Back to back title winner Fernando Alonso is facing at least a two-year wait for another championship challenge, Eddie Jordan said this week.
The former team owner, who sold his Silverstone-based squad at the end of the 2004 season, reckons it will take the 25-year-old Spaniard time to ‘gel’ at McLaren following four years with Renault.
“It’s a two-season job by the time Alonso gets his own people around him,” British newspaper The Times quoted the Irishman as saying.
He added: “It was exactly the same with Michael Schumacher — it was two seasons before he made any major impression with Ferrari.”
Jordan, 58, called McLaren’s winning drought in 2006 ‘very unusual’.
“I have a feeling that McLaren needs Alonso more than Alonso needs McLaren right at this moment,” he said.
Jordan’s comments follow his recent suggestion that Schumacher – far from merely deciding to retire on top – was ‘pushed out’ by Ferrari.
He added: “They’d already signed Raikkonen and it was very difficult for them to get rid of Massa.”
GMMF1
DailyF1News.com
