Mat Coch writes:

On Friday Sergio Perez was forced to defend his position within McLaren. It is fair to say the team has not had a good year, and it is also fair to say that Perez has not wowed us like we perhaps hoped he might. By the same token it is not fair to speculate over his future, we do not have all the facts needed to have an educated opinion, and it is not fair to pass that speculation off as fact.

The sordid affair began on Thursday evening when rumours swirled that McLaren was working towards replacing Perez with Fernando Alonso. The story originated during an interview with Sky F1 TV in which McLaren boss Martin Whitmarsh admitted that he would consider hiring Alonso if he was available.

From a consideration on Whitmarsh's behalf to a sure thing took a matter of seconds, the gutter press latching on to the comments and reading between lines which weren't there or at the very best extremely blurred. Soon Perez was out of a job and Alonso en route back to Woking.

The problem was it ignored the fact that both Jenson Button and Perez have signed, or are very close to having signed, McLaren contracts for next year. They effectively confirmed as much during various press calls earlier in the day but that didn't matter on Thursday night as the easily led among the press corps leapt at the opportunity to run a sensational headline.

It seems nobody was willing to accept the fact that Sergio Perez was staying at McLaren, or perhaps it was more that nobody can accept that Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen will ‘cohabit' at Ferrari in 2014.

In fairness Whitmarsh was right in his response. He was asked if he would consider Alonso at McLaren and like any right thinking team principal he said yes. Alonso is an asset to any team, but Whitmarsh's response did not mean he is Woking-bound.

If I ask Jenson Button if he would consider driving for Red Bull he would likely say yes, but it actually means nothing - any driver would consider racing for the current benchmark team.
It eventually died down after Whitmarsh, both the McLaren's drivers and Fernando Alonso himself were forced to waste their time in denying it, though it will no doubt resurface at some point in the future when gullible hacks are in need of another headline.

Next time Martin, save us the hassle and just say no.

Check out our Friday gallery, here.