Essential Reading for December 29th, 2008

Recommended links for December 29th, 2008:

• It’s out! Alonso has a Ferrari contract – They would have hired Alonso in 2006 when they took Raikkonen were it not for the fact that Alonso had fallen out with Jean Todt after pulling out of an agreed testing contract in 2001, to sign for Renault.

  Todt said he would never drive for Ferrari, but Todt’s influence is now reduced at Ferrari and Montezemolo clearly felt that they had hired the wrong man when they took Raikkonen instead of Alonso in 2006.

• A Grand Prix in Rome? – Maurizio Flammini was a winning Formula 2 driver in his day. Flammini is now saying that he would like to see a Formula 1 street race in Rome. It is not a new idea but the idea that Monza will be dropped from the F1 calendar is pretty unlikely, given the continued popularity of the event, the investment that has been made at the track by the local government, and the historic traditions of the venue, which go back to 1921.

  Flammini says that the current F1 trend towards street races, taking the races to the people rather than vice versa, would make Rome an ideal location for a race.

• Honda Racing deny reports billionaire Carlos Slim is ready to take over the team – Italian newspaper La Stampa wrote on Saturday that Slim had agreed a deal that would see the team line up on the grid in 2009 with Englishman Jenson Button and Bruno Senna as their drivers.

  But Brawn told Telegraph Sport on Sunday that, while talks are ongoing with "a number of interested parties," speculation concerning the Mexican billionaire is wide of the mark.