Dietrich Mateschitz (above) recently added fuel to the rumour that Alonso has already signed for Ferrari.

The Red Bull owner said that he had no desire to sign him for 2008 as he was “free for one year only”. Alonso, when questioned about this, said that this wasn’t the case and there wasn’t an ‘escape clause’ in his contract.

I may be wrong but surely every Formula 1 driver has such a clause in their contracts? If a team is woefully underperforming the driver must be able to escape to a better team.

If we presume that he does indeed have a seat lined up at Ferrari then the obvious choice would be to replace Massa. But can you image Räikkönen and Alonso putting up with each other in a team? I certainly can’t. They both hate the press (although Alonso doesn’t mind the occasional, well timed, interview with a Spanish newspaper), they are both World Champions and neither would settle for being an equal alongside their team-mate, let-alone being a number two.

The more I think about it, the more ridiculous it sounds. But lets not forget that Senna and Prost were team-mates at McLaren in 1988 and they won every race apart from one, even if there was a bit of friction behind the scenes.

What do we think then? Is Alonso really going to go to Ferrari once the 2008 season has come to an end?