massa who just lost out on the 2009 title to lewis hamilton on the last corner of the last race of the season.
Alonso is rumoured to have turned down the drive out of respect to the Renault F1 team as this would have placed them in a difficult situation with testing and developments ongoing on the 2009 car and with a rookie in the second drivers seat.
"in short, the Italian team's sudden interest came too late for Fernando," Claimed Diario AS.
The trouble with this story is that at the time he was supposedly deciding not to race for Ferrari out of loyalty to Renault he had been talking to a number of teams including Honda. Only much later was it announced he would be staying at Renault.
