Ramirez: Never underestimate McLaren.

Former McLaren employee Jo Ramirez reckons that Ron Dennis and McLaren Mercedes hold all the aces looking to the seasons ahead, and that the knowledge of the incoming Fernando Alonso will spur the 2006 driver line-up of Kimi Raikkonen and Juan Pablo Montoya to their best.

Ramirez, who retired from his position as McLaren team co-ordinator in 2001, was directly involved in motorsport for some forty years and still keeps a keen eye on what is going on in Formula One as he writes columns for a newspaper in his native Mexico as well as magazines in Italy and Spain.

Commenting on the recent announcements of both Fernando Alonso and Vodafone joining McLaren, Ramirez reckons it leaves McLaren boss Ron Dennis in a plum position, and his current drivers will have to do all they can to show themselves worthy of a place alongside Alonso in 2007, something which will provide the battle of the year for F1 fans.

"He's now got all the aces with him so Kimi and Juan Pablo have to be on their best behaviour, to see who is going to continue with McLaren. More power to him and I have to take off my hat, fantastic," Ramirez told Crash.net Radio.

"You should never underestimate McLaren, McLaren would have some bad years but they would always bounce back. McLaren have the best management of every other team, Ron Dennis seems to have a crystal ball he knows what the future has, he knows how things are going to develop and he's normally in front of it like having brought on Fernando Alonso for 2007, I mean, it is absolutely phenomenal."

When asked about the often repeated rumours that Raikkonen has been lined up for a Ferrari berth, Ramirez said he hoped there was some substance behind them, and not just a tactic to push the Finn's salary request upwards, as that would have rather back-fired with the Alonso announcement.

"There's been a lot of rumours over the last two years and if these were only rumours trying to push up Ron Dennis to put more money, and now if it's a rumour well Ron now has got all the aces, and Kimi would lose several million dollars," he explains. "Three don't go into two and there is one driver at McLaren that will have to go whether it be Kimi or Juan Pablo so that will be very interesting."

The battle between Kimi and Juan Pablo in the season ahead should be the one to watch, says the Mexican. "Obviously Kimi is very fast and Juan Pablo made a lot of mistakes last year but he'll get better next year, He's been one year with McLaren, he knows how McLaren works, he knows that he's not the blue eyed boy at McLaren so he's got to make himself be loved again by McLaren and we know that we've seen races where he's far superior to Kimi, so it'll be very interesting to see this year."