Spanish bank Santander has confirmed ahead of the Italian Grand Prix at Monza that it will, as expected, switch its Formula One sponsorship from McLaren to Ferrari. The bank will partner Ferrari for the next five years. Financial details were not immediately disclosed but are expected to emerge in the coming days.

Santander originally signed as a McLaren sponsor in 2007, when former world champion Fernando Alonso was driving for the team. The bank remained with the team even when the Spaniard departed in acrimonious circumstances.

Santander's activation of its sponsorship of McLaren has won high praise, particularly in the UK, where a range of adverts featuring world champion Lewis Hamilton have been used to highlight the bank's expansion in Britain.

Whether this heralds a long-awaited switch to Ferrari for Alonso remains to be seen. Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo said that the partnership, "Doesn't mean anything in terms of choices for the near future: I want to say it again, that the drivers are chosen by Ferrari and not by the sponsors."

Ferrari technical director Aldo Costa has confirmed that the team is already concentrating on next year's challenge after a disappointing season. "We had very little time to design the car for this season as we had to push as much as we could for 2008. And it has been a difficult season," he said. "To start with we had this saga about the double diffuser, which for us was a concept we did not consider because we still believe, in principle, it's illegal.

"It gave some teams a big advantage, so we've been at a disadvantage. And this year there were some teams that did better than us. For some teams you can explain that it was mainly because of the illegal diffuser concept, for other teams you can explain it by the resources and the time they had available."