Bank on Alonso for Ferrari move
, with Lewis Hamilton saying new parts on his car have failed to make any difference to its performance, and events on the track bearing him out.
But the Mole has heard a whisper that could make it an even worse weekend for the embattled team.
The Mole has heard from an insider at the Spanish bank , one of McLaren's major sponsors, that the company is getting ready to announce at the Italian Grand Prix in September that it will be switching to McLaren's rivals in 2010.
A Ferrari-Santander link-up has long been rumoured within F1, related as it is to another long-standing rumour - that is also on his way to the Italian team.
If the Mole's Santander insider is correct, what makes this particular nugget especially intriguing is the timing of the announcement. The Italian GP is .
Santander's deal with McLaren started in 2007 - and, although it is a major player in the international banking sector, the company clearly teamed up with McLaren because their driver line-up at the time included Alonso.
So when t, and the after just one season at McLaren, it was regarded as only a matter of time before Santander also cut its ties with the team.
On the face of it, the evidence is against the double world champion making the switch from Renault as early as next year.
Most inconvenient, it would seem, is Ferrari's public insistence that both and are under contract to the team until the end of 2010.
Equally awkward is that Alonso was rumoured at one point last year to be moving to Ferrari for 2009 - and that turned out to be wide of the mark.
Alonso himself is clearly bored of being asked about it. But - while making jokes about how many times people do bring it up, and insisting that it is too early to talk about next year - he has never actually come out and denied he is on his way to Maranello. And, for that matter, neither have Ferrari.
Over Christmas, before the Mole emerged into the daylight, the veteran Italian journalist Pino Allievi wrote in the , which had clauses allowing it to be brought forward to 2010.
Allievi has impeccable contacts within Ferrari, and the Mole cannot recall a single time he has ever made an incorrect prediction about the team.
So you can take it as read that Alonso will be driving a Ferrari soon, and that it will probably have Santander written on the side of it - the only question is whether the double world champion gets his hands on it next year or the year after.
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