Fernando Alonso has claimed he wants to end his Formula One career at McLaren only hours after suggesting he may not even be in the sport next season.
Alonso’s apparent U-turn completed a deeply humiliating Japanese Grand Prix for McLaren, which at times bordered on the absurd, as conflicting messages about both Alonso and Jenson Button’s futures emerged.
– F1: Alonso’s future unclear after Japan outburst
– McLaren: Dennis adamant Button will stay on
– Japan: Lewis Hamilton powers to Suzuka glory
The Spaniard described his Honda-powered McLaren as “embarrassing” and compared it to a GP2 car – Formula One’s feeder series – during Sunday’s race.
Alonso finished in 11th, and, when asked by the BBC whether he would be competing in Formula One next term, he replied: “I don’t know.”
But in a series of tweets on Sunday night, the two-time former world champion then said he wants to see out the remainder of his current deal with the beleaguered British team.
1/3 Some things from today that seem not clear to everybody: -Today was our 3rd best result of the season !! we keep working hard.
— Fernando Alonso (@alo_oficial) September 27, 2015
2/3. When we are fighting in group is difficult, we all want to win, and sometimes transmit the team radios, but it should be private chats.
— Fernando Alonso (@alo_oficial) September 27, 2015
3/3. No one should have any doubt that I have 3 years with McLaren and my career in F1 will end with this team, hopefully winning everything
— Fernando Alonso (@alo_oficial) September 27, 2015
Very simple. So now a few days off and Russia will be another race to keep closing the gap to the top!
— Fernando Alonso (@alo_oficial) September 27, 2015
Alonso’s response via his Twitter account came after Ron Dennis, McLaren’s chief executive officer, said he was disappointed with his driver’s conduct during the Suzuka race.
Dennis, who overcame a virus to face up to the media on Sunday, said: ”I am not going to condone those sort of things because it does not show the professionalism that I would like all of our drivers to show.
”He is in the car. He is frustrated and of course his exposure is to the technical staff which is not particularly a constructive way to communicate with everybody at Honda.
”The way for me to deal with drivers is either through the appropriate management channels in Eric Boullier or in certain circumstances to talk to them myself. But whatever I choose to do, or however it is done, remains a team matter.”