Renault CEO Carlos Ghosn has made it clear to Flavio Briatore that he's not willing to spend a fortune on signing Fernando Alonso
Briatore told reports earlier this week that he would "love to have him (Alonso) in the team, I think everyone would want Fernando because he is exceptional."
"But," he added, "he has a contract with someone."
This led to some reports that Briatore could make a bid to buy Alonso out of his McLaren contract and bring him back to Renault, with whom he won the 2005 and 2006 Drivers' Championship titles.
However, CEO Ghosn has put an end to that thought, saying Renault can achieve success next season without the Spaniard at the helm.
"Success in F1 is always the product of team work," Ghosn said when asked if Renault would make a bid for Alonso.
"It needs a perfect car, chassis, engine, tyres, team effort, and driver of course. The best driver cannot succeed without a perfect team and vice versa.
"I demand from the team to compete at the highest level. If we cannot come first we have to be at least runner-up. But I do not interfere with the daily operations, for this we have Flavio (Briatore) and Alain (Dassas).
"The team know what it takes to win. This year, we started late because the title fight of 2006 took our full efforts until the very last race. The final laps.
"We had to pay for this and we had to get used to new tyres, a new driver. But I am absolutely confident we will be successful in 2008.
"But this is not depending on one person."
source & pic: planet-f1
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