The Silly Season has been a frantic of late and it is not yet over. Next season we have the Raikkonen and Alonso show to look forward to. Many commentators are predicting fireworks at Ferrari, but while, if they happen, it will spice F1 gossip, it actually does not matter.
Ferrari has sent a clear message to Alonso: drivers come and go and none are bigger than Ferrari. A driver is a temporary employee and Alonso had better learn to live with that.
Despite recent speculation about Fernando moving to another team (Lotus was favourite among the rumourmongers) he has no viable option so must grin and bear it. Overtures were made to Red Bull, but it is difficult to see how much value Alonso could bring to the team given the level of his earnings and the level of Red Bull's cars. Besides, Toro Rosso is Red Bull's sister team and you may be sure that Christian Horner has every detail of Daniel Ricciardo's performances.
It may be a case of putting two bulls in the same field and we have seen that before with Ronnie Peterson and Emerson Fittipaldi at Lotus, Alan Jones and Carlos Reutemann at Williams, Piquet and Mansell, also at Williams and Prost and Senna at McLaren.
In every case, there was animosity between the drivers, but in every case the team won the Constructors' Championship. The tantrums of the drivers did not matter, though they enlivened the sports and gossip pages. It really does not matter whether Fernando and Kimi become pals, though the amateur websites salivate at the prospect of ructions.
A team benefits by a driver winning a title, but teams really want to win the constructors' title. It does not matter to a team whether drivers are best buddies or not. It used to matter, because there was information to share, but each driver now has his own engineers and telemetry records every action.
Incidentally, Nelson Piquet and Nigel Mansell have been working on Brazilian television and now speak warmly about each other.
Bernie Ecclestone, when boss of Brabham, compared drivers to light bulbs, they could be replaced. Sir Frank Williams has made no secret of the fact that the Constructors' Championship means the most to him. Frank is in Formula One to win races, drivers are merely the instruments by which he does so.
Formula One has two championships run together. The public thinks first of the drivers, and they are important because without that human connection, it might as well be a computer game. We identify with our favourite drivers and it is they who connect us to the action. I gave Kimi little chance of making a successful return, now I root for him.
It is the team which has to find the sponsorship, even the most heavily backed pay driver brings only a fraction of what is needed. It is the team which has to pay everyone from the Technical Director down to the minimum wage cleaners. An F1 team is a middle-range factory, with office and catering staff and a transport division.
The odd thing is that for many years past, Ferrari has had a designated team leader. The policy could sometimes be tough on Rubens Barrichello and Felipe Massa, but both won more races and podiums, and earned more money, much more money, than is likely had they been with any other team. No matter what you or I felt about that policy, Rubens and Felipe signed to it.
Massa seems to have been dropped because while Alonso has been outstanding in a difficult car, Felipe has been merely good. Most of the teams on the grid would be lucky to have him, he has outqualified Alonso on occasion this season, but he hasn't been delivering the points. It does not matter if Fernando and Kimi are pals, it is the points Ferrari needs and signing Raikkonen is a tacit admission that Ferrari does not expect to have a dominant car any time soon.
It is the Constructors' Championship which decides who gets what share of the revenue. A driver's salary is a known expense; contracts with sponsors is known income; the unknown is the share of the booty, which is decided by the Constructors' Championship.
The recent reshuffle has hurt Nico Hulkenberg because he was offered a Ferrari drive and, I believe, a contract was on the table. At the end of 1983, there was a contract with McLaren waiting John Watson's signature. John had scored more point than Niki Lauda in each of the two years that they had been team-mates. The field for 1984 seemed sewn up and Wattie's manager was holding out for more money. Then, out of the blue, Alain Prost was sacked by Renault.
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