Helmut Marko has suspected Fernando Alonso of spreading rumors about himself and his possible move to Red Bull because of Aston Martin’s poor performance. The tales swirled in the public domain in the days between the Mexican Grand Prix and the start of the weekend in Brazil. This was one of the most discussed topics on the eve of practice at the Interlagos track in Sao Paulo.
“This is all a complete fabrication. Both Christian Horner and I have repeatedly emphasized that [Серхио] Perez will drive for us next year. Regardless of your results. He has a contract and we will fulfill it,” Marco told the German website f1-insider.net.
“I can easily imagine that Alonso is spreading the rumors himself because his results with Aston Martin have been extremely disappointing of late after a brilliant start to the season for them. It wouldn’t be the first time he used the media in his homeland to create some kind of mood,” Marco continued
“I will repeat once more, quite officially: we are focused entirely on our sporting goals. We will be busy until the last race in Abu Dhabi. We want to win the rest of the races and for Perez to finish second in the championship,” added the 80-year-old Red Bull F1 advisor.
Alonso himself directly threatened that there would be consequences for those spreading the rumours. He said he took this as a questioning of his loyalty and it particularly annoyed him.
“I’m not in this game. All rumors come from people who are not in this room. (He means the press conference room – p.s.) They’re just here to have fun. And I don’t think it’s funny at all to play with such things. This is unfortunate and I will make sure there are consequences,” Alonso said.
The rumors were born after a remark by the Spanish journalist Albert Fabrega on the social network X (Twitter). He wrote: “I don’t want to believe the rumor I was told a while ago in the paddock”
This caused a veritable storm of conjecture, although neither driver nor team was named. The assumptions were mainly based on the journalist’s nationality, as well as who he was close to in the paddock. The relationship between members of the media and certain teams and/or drivers is well known in Formula 1. It is known who feeds whom and in most cases who the journalists’ sources are.
Fabrega later tweeted: “I can only tell you that (the rumour) has nothing to do with driver swaps between teams or retirements.” At this stage, however, this had virtually no effect in quieting the chatter.
