Fernando needs to stay put. Renault will sort their car out within the next 12 months, and they'll have a realistic shot at the '09 title with him on board. In Piquet Jr he has a team mate who simply does not have the pace to threaten him (cf Trulli, Fisichella), which will enable Alonso to pull the team around him in the way he did in '05 & '06, but catastrophically failed to do in '07. He needs to use '08 as a bedding-in year, to build loyalty whilst putting up with a rubbish car, and then using it as a springboard for a full championship assault in '09, by which time Piquet may actually be able to drive.
Di Montezemolo wants Alonso or Raikkonen, and doesn't care which. Now he has Raikkonen in and settled, I don't think he would see any real value in paying Alonso's exhorbitant salary demands. Yes, Ferrari are a rich team, but I don't think they've ever paid an eight figure salary to the second driver. And in saying second, I refer to Alonso as the second joiner, not necessarily the second in terms of team perception.
But could he take the team leader role from Kimi if he was hired? Of course, we can't tell definitively how he would fit in to the team structure. But one thing is clear to me: whilst Alonso is brilliant over a race distance, especially with a less than fully healthy car, Raikkonen is definitely ultimately faster, especially in a healthy car. I base this on having watched the live timing screens since they were rolled out on formula1.com. Kimi is capable of setting purple sector after purple sector, for lap after lap. I think Kimi can take a car to 100% of its ability, and hold it there, continually. Or until he gets bored, or until the car breaks. Fernando, I think, can hold a car at 98% of its ability for roughly 17 years if he needs to, and that makes him tremendous over a race distance (how awesome would he be triple-stinting an LMP1!
) So you have to theorise how those two differing abilities would curry favour within the Ferrari organisation. It's a difficult call, but I think they'd gravitate to Kimi.
Plus, I think Fernando is more at home at Renault, and should put his & Flav's fiscal greed aside.
