Ferrari does not rule out Felipe Massa from its 2013 lineup
While Felipe Massa is experiencing a disappointing start to the 2012 championship, where he has only scored 2 points and suffers in comparison to his teammate, his future with the Scuderia Ferrari seemed sealed as the Paulista's contract ends at the end of the season. However, in the Brazilian press, Ferrari does not rule out retaining their driver after 2012.
On Monday, on the official Scuderia Ferrari website, Stefano Domenicali recalled some unflattering statistics for Felipe Massa. As Fernando Alonso currently shares the lead in the drivers’ championship with Sebastian Vettel and has 61 points, including a win and a second place, Felipe Massa has only managed to score points once, in Bahrain, where he left with just two points.
In Spain, the Paulista once again suffered from the comparison with Fernando Alonso and, while Ferrari seems to have regained its form, he was reminded by Stefano Domenicali that the Maranello team counted on his points to compete in the constructors’ championship. It didn’t take much to reignite rumors of an early departure of the Paulista, which both the team and the driver strongly denied.
When questioned about this by the Russian news agency Ria Novosti, Vitaly Petrov believes that Ferrari will not part ways with their No. 2 driver before the summer break, despite some claims that the seat of the F2012 bearing the number 6 could potentially become available in the coming weeks: « I think Ferrari will keep Felipe Massa for a few more months, at least until the Hungarian Grand Prix. His departure from the Maranello team at this point in the season is not credible. I don’t think Ferrari is putting pressure on Massa; they are defending him instead. The Brazilian has not yet received any ultimatum and does not seem to be genuinely tested either.
As if to formally deny the rumors, at Ferrari, Luca Colajanni does not rule out that the Paulista, aged 31, might still be with Maranello after 2012: “Felipe has the full confidence of the team, starting with our president [editor’s note: Luca di Montezemolo]. We have not yet decided who will be our driver in 2013, but Felipe has not been ruled out,” the spokesperson for the Italian team said in the Brazilian newspaper O Estado.
In fact, he shares the opinion of Felipe Massa, who dismissed, in an interview published on the team’s website, any explanation linking his chronic underperformance to any after-effects from the accident he suffered during the qualifying for the 2009 Hungarian Grand Prix: « We have no evidence showing that Felipe is slower because of his accident. None. »
Gary Harstein, the official Formula One doctor, shares this sentiment by stating that even if such an experience changes you, one cannot say that this is why Felipe no longer wins.
