Räikkönen to get record-high sweetener to make way for Alonso at Ferrari

Spanish bank paying high premium for fast-track change in the Ferrari cockpit

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The worst-kept secret in Formula One is now officially out: Ferrari announced on Wednesday that Fernando Alonso would be joining the team, repalcing Finland's Kimi Räikkönen, and will drive the red car alongside Felipe Massa in the 2010 season.
      The agreement with the Spanish driver, who was World Champion in 2005 and 2006, is to cover three F1 seasons, starting from next year.
      The Ferrari team’s driver line-up for 2010 will also include Giancarlo Fisichella in the role of a reserve driver. Fisichella has deputised for Massa this season while the Brazilian has been out of action following a crash in Hungary in July.
     
”We are very proud to welcome to our team another winning driver”, said Ferrari team boss Stefano Domenicali, according to the team’s press release.
      Alonso also commented on the announcement on his own home page.
      ”I wish to thank Ferrari President Luca Di Montezemolo for making this move possible”, Alonso said.
      ”In the summer of 2008 I signed a contract with Ferrari for 2011, but the situation has changed in the last couple of days, and we decided to advance the transfer by a year”, Alonso wrote.
      The move was made possible thanks to Montezemolo, who worships Alonso nearly as much as God, but above all thanks to an unprecedented sum of money put on the table by the Spanish bank Santander, who will be a main Ferrari sponsor from 2010 on a five-year contract.
     
The transfer of Alonso to Ferrari is unparalleled in the history of Formula One.
      Ferrari had a contract with Kimi Räikkönen until the end of 2010, which is why the team will have to pay Räikkönen’s salary of approximately EUR 30 million plus a fine for the breaking of his contract.
      According to a reliable source, namely the Spanish newspaper El País, Santander is to stump up for both these sums.
      According to the newspaper, Räikkönen’s salary and the contract penalty together make EUR 45 million, even though the story goes that Räikkönen demanded EUR 65 million to the very end. In addition, Ferrari will have to pay Alonso’s salary, amounting roughly to EUR 25 million.
      Räikkönen is likely to cash another EUR 20 million as a salary from McLaren, where he is apparently making a return in 2010.
     
Räikkönen’s return to the team he drove for between 2002 and 2006 has not been confirmed yet.
      However, it is clear that his release from Ferrari could not be announced before a general settlement to secure the Finn’s future was reached.
      According to El País, Santander is to pay even a part of Räikkönen’s 2010 salary, as the bank will also remain as McLaren’s sponsor until the end of the season.
     
As is customary in cases like this, Ferrari’s press release was full of praise for Kimi Räikkönen - who did after all win them the F1 drivers' title in 2007 and helped secure the constructors' title in 2007 and 2008 - saying that the partnership with Räikkönen has been ”rewarding and fruitful”.
      Räikkönen did not spare his words, either, while fibbing furiously that it was: "Our joint decision to terminate the contract that would have covered 2010 as well.”
     
In fact, there was no question of any joint decision.
      Räikkönen said many times that he would like to finish his career at Ferrari, as he feels more at home there than in any other team.
      The situation changed only when Montezemolo started to push through his desire to get Alonso, and presumably the Spanish bank also had some interest in getting a local boy into the cockpit.
      Ferrari managed to dispose of Räikkönen only by offering him a record-high sweetener to go quietly.
     
Apparently Ferrari did not reckon in 2008 on Räikkönen’s continuing with the team, which led to a situation in which Ferrari was facing trouble, which will now also benefit McLaren.
      It is likely that McLaren will open its season 2010 with a new dream-team, the world champions for 2007 and 2008, Kimi Räikkönen and Lewis Hamilton.
     
Some sceptics say that if Ferrari had been patient it would have cost the team a lot less to get its new dream driver.
      However, patience is not one of the Italian virtues. The arrival of Alonso a year early in 2010 will cost Ferrari and Santander EUR 70 million, of which sum a total of EUR 45 million constitutes Räikkönen’s salary plus the penalty, while the rest EUR 25 million is Alonso’s salary.
     
Given the global financial crisis, and also the widely-publicised pressures within the sport to reduce costs, such sums of money are so astronomical that they speak of a kind of red-mist madness that has hit both Ferrari Chief Luca Montezemolo and Santander Chairman Emilio Botín, who will eventually have to pay the piper - and face the wrath of his shareholders if it all goes wrong.
      The Alonso Ferrari deal will presumably kick off a whole round of other driver moves in the coming weeks.
      One question-mark is what will happen to Lewis Hamilton's current stablemate at McLaren, Finland's Heikki Kovalainen, in the case that Räikkönen does not hang up his driving gloves or jump sideways into rallying, but does indeed rejoin the British-based team.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Kimi Räikkönen ends 25-race drought with victory at Spa (31.8.2009)
  Kimi Räikkönen shows up for Rally of Finland; Mikko Hirvonen leads after Friday´s morning stages (31.7.2009)

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