Lewis Hamilton would welcome being reunited with Fernando Alonso as team-mates, according to Sky F1's Johnny Herbert, as speculation over the Spaniard's future intensifies.
Alonso is in the third and final year of the deal he signed to rejoin McLaren but is expected to leave the team at the end of this season in the wake of their miserable regression to the back of the grid.
"There seems to be gathering paddock agreement that this is likely to be his last year at McLaren," said Sky F1's Ted Kravitz.
Alonso has previously driven for Ferrari and Renault, as well as McLaren during a single, turbulent season alongside Hamilton in 2007.
"I think Lewis would be happy to have Fernando back in the team," said Herbert.
"If you go back to 2007, it was his first year - and he beat him. Is Lewis Hamilton better now than he was in 2007? Damn right he is, therefore I don't think he's going to be particularly bothered.
"You've got to be aware of what Fernando is able to achieve in the car but, purely on what Lewis probably feels, he knows now he is better than he was."
Mercedes enquired about Alonso's availability in the winter following Nico Rosberg's shock retirement before hiring Valtteri Bottas as the German's replacement. However, Mercedes have subsequently all-but ruled out signing Alonso given the 'baggage' of his mutually-destructive year alongside Hamilton a decade ago.
"There's history, and that year was particularly painful for Mercedes, being the partner of McLaren," said Mercedes boss Toto Wolff.
"Of course, people mature and people change, and it would have been an exciting line-up, but maybe just a tiny bit too exciting for us."
Could the former rivals turned friends become partners again?
Although Hamilton and Alonso were fierce rivals during their season together at McLaren, the pair have since developed a warm mutual admiration.
On the eve of the new season, in which he is poised to go head-to-head for the F1 title with Sebastian Vettel for the first time, Hamilton voiced his disappointment that Alonso wouldn't be able to join the battle at the front in his underpowered McLaren-Honda.
"It would be great if we had Fernando up there, too, but it doesn't look like that will happen any time soon," said Hamilton.
"We need this guy [Fernando] to have a good car so he can get up there and fight with us as well. I feel we're yet to see the best of Fernando. The sport needs that and he deserves to be able to show that. You want to be racing against the best."
Alonso has also argued his past with Hamilton shouldn't preclude the pair from being partnered again.
"I think it would be different," he told ESPN last year. "I'm more mature, he's more mature. The teams now are, in a way, more prepared for all the situations.
"If I was team-mate of Lewis one day I think it would be very different, because we have learned and we are very different people."
However, for the time being, the prospect of Mercedes hiring Alonso as Hamilton's team-mate remains remote.
"I don't know if Mercedes will take him," concluded Sky F1's Martin Brundle during coverage of the Chinese GP. "If Bottas gets the job done, I think they will be very happy to carry on with that combo of Hamilton and Bottas."
If not Mercedes, would Ferrari welcome back Alonso?
Alonso is in his second stint at McLaren having also twice driven for Renault. So could the Spaniard complete the picture by returning to Ferrari for a second tenancy with the Scuderia?
The 35-year-old has spoken warmly of his former team in recent weeks after leaving at the end of the 2014 season having grown disillusioned with the team's inability to build him a title-winning car.
The team are also expected to have a vacancy for 2018 with Kimi Raikkonen widely tipped to retire at the end of the year.
"He could [return to Ferrari], nothing's impossible but it's unlikely," summarised Kravitz. "To replace Kimi with Fernando, how would that make Sebastian Vettel feel? If they have the kind of season they're expecting, how is Vettel going to feel if you draft Fernando Alonso in the car the year after?
"But there isn't an obvious candidate for Raikkonen's seat if Kimi does leave at the end of this year. Romain Grosjean? He hasn't really been spoken about. Antonio Giovinazzi? He's been spoken about but it's not really the Ferrari way to put a guy in only his second year in one of their cars into a race seat.
"If not then he'll probably try Renault where there'll be a seat open for him and a team welcoming him back in and then he would try his luck there. But who's to say they're going to give him a championship quicker than McLaren-Honda?"
What now for McLaren and Alonso?
While he considers his future options, Alonso's present is set to be a long and frustrating season at McLaren as the 20-time world champions grapple with a Honda engine significantly down on power compared to those of Ferrari, Mercedes and Renault.
Alonso's understandable frustration boiled over in Australia when he said after the race that McLaren were "last" on performance although he flatly dismissed reports on Thursday in Shanghai he was considering walking out of the team mid-season.
"It's like I have a depression, and it's not like that," he responded.
And speaking to Sky F1, McLaren executive Zak Brown voiced his admiration for a driver he has repeatedly described as the best in F1.
"He's a world champion," said Brown. "Everyone feels for him, we're all doing the best we can. He knows that. He's been in racing long enough to know things take time. He's hanging in there and he's pushing us."
The question is: for how much longer?
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