CjC wrote:Prodromou is a fantastic signing for McLaren for all the reasons we already know and have discussed, hopefully there will be more 'headline' signings to come, either in the form of a driver(s) or engineers/management.
Honda are making the difference to McLaren already, financially mainly. I heard through a source (my dad lol) that on the BBC's Japanese qualifying coverage, Martin Whitmarsh in the incredibly diplomatic way (as the all do) said that an agreement has been reached between McLaren and Honda that Honda would give McLaren the best V6 Honda engine it could and in return McLaren had to provide the strongest team line up (you would assume the drivers are part of that too) and that Honda have given McLaren the recourses to attract the calibre of personnel of a top team.
This leads us to on Fernando Alonso, signing an engineer like Prodromou will help to convince Alonso back to Woking but failing in the pursuit of Alonso, McLaren's attention will just turn to Vettels management team and ask if there is a possibility of luring him to McLaren and failing in Vettel they'll just turn to the next top line driver and so on......
Honda seem to have high expectations for the 2015 and are aiming to 'hit the ground running' - true, they are seeming spending the money to be at the front but I'm less convinced, surely there will be a bedding in period of technical restructuring and personnel reshuffling so I cant see McLaren winning a tile of any sort in the next 2 and a bit seasons and that's coming from a die hard McLaren fan.
Regarding Alonso, it was plain to see in todays race, and last weeks for that matter, that team orders are no more. The reason for that could be two fold, either Ferrari are no longer willing to allow Alonso to overtake Massa in the absence of a realistic chance of winning the title, or there has been a major fall out behind the scenes such that Alonso isn't going to be gifted positions anymore.
Edit - seems there are team orders, but Massa has decided he is ignoring them
Joie de vivre wrote:vettel has a passion for ferrari and vice versa. if they don't get alonso, they can still go after lewis.
wrong thread
Edit 2
http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/formula-1 ... ne-2366272
Jenson only signed for one year. Mclaren are keeping their options open.
Neale says they are not in talks with Brawn