So, Fernando Alonso is apparently on his way to McLaren next season with Sebastian Vettel replacing him at Ferrari.
Two awesome drivers heading for two struggling teams. McLaren endured their worst ever campaign last year and are still off the pace while Ferrari’s lack of real progress during the five years Alonso has been there has been alarming.
Vettel is already a legend with four world titles at the age of 27 but this year he has been outperformed by his team-mate Daniel Ricciardo.
It has been such a dramatic decline that you have to wonder whether he has been preoccupied with securing a move to Ferrari or Red Bull got wind of the fact that he was on the verge of leaving and decided to put all their efforts in Ricciardo.
Unlikely, but in the political world of F1 anything is possible.
Whatever the reason he cannot afford to have another poor season or his reputation which is still just about intact will take a hit, along with his market value.
Moving to Ferrari might seem like leaping out of the frying pan into the fire but the Italian team is being restructured under Marco Mattiacci and driving for Formula One’s most important team is high on every driver’s agenda.
Vettel is unlikely to find himself in a winning Ferrari straight away because the team has already stated that it will probably be 2016 or 2017 before they are fully competitive again.
However, he is only 27 and already has four titles so he is in no hurry and will be excited by the prospect of the team rebuilding around him.
In contrast Alonso is 33 years old, has two world titles, and is desperate for at least one more which would bring him alongside his idol Ayrton Senna who was a triple champion.
He cannot afford to wait for Ferrari to get their act together so he has taken a gamble that McLaren, where ironically he had such a miserable time alongside Lewis Hamilton in 2007, will get back on track next season with their renewed engine deal with Honda, the partnership that worked so well for Senna during his most successful years.
Alonso is considered by many, including me, to be the best driver on the grid. The reason Ferrari came second in the title race in 2010, 2012 and 2013 was down to the Spaniard’s driving genius, not the car.
In contrast, when Red Bull struggled to produce a car that was competitive at the start of this season, Vettel simply disappeared off the radar.
He is certainly the more cheerful of the two and away from the track has more diplomacy than the moody Alonso who has publicly criticised the Ferrari on more than one occasion, something the Italian team finds unacceptable.
But discretion and diplomacy don’t win races and while nobody can dispute Vettel’s outrageous talent his racecraft is not as good as Alonso’s and that is why I think in the current circumstances McLaren have got the better driver and Alonso has made the right decision to move on.
Ron Dennis does not suffer fools or failure and Alonso knows he cannot afford to mess it up at McLaren like he did the last time when he threw his rattle out of the pram, claiming Lewis Hamilton was being given preferential treatment.
Alonso deserves a third title, and more, so let’s hope McLaren and Honda can give him the car and the engine, to make it happen.
As for Vettel and Ferrari, we may have to wait a little longer for success.
