It has been confirmed, after weeks of waiting, that Jenson Button will team up with Fernando Alonso at McLaren-Honda for the 2015 season.
Whilst the news that Alonso will return to Woking has been well-known – but unconfirmed – for a couple of months now, news about his team-mate has been a well kept secret, partly due to the fact a decision was only made this week.
McLaren had been weighing up whether to retain Button or rookie Kevin Magnussen as they head into a new era with Honda as their exclusive engine supplier.
It’s widely believed that both Ron Dennis and Eric Boullier had thrown their support behind Magnussen, whilst McLaren’s shareholders wanted to keep the 2009 World Champion.
It would therefore seem that the board have either convinced Dennis to agree to their way of thinking, or they’ve overruled the company’s chairman.
Magnussen meanwhile will be retained as the team’s test and reserve driver and therefore is a potential candidate for a race seat in 2016.
“I’m very much looking forward to having a driver as fast and experienced as Fernando as team-mate. Sure we will work extremely well together,” said Button during the announcement.
Alonso added: “I am joining this project with enormous enthusiasm and determination, knowing that it may require some time to achieve the results we are aiming for, which is no problem for me.”
Dennis meanwhile hailed the pairing as the best in the sport: “I can safely say that we now have, by an order of magnitude, the best driver line-up of any current Formula 1 team in Alonso and Button.”
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