Fernando Alonso: “I will win in 2018”. Possibly with Ferrari?. Former Ferrari driver seems determined to leave McLaren at the end of the season.

Spanish outlet Diario Gol inform on Thursday that Scuderia Ferrari are willing to repair bridges with Fernando Alonso, adding the Maranello team acknowledges the fact they their car was not competitive enough in order to give him the possibility of fighting for many wins and most importantly championship titles during the years in which Fernando drove for the Italian team.

Further, it is claimed that the team have made an approach to the Spanish driver regarding the possibility of reuniting for the 2018 Formula One season, presumably to replace Kimi Raikkonen thus giving us the tantalising prospect of a team mate battle between Sebastian Vettel and Fernando Alonso. But is that even a possible scenario?

Even if the Maranello team took back the Spanish Samurai, the inevitable clash between German driver Sebastian Vettel and Fernando would surely be contrary to a ‘Risky project’ that Alonso says he wants to avoid for 2018: “I’m not going to sit down with anyone until September. But I want to go to a safe project, not a risky one. I would like to be in a place I can be competitive from day one and win. After 16 years, with everything I have achieved, I would like to be competitive in my last years in Formula One.” – Fernando Alonso recently said, as reported by the Spanish publication.

The options are clearly limited for him. At present only Mercedes and Scuderia Ferrari are likely able to provide the equipment to be “competitive from day one and win”. Indeed tongues were wagging after Fernando Alonso’s manager Flavio Briatore tweeted a picture of the Italian taking out to dinner Mercedes duo Toto Wolff and Niki Lauda.

One thing for sure is that we are getting more smoke and mirrors from the Spanish driver with recent claims that “Next year will be a happy year” and “Wherever I will be, it will be the perfect solution”. Most importantly when quized specifically about his F1 prospects and not that of a switch to Indycar he responds “No matter what decision I will make, I will win in 2018. This will make me happy.”

Whether or not Fernando Alonso and Scuderia Ferrari can reignite the spark and continue the unfinished business they left off back in 2014 remains to be seen, but the idea does certainly seem to become more and more appealing for the Maranello team, ahead of the 2018 Formula 1 season.