Spanish sponsor Banco Santander will move its backing from McLaren to Ferrari after the 2009 Formula One season, the bank's boss Emilio Botin has confirmed.
"Santander will be with Ferrari in 2010, yes," he is quoted as saying by the Spanish newspaper Diario AS.
Botin also made clear his desire to reunite the Santander logo with the car driven by Fernando Alonso, after the former double world champion left McLaren at the end of last year.
"Alonso is the best driver in the world and we would like to work with him, but that's not something that depends only on us," he insisted.
Ferrari's current race drivers Felipe Massa and Kimi Raikkonen are both contracted to the Italian team for 2009 and 2010.

Source: GMM
© CAPSIS International
Source[f1-live.com]

 

Damn.....I don't know much about sponsorships but isn't this quite odd?

 

well its a strong sign that Alonso might be a Ferrari driver in the not too distant future. Santander sponsored McLaren solely because of Alonso hence the shift to Ferrari also a huge bank like Santander wants to sponsor one of the big two

 

This is where the REAL battle is in F1. Sponsors = money and without a ton of money you can't be competative. This may be a bigger victory for Ferrari than the WDC would have been. What a blow to McLaren!

 

I'm sure Mclaren have a bunch of people lined up to fill the hole that Santander left even with the global economic crisis in full swing

 

exactly. i would love to see alonso in a red car, it would do justice to his prodigious talent.

 

The cockiest driver with the cockiest manufacturer ... sparks are going to fly!

 

Quite a blow to McLaren indeed. Any idea who McLaren's next big sponsor will be? CitiBank maybe?

 

Was a pretty huge call by VodaFone to switch teams as well.

Top teams will never hurt for sponsorship. Its the back markers that do, and will continue to.

 

You guys don't really think Ron Dennis is sweating this, do you?