Formula 1's Latest Rumours and Talk: Fernando Alonso, Renault and More
As McLaren-Honda went from bad to worse during the 2015 Formula One season, Fernando Alonso knew he had to be cruel to be kind.
The two-time world champion does not suffer fools gladly and made sure his team knew it at various points of the year, making a number of outbursts over team radio.
And the Spaniard has revealed the motive behind his scathing comments, suggesting he has succeeded in extracting more out of those around him as McLaren and Honda work to return to the top.
At this stage a decade ago, Alonso was celebrating his first of two successive title triumphs with Renault after ending Michael Schumacher's five-year spell of dominance.
But despite completing its takeover of Lotus, Renault has warned that it will take at least three years for the French manufacturer to compete for grand prix victories and world championships once more.
Renault CEO Carlos Ghosn will reveal more details about Renault's return in due course, but one man who definitely won't play a role at the new-look team is Romain Grosjean, who has jumped ship to Haas for 2016.
Grosjean's move was arguably the most fascinating of this year's driver market and has drawn comparisons to Timo Glock's switch to Manor in 2010.
The German, however, believes Grosjean will avoid the same fate as him, but he predicts the Frenchman will have difficulties in adjusting to a smaller team after his long, successful tenure at Lotus.
Elsewhere, the battle between Mercedes and Ferrari has spread to F1's fuel suppliers, with Petronas eager to beat Shell and help Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg to secure a third consecutive constructors' championship in 2016.
Closing this week'a roundup is Pierre Gasly, the Red Bull-backed youngster, who has explained why Max Verstappen's remarkable rookie season has offered hope to junior drivers.
Fernando Alonso Defends McLaren-Honda Radio Outbursts
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Fernando Alonso has defended his criticism of McLaren's Honda engine in 2015, claiming his comments have forced the team to resolve their issues.
The Spaniard and team-mate Jenson Button showed remarkable levels of patience as the team scored just 27 points over the course of the 19-race season, finishing a lowly ninth in the constructors' championship.
There were, however, a number of occasions when the frustration of McLaren's lack of competitiveness became too much to bear for Alonso, who—as heard over the pit-to-car radio—said he was made to feel like an "amateur" during June's Canadian Grand Prix.
In September's Japanese GP at Suzuka, a circuit owned by Honda, Alonso used team radio to refer to manufacturer's V6 turbo power unit as "embarrassing," likening it to an engine used in GP2, Formula One's feeder series, before watching qualifying from a deckchair after his MP4-30 car broke down in Brazil.
Although Alonso had attracted criticism for the public nature of his outbursts, the two-time world champion believes his comments have inspired Honda to take drastic action.
And, for the first time, he has admitted that his Suzuka rant was made in the knowledge that it would be broadcast to the watching world, piling pressure on the Honda management, telling BBC Sport's Andrew Benson:
"The actions we need to take next year to be competitive [are] quite extreme.
For big problems you need big solutions, and I think maybe that helped a bit for the big solutions.
[...]
A lot of radio messages they didn't broadcast, a lot of in-laps where we were very thankful of the team because it was very difficult.
Sometimes they change three engines, we were taking one point, two point, close to the points. A lot of positive messages they never broadcast. In Japan, when they broadcast that, probably I knew they could broadcast it.
"
Button, meanwhile, has revealed he judged his radio comments more carefully, telling the same source how "you have to have a laugh in some situations when it is as tough as it is for us now or else you go crazy," but he admitted there are times when "you have to let a bit of emotion out."
Renault Reveal 3-Year Plan After Completing Lotus Takeover
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Carlos Ghosn, the Renault CEO, believes it will take three years for the French manufacturer to fight for major honours following the completion of its takeover of the Lotus team.
After announcing the signature of a letter of intent with the Lotus owners in September, Renault finally completed the deal on Friday, ending several months of speculation over Team Enstone's future in Formula One.
Renault have a long history in F1 and, while the company provided the V8 engines that powered Sebastian Vettel and Red Bull Racing to four consecutive world championships between 2010 and '13, 2016 will mark a decade since its last title triumph as a works operation with Fernando Alonso.
And after Lotus finished sixth in the 2015 constructors' standings, having been denied a place in the top five by Force India, Ghosn believes it will take time for Renault to emerge as a leading team.
And he has revealed why simply remaining as an engine supplier—Renault supplied Red Bull and Scuderia Toro Rosso in 2015 and will continue their partnership with the former in 2016—was no longer a viable option, telling French newspaper Le Figaro (h/t Motorsport.com):
"I think, given how motivated our teams are, it will take three years to be competitive.
Incidentally, we will keep developing our role as an engine supplier, though only according to our own team's interest. We are notably talking to Red Bull.
Being an engine supplier doesn't allow a sufficient return on investment. The distribution of TV revenues is more favourable now than it was back in 2009.
We also thought about Renault's history. Renault's name has been linked to Formula 1 for 40 years. We're the second constructor in terms of Formula 1 wins and titles, behind Ferrari and ahead of Mercedes.
At Renault, we're attached to that competition and I can also tell how people in the world of Formula 1 are attached to Renault, be they from the FIA, FOM or even quite a few rivals of ours.
"
Ghosn told the same source that Renault will reveal more about its F1 operation—"the organisation, the aims, the drivers, the strategy and the partners"—in January, but some details are already beginning to emerge.
According to F1 journalist Ian Parkes, the team's 2016 car will feature "a predominantly yellow livery."
Timo Glock Backs Romain Grosjean's Move to Haas
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Timo Glock, the former grand prix driver, has spoken in support of Romain Grosjean's move from Lotus to Haas for the 2016 season.
With much uncertainty surrounding the future of Lotus prior to Renault's takeover, Grosjean switched to the brand-new Haas outfit in September, bringing his long association with "Team Enstone" to an end.
The move carries parallels to Glock's switch to Manor Marussia, then under the guise of Virgin Racing, for 2010.
After Toyota's withdrawal from Formula One at the end of '09, the German was initially the favourite to partner Robert Kubica at the Enstone-based Renault team for the following season.
Following the infamous "Crashgate" scandal, however, and amid concerns over Renault's own future, Glock joined the new team in the hope of securing his long-term place on the grid.
In his three full seasons with Manor, however, Glock—who claimed three podium finishes in his two years with Toyota—failed to finish any higher than 12th before leaving the financially troubled backmarkers at the beginning of 2013.
And while Glock has warned Grosjean to expect a culture shock upon his arrival at Haas, the 33-year-old believes Gene Haas' vast experience in motor racing will ensure the Frenchman won't have made a similar mistake to him.
In a print edition of Autosport magazine, Glock told Mitchell Adam:
"It was an experience. It was good fun, somehow, and good to have that experience. But sporting-wise it was a difficult one.
It's something totally different. Everything is new. For me, Toyota was a big team, Marussia was a small team, so it's a huge difference.
Obviously, Gene Haas is involved in motorsport and he has a big NASCAR team, so I don't think Romain's move is the same as mine because my team had to start from scratch.
The move is not too bad, because Lotus seems to be in a really difficult situation and maybe he needs to see something new. He's experienced enough to go to a new team and help start something new.
"
Since 2013, Glock has competed for BMW in DTM, the German touring-car series, winning two races.
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Mercedes, Petronas Prepared to Engage in Fuel Warfare with Ferrari, Shell
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Since the V6 turbo regulations were introduced at the beginning of 2014, the relationship between a team or engine manufacturer and their fuel supplier has become more crucial than ever before.
That was recently reinforced when Ferrari supplier Shell claimed it has been responsible for "25 per cent" of the Italian team's engine development in 2015, worth 0.5 seconds per lap and "around 30 seconds over a full race distance," according to Autosport's Ian Parkes.
Toto Wolff, the Mercedes team boss, was quick to dismiss that figure, telling the same source that Shell's calculation was "probably not quite where the reality lies."
But that has not stopped Petronas vowing to go head-to-head with Shell ahead of 2016, with the Malaysian-based company—the two-time world champions' title sponsor—strengthening its partnership with Mercedes High-Performance Powertrains, the Silver Arrows' engine division.
Andrea Dolfi, the Petronas motorsport boss, has admitted that his company and Shell can play a key role in the intensifying battle between Mercedes and Ferrari as the V6 rules continue to mature, telling Parkes:
"We battle and strive to keep up with the continuous engineering approach at HPP, and move forward.
Since F1 solutions are truly tailor made to co-engineer with the fluids, we have to move along with them.
If you want to visualise it, yes, it's a technical race, and what matters at the end of the day are the results on the track.
There are contributions from all sides. We are working together, moving together and we are striving to achieve tangible, sensible improvements.
"
Mercedes introduced an early incarnation of their 2016-specification power unit, featuring a new Petronas fuel, at September's Italian GP, the 12th round of the 19-race 2015 campaign.
And Chan Ming-Yau, the fuel technology and oil business manager at Petronas, has told Parkes that the company is "looking at doing something for the new season" to maintain Mercedes' advantage over Ferrari.
Max Verstappen's Success Offers Hope to Red Bull Junior Pierre Gasly
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Red Bull junior driver Pierre Gasly believes Max Verstappen's achievements over the course of the 2015 season have offered hope to young drivers hoping to force their way into Formula One.
After becoming the youngest-ever driver to start a grand prix at the age of 17, in just his second year of single-seater racing, Verstappen has established himself as one of the most exciting talents on the grid in his rookie campaign.
Fourth-place finishes in Hungary and the United States were among the highlights of Verstappen's debut season, and the Dutchman's achievements were honoured in Friday's FIA prize-giving gala as he received three separate awards—Rookie of the Year, Action of the Year and Personality of the Year—at the end-of-year ceremony.
Gasly—the runner-up to Verstappen's Toro Rosso team-mate, Carlos Sainz Jr., in the 2014 Formula Renault 3.5 standings—is regarded as the next member of Red Bull's young-driver scheme in line to graduate to F1.
And after witnessing Verstappen's seamless transition to the pinnacle of motorsport, Gasly, who claimed four podium finishes in his first full season of GP2 in 2015, believes up-and-coming drivers will take much encouragement from the teenager's success, telling Motorsport.com's Darshan Chokhani:
"It is good for us to see that young drivers can be fast in F1.
I raced with Verstappen and Carlos Sainz Jr. in the last couple of years, so I know what and how they are doing in F1 and I think they are doing a great job.
Verstappen is a real talent, of course, but to get into F1, you need everything, the support from sponsors, have the luck to come at the right time and the opportunity to have a seat.
So, it came at the right time for him—I would say, talent, support and a bit of luck, get this mix. He is showing the talent on track.
It shows that a young driver even with low experience can do well in F1. Does it mean F1 is easy? Maybe, but at least he shows that young drivers can be competitive in F1, which is good.
"
Gasly participated in the post-Spanish and Austrian GP tests for Red Bull Racing in 2015, with the 19-year-old becoming the team's official reserve driver in September.
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