Alonso Moves Closer to Ferrari HQ

Fernando Alonso completed his house moving this month, in his effort to be even closer to Ferrari's headquarters in Maranello. The Spanish driver did not choose Italy though, as moving away from the tax heaven in Switzerland would have caused some serious drop in income for the upcoming few years. Instead, he changed locations in the aforementioned country.

Until now, the 2-time world champion had a residence in Mont-sur-Rolle, but rumors suggesting that he was considering to change it had surfaced in the media ever since last July. It happened about the same time when the allegations that he may sign with Ferrari also made the headlines of several publications Europe-wide.

According to Swiss newspaper Blick, it seems that Alonso has now completed his move, as he bought a house in Lugano, an Italian-speaking region near the Italian border. That means the Spaniard nearly halved his distance to the Maranello base as compared to his old house.

Switching to Switzerland for residence is no news in the world of motor-racing, as the country serves the highly-paid racers with plenty of tax exemptions. Among the F1 drivers that relocated themselves to the Swiss territory, we can mention Michael Schumacher, Jarno Trulli, Vitantonio Liuzzi, Sebastian Vettel, Lewis Hamilton, Pedro de la Rosa, Timo Glock, Adrian Sutil, Heikki Kovalainen, Nick Heidfeld and Christian Klien.

Alonso signed a 3-year deal with Ferrari at the end of last season, with an additional clause that may keep the Spaniard at Maranello for another 3 years (the Italian team has the first option to extend his deal).