As for Ferrari themselves, Di Montezemolo may have been publicly criticised by
Marchionne, but here was a man of enormous charisma and knowledge. It has
been lost in Ferrari’s current poor patch that the exuberant Italian totally
transformed the road car business and the F1 team. Will they be any better
off without him?
Alonso has said he wants to stay at Ferrari and for 2015, and there seems not
a great deal of doubt of that. Beyond that, however, it is more up in the
air. It all depends on whether Ferrari, with the technical brains of James
Allison, can execute a rapid recovery that is enough to stop Alonso being
lured elsewhere (all drivers want to be in the best car, after all).
Equally, Botin’s untimely death raises a series of questions. He ran Santander
like an autocrat, one one whose passion for Formula One led him into the
sport with McLaren in 2007, when Alonso joined the team.
Will the board share his love for motor racing now he is gone? If they don’t,
what does this mean for Alonso? And if they do, which direction or
allegiance will they be keenest to pursue?
When he was at McLaren, Santander paid for part of his salary, and a similar
plan would be part of any offer for him to return. No-one at McLaren knows
what bearing Botin’s death has on Alonso, and in all likelihood the Spaniard
isn’t totally sure himself.
All that is known for sure at this stage, is that both Botin and Di
Montezemolo were/are incredible enthusiasts of the sport. As Ron Dennis,
McLaren boss, said in tribute to Botin: “He adored motor racing – there
was no-one more enthusiastic in the McLaren garage than he was when a race
win was in the offing. The world has lost a great man.”
The passing of such a figure is unlikely to be without consequences. If
Alonso’s future did not already have enough question marks around it, it has
a few more after the loss in quick succession of these two big beasts of the
sport.