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Fernando Alonso is a former two-time world champion. But life for the Spaniard hasn’t been easy at Ferrari and has finally decided to move on. Alonso has been a Scuderia loyalist, even though they’ve consistently failed to provide him with a championship winning car since he joined the Italian team in 2010.
Three second-place finish in the Driver’s Champonship is what the Spaniard could manage in his 5 years with the team and the current season seems to get even worse as he now in 6th place.
While the speculations are high that he is headed towards Mclaren, nothing has been confirmed by the British team on the move. So what all possibilities does the experienced driver have in front of him for the 2015 season? Will he take a break or will he join Mclaren? Let’s explore the options for Fernando Alonso.
Mclaren-Honda beckons
Even though none of the party is ready to spill the beans about the deal yet, this remains the best option for the tactical and experienced Spainard. With Red-Bull pushing their young driver program and announcing Daniel Ricciardo and Daniil Kvat for 2015 and Mercedes planning to stick with their current drivers Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg, Mclaren is the only big name that offers a chance to Alonso to win races.
With engine manufacturer making a come-back to Formula One, it is expected the Honda engine would be a force to reckon with in 2015. But the Alonso-Mclaren partnership has had a turbulent past. The year 2007 was a difficult one for both due to controversies including the spygate that rocked the sport to the core.
The question now remains whether both Alonso and Mclaren would be ready to burn the hatchets and join hands to get a winning combination that would win races. Mclaren has struggeled for a while and so has Alonso. Honda could just be the force that would help both of them come together again.
Take a break Nando or may be not
One of the options that the Spaniard has, is to take a sabbatical from the sport. Given that Mclaren might not be keen to sign him given their past relationship, Alonso could just wait and want to see how things pan out and return to the sport in 2016. But the only factor that prevents him from doing so would be that he is getting older. He is 33-years-old now and would want to give his youthful best to get the elusive third title under his belt.
Cycling dream will have to wait
He would have been keen to get his dream of a cycling team going but that too doesn’t look like a possibility (given that his team did not register with the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI), the world governing body for sports cycling, for the 2015 season). There were repeated attempts by Alonso and his partners NOVO to get the team going but in the absence of a clear commercial structure and sponsorship issues, the dream might have to wait till 2016 to become a reality.
Lotus
While a distant possibility, Lotus could be one of the ‘move to’ options for the Spaniard if nothing happens on the Mclaren front. But things haven’t been good for the Norfolk team with both drivers struggling at the end of the field in the current season. But given his limited options Alonso might just surprise everyone with his move to the beleaguered team.
Haas F1? - Maybe
The new-kid on the block, the Haas F1 team could be one of the options for Nando. But there hasn’t been any news of the talks between the two and if it all there are, they are happening behind closed doors and only time will tell if Nando would be taking the risk of joining a fairly new team.
