Campos: F1 should 'respect' Alonso's Ferrari exit

Ferrari's management situation led to the departure of number 1 driver Fernando Alonso.

That is the view of Adrian Campos, a former F1 driver who in 2010 founded the team that became known as Hispania.

The 54-year-old Spaniard now operates junior teams including a GP2 outfit, and spoke to the sports daily AS about Alonso's controversial switch from Ferrari to McLaren, where he spectacularly clashed in 2007.

"Honestly," Campos told the newspaper, "I think we all have to respect the decision taken by Fernando. Only he had all the information.

"The only thing I can say is that he lived through a bad time at a completely headless Ferrari team, with major problems for Montezemolo who eventually left and bosses who didn't know racing and showed a great inability to form a group of people working in the same direction.

"Unfortunately, Fernando did not have a great boss like (Jean) Todt, or a greatly respected technical figure like Ross Brawn, as was the situation for Schumacher," he explained.

Campos said he therefore understands Alonso's decision to leave, but joins the rest of the F1 world in wondering if McLaren-Honda is the right move.

"The Ferrari-Alonso marriage was broken," he insisted, "while Honda has won many titles although it was true the last project was disastrous.

"But the work Honda is planning now with McLaren, and the budget they will have, is info that is all in the hands of Fernando, and with that he will have made the right decision.

"Everyone else can say what he wants, but I think we should respect his decision and let's see what happens," Campos added.

About the author

Leopold

Leopold Pleijsier founded F1-Fansite.com in 2001 and has followed Formula 1 since the early 1980s. He writes about daily F1 news, race weekends, drivers and the sport’s history.

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