McLaren boss rules out possibility of Alonso joining Merc as Hamilton's replacement

McLaren chairman Ron Dennis has claimed that there is no possibility that their driver Fernando Alonso could join Mercedes for 2016 as Lewis Hamilton's replacement.

Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff has branded Alonso as the 'top alternative' if the world champions fail to agree to a new deal with Hamilton.

However, insisting that Alonso was locked into his new McLaren deal, Dennis said that no McLaren driver has ever had performance clauses in his contract and that is the case with Alonso, the BBC reported.

The Spaniard, rated by many insiders as the best driver in Formula One, signed a three-year deal to return to the team he left in bitter circumstances at the end of 2007.

Alonso asked for a release from his Ferrari contract two years early to join McLaren for this season because he believed that their new engine partnership with Honda would ultimately give him a car with which he could win a third world title.

Hamilton's Mercedes contract runs out at the end of 2015 and, despite saying that they would sit down and negotiate a new one at the end of last season, the British racer and Mercedes have not yet done so, the report added.