On Tuesday, rampant speculation that the German could be about to complete a ‘seat swap’ with Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso for 2015 was denied.
“There is nothing new,” Vettel told Sport Bild. “I have a contract with Red Bull and I’m happy where I am.”
And Dr Helmut Marko added: “Alonso will definitely not be at Red Bull.”
Curiously, Marko’s denial did not mention Vettel, who has struggled to match new teammate Daniel Ricciardo in 2014 and is now linked with a big-money offer to spearhead the new McLaren-Honda alliance.
It could be that the Vettel-to-Ferrari rumour this week is directly related to Red Bull’s efforts to re-sign the 27-year-old beyond his 2016 contract but at a much lower rate of pay.
Insiders have tipped Red Bull to address the huge difference between Vettel’s retainer and that of his impressive new teammate Ricciardo, who currently earns many multiples less than the reigning quadruple world champion.
After changing the chassis three times this year and ditching his race engineer, Finger Boy is still constantly outperformed by Daniel Ricciardo. Maybe the problem is not with the chassis or the race engineer, but with the multi-millionaire spoiled brat. So the alternatives for the four times lucked-in champion are to pack his bags hoping to land at McLaren-Honda in the best car with a useless teammate again or accept a salary cut at Red Bull and follow Ricciardo around the track every race. It would be interesting to see what happens if the “One of the Greats” eventually moves to McLaren and takes a beating from Magnusen too!
Yes….
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We all remember the discussions: “how good is Vettel?” when he had the best package…
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Well… we now know…… 4 WDC’s appear to flatter him.