Fernando Alonso Will Not Return to Formula 1 If He Takes a 2015 Sabbatical
For someone with his back pressed firmly against a brick wall, Fernando Alonso displayed a remarkable amount of confidence on Formula One's "Shock Saturday" at Suzuka a fortnight ago.
The paddock had been taken aback by the news that Sebastian Vettel, the four-time world champion, would be leaving Red Bull Racing at the end of 2014, suddenly leaving Alonso—who, according to Sky Sports' Pete Gill, had arranged to leave Ferrari that Thursday—with very few options for the 2015 season.
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The Spaniard, though, seemed almost unaffected by Vettel's bombshell, showing no signs of conceding the high ground in the driver market.
He was quoted by James Galloway of Sky Sports as stating:
"I have the privileged position because more or less I can choose wherever I want to go in the moment that I want to go.
I gain that respect in so many years, especially the last five at Ferrari, so being the decision maker probably some of the movements that we are seeing now is an implication of what I'm deciding. So let's wait a little bit and when I clear completely my last doubts, I will tell you where I go.
"
Despite Alonso's apparent ease with his current predicament, he has just two realistic choices for next season.
The most obvious option, of course, is to return to McLaren, the team he left in acrimonious circumstances after just a solitary campaign seven years ago.
With Honda returning as the outfit's power unit supplier, Alonso—who according to BBC Sport's Andrew Benson has agreed a "multi-year deal"—would become the poster boy of an exciting new project and lead the team's efforts to recreate the glory days of the 1980s and 1990s.
The less likely, but far more compelling, course of action would be for Alonso to take a year-long sabbatical in the hope of landing a seat with Mercedes, the newly crowned constructors' world champions, for 2016.
Although the two-time title winner admitted to Autosport's Ben Anderson at last weekend's Russian Grand Prix that there is "probably not a big risk" that he will be sitting on the sidelines for next season, it will remain a possibility until the ink starts to dry on a McLaren contract, if indeed both team and driver are willing to put the past behind them.
And should he display the arrogance to take a year out of the sport, Alonso will struggle to return despite his claim that he can go wherever he wants, whenever he wants.
Formula One, after all, waits for no man.
In the modern era, there is no place for sentiment, and, very often, when one top-line driver is removed from the equation, a new star is almost instantly born.
We have seen it this year, with the popular Mark Webber's exit from Red Bull and F1 soon forgotten due to the rapid emergence of Daniel Ricciardo, widely considered the star of the season as the only non-Mercedes driver to win grands prix.
And without the chance to provide constant, race-after-race reminders of his qualities, Alonso—despite his successes in years gone by—would soon find himself overtaken by the next generation in the battle for leading seats.
Even at this moment in time, with Alonso still a full-time F1 driver, he is arguably behind Valtteri Bottas, the Williams driver, in the race for a Mercedes seat whenever Nico Rosberg—whose "multi-year contract extension" with the Silver Arrows was confirmed in July—or Lewis Hamilton—whose current contract, originally announced in 2012, is due to expire at the end of 2015—depart the outfit.
Bottas currently sits four points ahead of Alonso in the drivers' standings having claimed five podium finishes this season, in contrast to the Spaniard's two—but the results tell only part of the story.
Crucially, the Finnish driver already has existing links with Mercedes—the Silver Arrows have provided Williams with power units from this season—while Bottas himself is a protege of Toto Wolff, the Mercedes motorsport boss, who was a colleague of the 25-year-old at Williams until 2013.
Should Bottas build upon his 2014 form over the next 12 months—while Alonso sits stranded at home—the Finn would quickly become the overwhelming favourite to succeed either Hamilton or Rosberg at the three-pointed star.
Alonso, too, must consider his age when evaluating the risks attached to a sabbatical.
Come the start of the 2016 campaign, the Spaniard will be just four months shy of his 35th birthday with his most recent world championship success creeping up on its 10th anniversary.
Although the current-spec F1 cars are widely considered to be easier to drive relative to the machinery of previous generations, whether Alonso himself could instantly perform at his peak after a year away would be a major cause for concern among potential employers.
Indeed, Kimi Raikkonen, Alonso's current team-mate, and Michael Schumacher, his 2006 title rival, did not disgrace themselves behind the wheel after a number of years away from F1, but they—most likely due to their advancing years—never truly recaptured their previous form.
And with each of the grid's elite teams operating with a young driver academy as the desire to produce homegrown talent heightens, the notion of an outfit signing a driver in his mid-30s would be unfashionable in a sport which has seen its "youngest-ever world champion" record broken three times over the last nine years.
Formula One 2014-style is not the sport it was in 1993, when Alain Prost returned from a year-long sabbatical to claim his fourth and final world championship with Williams before heading for retirement.
Its talent pool is arguably stronger than it has ever been before, meaning today's leading light can almost overnight become little more than a distant memory.
To remain relevant, Alonso must stay in Formula One for 2015—even if it requires him to lose face by rejoining McLaren.
If, instead, he takes the biggest, most unnecessary gamble of his career and walks away, he will be frozen out, and his worst-case scenario—retiring from F1 with just the two titles to his name—will be realised.
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