Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsFerrari

Arrivabene doesn't care about 'not polite' Alonso

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Ferrari team principal Maurizio Arrivabene says he doesn't care about detrimental comments from former driver Fernando Alonso.

Alonso left Ferrari at the end of 2014 to join McLaren, allowing Sebastian Vettel to move to Maranello as the double world champion's replacement. While McLaren has been struggling, Alonso repeatedly insists he is happy with his move because he believes he would always finish second at Ferrari.

When asked about Alonso's stance during an interview with the official Formula One website, Arrivabene says the Spaniard's comments don't bother him.

"I am thinking about Vettel, about Kimi (Raikkonen), and about the team," Arrivabene said. "The team is above everything. And people can say whatever they want. I know that what he said is not polite, but I don’t care."

And Arrivabene says rebuilding the team spirit at Ferrari was one of the most crucial tasks he identified when he took over as team principal.

"When I first came I saw a team that was quite divided - most of the guys were very defensive and I thought to myself: this is not the team that I recognise. My first task was to put them together again."

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.