Luca di Montezemolo turned up in Madonna di Campiglio yesterday for the end of the Ferrari shindig and had a good long session with Bernie Ecclestone, whom he embraced warmly. The pair have known each other since the 1970s and they will lock antlers many times in the next year or two as Montezemolo seeks to lead the FOTA teams to the promised land of more control and more money.
Afterwards he sat down with the Italian media and I’m grateful to them for details of what he said. The thing which caught my eye was his reminder that the commercial deal binding the teams into F1 is only until 2012, which will be here soon enough, as the London Olympic committee can tell you. Beyond that, he said, F1 needs “an authoritative sporting body” to lead it.
He sees the key to the future as being four ‘S’s; Stability, “we cannot keep changing the rules every six months or a year”; Seriousness, “because we cannot pretend nothing’s happening in a period of great economic difficulty like this”; Spectacle, “I think the new rules will help with this”; Sustainability, “which is finding the right balance between cost and income.”
allenonf1.wordpress.com 
Hi James,
Just wanted to leave a message to say how good a read this site is. It’s great stuff.
The interesting thing about the Alonso to Ferrari rumour isn’t just the Gazzetta story, in my view. The team is also becoming much more ‘friendly’ as a potential working environment for him: Rob Smedley was his first race engineer in F3000 (and is still a friend, I think); Massimo Rivola is also a good friend of Alonso’s from the Minardi days. And without the hostility from Todt – a legacy of Alonso’s refusal to sign with him back in 2000 – it may well be that things are shaping up that way.
Certainly, Alonso would be a perfect fit for Ferrari – he speaks fluent Italian; and since his time at McLaren has realised how to lead a team in the Schumacher style, as he showed last year with Renault. The motivation to beat Lewis and McLaren would also be very strong, I’d imagine… š
by the way, I loved Bernie’s comments that he’d like to see Alonso in a red car soon – everybody thought ‘Ferrari’ but he’s referring to the revised Renault livery we’ll see tomorrow, I reckon…
The Alonso story certainly seems to be gathering pace and I noted that Kimi is taking part in the Arctic Rally at the end of the week so maybe he’s looking at a new challenge when his F1 career comes to an end.
It would be a shame to lose Kimi as he is a real character and a bit of a maverick which is rare these days for elite sportsmen.
Apparently Sebastian Loeb is looking for a new motorsport challenge so maybe the two could swap roles!?