Fernando Alonso to the WEC with Toyota

This is great. I wonder how long the talks have been going on.

I like to think he got back from Daytona and immediately started calling every LMP team still in existence lol.
 
I would have been more impressed if he drove for Rebellion or another privateer. Toyota already has enough of an advantage over a bunch of privateers.

Still, it will be good for the series to have Alonso there so it's not a bad thing.
 
Hotrod said:
F1 wont last forever and he is setting himself up nicely for post F1.
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I hope you mean that he won't last forever in F1 (because everyone retires eventually), but F1 isn't going away any time soon. It has plenty of issues but just like NASCAR it will keep chugging along.
 
LouieLouie said:
I hope you mean that he won't last forever in F1 (because everyone retires eventually), but F1 isn't going away any time soon. It has plenty of issues but just like NASCAR it will keep chugging along.
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Sorry, yes I meant Fernando.
 
Doc Austin said:
I would have been more impressed if he drove for Rebellion or another privateer. Toyota already has enough of an advantage over a bunch of privateers.

Still, it will be good for the series to have Alonso there so it's not a bad thing.
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Rebellion already locked in their six drivers (excellent lineup there, BTW), and they're almost certainly going to be the best privateer, so this is probably his best move. Even if Fernando and Toyota both have less than stellar reliability recently...
 
I don't know how this "super season" works, but if Alonso is in contention after this year, does he race next year too?
 
I hate that they moved Fuji to conflict with PLM again just so Alonso could race. Chances are he'd be able to race anyways since McLaren aren't likely to be contenders. Now drivers are going to have to choose one or the other.

Doc Austin said:
I don't know how this "super season" works, but if Alonso is in contention after this year, does he race next year too?
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Depends on who he's racing for in F1, and what conflicts there are. I'd suspect no conflicts, but I don't think anyone besides McLaren would let him race.
 
FLRacingFan said:
I hate that they moved Fuji to conflict with PLM again just so Alonso could race. Chances are he'd be able to race anyways since McLaren aren't likely to be contenders. Now drivers are going to have to choose one or the other.
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Not sure how many guys wee planning to do both races anyway, seeing as how they were back to back and on different sides of the world. Surely none of the teams could pull that off.

Depends on who he's racing for in F1, and what conflicts there are. I'd suspect no conflicts, but I don't think anyone besides McLaren would let him race.
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My guess is if Alonso is still in contention after 18, both Toyota and McLaren would make it happen. The FIA would surely make the scheduling right because Alonso competing for two world championships would be a PR bonanza. It's also quite likely Alonso could easily walk to the WEC title virtually unopposed, but it would sell tickets.....which is what makes me believe everyone involved would play along.
 
Doc Austin said:
Not sure how many guys wee planning to do both races anyway, seeing as how they were back to back and on different sides of the world. Surely none of the teams could pull that off.



My guess is if Alonso is still in contention after 18, both Toyota and McLaren would make it happen. The FIA would surely make the scheduling right because Alonso competing for two world championships would be a PR bonanza. It's also quite likely Alonso could easily walk to the WEC title virtually unopposed, but it would sell tickets.....which is what makes me believe everyone involved would play along.
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Yeah, looking at the two schedules now I think it'll work out. The F1 season starts later now so Sebring is a go, and then you're just looking at Spa and Le Mans. They make an effort not to run Le Mans and F1 now, and the Spa weekend is typically an F1 travel weekend.

As far as the PLM/Fuji conflict goes, these are who I can think of:

Renger van der Zande (Wayne Taylor Racing/DragonSpeed LMP1)
Roberto Gonzalez (PR1-Mathiasen/DragonSpeed LMP2)
Loic Duval (CORE autosport/TDS Racing)
Nico Lapierre (Patron ESM/Signatech Alpine)
Harry Tincknell (Mazda/Ford)
Olivier Pla (Patron ESM/Ford)


As far as teams go, Park Place in IMSA (Patrick Lindsey/Jorg Bergmeister) is basically Project 1 in the WEC. Jackie Chan DC may have had plans to do the NAEC but this pretty much rules that out. Also, factory BMW (Augusto Farfus/Philipp Eng/Nicky Catsburg), Ferrari (Davide Rigon/James Calado/Alessandro Pier Guidi), and Porsche (Fred Makowiecki/Gimmi Bruni) drivers are shared across both the IMSA and the WEC teams.


And it also turns out that the Fuji/PLM date is concurrent with the Super GT Autopolis round, in which Kaz Nakajima and Kamui Kobayashi are supposed to race for Lexus. LOL
 
Looks like Liberty Media made the call: F1's owners Liberty Media recently said the practice was "under review" and the sport's managing director of commercial operations, Sean Bratches, says Grid Girls are now outdated.

So, Ferrari and Mercedes are threatening to quit and form a rival series, but Liberty Media has the time to screw around with this kind of meaningless PC drivel? I mean, after they made a big deal out of their new logo, which everyone seems to hate, that is. These are the things they think are important when half their manufacturers are threatening to walk out and form a rival series? They are starting to look completely clueless.
 
Doc Austin said:
Looks like Liberty Media made the call: F1's owners Liberty Media recently said the practice was "under review" and the sport's managing director of commercial operations, Sean Bratches, says Grid Girls are now outdated.

So, Ferrari and Mercedes are threatening to quit and form a rival series, but Liberty Media has the time to screw around with this kind of meaningless PC drivel? I mean, after they made a big deal out of their new logo, which everyone seems to hate, that is. These are the things they think are important when half their manufacturers are threatening to walk out and form a rival series? They are starting to look completely clueless.
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A bunch of clueless dip****s, trying to appease everyone and hacking off the base.

Why don't they ban rock and roll music while they are at it, and let Jerry Falwells Liberty university set the dress code.
 
Kind of makes me wish they would bring Bernie back. We almost never had to think about the health and future of the sport. Now we are looking at a potential replay of the destructive Indycar split, only in F1.

I don't know how much of this is Liberty's fault, but if they think the important issues are logos and being PC correct, I'de say we need to brace ourselves for an all out war between them and the teams, with the FIA being the beneficiary of all of it.

This was not impossible to see coming. Liberty are not racers. They are media people. They have never had to deal with temperamental competitors with this many billion dollars on the line. I don't think they had any idea what they were getting into, but it's not hard to believe they saw the Indycar mess and didn't take it seriously.
 
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