What Raikkonen and Alonso really want

Formula 1 returned from its summer break with tongues wagging in the Spa paddock.

After a couple of weeks' radio silence, when the debate became 'beach or swimming pool' rather than 'prime or option', the rumour mill was back in overdrive as F1 returned to business.

In fact, such was the speed that waves of rumours were moving - remember a lie can spread halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes - that it was hard to keep up with what was real and what was fiction.

If you believed everything that was written, Daniel Ricciardo had got the Red Bull seat and Red Bull was going to announce its plan in Belgium.

Then Red Bull wasn't announcing its plans in Belgium.

Then Raikkonen ruled himself out of contention at Red Bull.

Then Kimi Raikkonen had signed an option to join Ferrari.

Then he hadn't.

Then he was considering Maranello as an option.

Then his only focus was on staying at Lotus if the team could sort out the money.

Then Red Bull said Raikkonen was not out of the running, but other options were also being looked at.

Then the trail went cold...

An 'ill' Raikkonen avoiding a media grilling, on Thursday at least © XPB

F1's silly season had well and truly erupted - and it was little wonder that an 'ill' Kimi elected to stay away from the track and his media commitments on Thursday...

Picking out the truth from the non-denial denials, the smokescreens and the media games is all part of the fun of the F1 paddock, but some seasoned observers reckoned there was nothing too hard to decipher in all this.

One team principal thought the whole F1 driver market scenario was fairly straightforward.

"It's simple," he smiled over a coffee at Spa. "In Hungary, Fernando and Santander were getting frustrated at Ferrari's lack of results. They started sounding out other teams to see what was available if things didn't improve.

"Ferrari got worried that it could lose its star man so had to make sure Kimi Raikkonen was covered... but as a replacement for Alonso, not a team-mate. That's it. End of story."

It's hard to know how close that version of events is to the truth, but in Raikkonen's case the situation seems pretty straightforward.

Yes, there were talks with Red Bull in Hungary, but the trail went cold as the team closed in on a Ricciardo deal.

In any case, Raikkonen has always said he wants to remain at Lotus if the team can give him the financial and technical guarantees he wants.

It's the Alonso situation that's much less clear.

The talks between Alonso's manager Luis Garcia Abad and Red Bull team principal Christian Horner in Hungary were certainly no secret, even though exactly what was discussed remains disputed by the two parties.

Abad says they talked only of Carlos Sainz Jr; Red Bull sources insist that claim is nonsense.

Alonso has grown frustrated since his Spanish GP victory © LAT

Yet what was unknown at the time was that Red Bull wasn't the only team Abad had approached, with sources claiming Lotus had also been alerted to the fact that Alonso could be available.

That Lotus conversation pointed towards the frustration Alonso was feeling in Hungary, fuelled by the fact that he'd turned up to find a car that was pretty much identical to the one he'd had at the Spanish Grand Prix.

It was looking more and more like this was the moment Alonso did exactly what Lewis Hamilton had done in Canada in 2011, when he took it upon himself to go knocking on Horner's door.

Yet by Belgium, after a few weeks of cooling off over the summer, things seemed to have calmed down a little between Ferrari and its star driver.

Luca di Montezemolo's rebuking of Alonso over his comments might have been blamed on the media, but ultimately it was a sign of a relationship taken to - and pulled back from - the brink.

Ferrari's small updates that it brought to Spa at least seemed to deliver the step forward the team had hoped for. Alonso's eventual runner-up position, albeit some way behind Vettel, came at a crucial time.

So is it now set that Alonso stays, that Raikkonen gets what he wants from Lotus and does a new deal, and that Ricciardo is then swiftly confirmed at Red Bull?

Most likely, but right now nobody can say for certain. In F1, nothing can ever be ruled out.

Sources have talked about a potential option in Alonso's contract that could be activated in September and would allow him to become a free agent.

Could it be that's what Red Bull is waiting for: to see if it needs to weigh up whether Alonso is actually a contender and would be a better option than Ricciardo?

Alonso and Vettel: a dream pairing for Red Bull? © LAT

Will that be the trigger for the silly season to explode into proper action? Or is the Alonso exit option a fabrication?

Only a few people inside Red Bull know the truth, and only a few inside Ferrari know if there's even a clause in Alonso's contract that would let him escape if certain performance criteria weren't met.

Others may pretend they know, but really they are just guessing.

And, ultimately, too much is often read into the motivations, desires and demands of men like Alonso and Raikkonen.

If you want to plot the silly season along to an end game, it's a simple thing to do.

Raikkonen and Alonso have their millions in their bank; they have their fame and they already have enviable careers behind them. Forget talk of number-one status, PR days or ice hockey teams really mattering.

There is one thing they want above all else: to win on equal terms.

That's why there's this underlying envy towards Sebastian Vettel, this desire to get a chance in that second Red Bull to show exactly what they could do against the man who is stealing all the records at the moment.

There was a telling comment from Alonso to the Spanish media in Belgium when he was asked if it mattered that he had never won at Spa in Formula 1.

"I don't care," he said. "I have a win here in Formula 3000 - where all the cars are the same..."

Alonso and Raikkonen know how good they are, and what they should be achieving in F1. It's why Vettel's success hurts them.

In the back of their minds is the constant niggle that Vettel is only achieving so much because he has a better car. His success could be their success.

Yet this is a niggle that also provides an extra motivation for them to knock the German off the top - and to do so with their current teams.

And therein lies the answer for F1's silly season.

For this is not about what Raikkonen and Alonso do with their teams. It's simply about what their teams will do for them.