Zanardi sees Alonso as a champion and would replace Massa with Mortara

As he prepares to compete for Paralympic gold in London, Alessandro Zanardi looks back on the start of the 2012 season in an interview with the Italian magazine Autosprint. The man with 41 Grand Prix especially considers Fernando Alonso the favorite for the world title and praises the Spanish driver’s work since the beginning of the season: The team has done a great job, but Fernando has strung together small miracles. The most important of all, in my opinion, is the overtaking of Grosjean at the restart in Valencia, after the safety car. To pass in that way, on the outside, is a question of psychological calculation. […] Ferrari has shifted gears, but it’s Alonso who performs the magic tricks.

Also invited by the Italian magazine to give his opinion bluntly on the case of Felipe Massa, the former Williams driver doesn’t hold back: For me, Felipe is a driver of great talent but he’s wasting it with this anxiety crisis he is experiencing. If he focused on being himself, and not Alonso, I am sure that by now he would often have tasted the podium. He is in a difficult profession and when you race for Ferrari, you know you can’t rely on anyone else. However, for me, at this point in the season, he no longer has any excuses. The Scuderia will have to see if he comes out of his crisis because the points he can bring to the championship are important. Then, at that point, I think changing the driver will be inevitable.

Moreover, even though they continue to negotiate with the Paulista, Ferrari is nonetheless exploring other avenues. Mark Webber has confirmed having been in discussions with the Scuderia, while in the columns of the Belgian newspaper Le Soir, Benjamin Mignot, in charge of Jérôme d’Ambrosio’s interests for Gravity, hinted that Maranello had also explored the possibility involving the Belgian driver: « If his name was mentioned at one point as a replacement for Massa at Ferrari, it wasn’t fabricated out of thin air! »

For his part, if he had the responsibility of finding a replacement for the 2008 world vice-champion at Ferrari, Alessandro Zanardi has his little idea: In number one, Hamilton, and in number two, Edoardo Mortara. If I were Ferrari, I would do with Mortara what McLaren did with Lewis. I saw what he did in DTM [where he just won, in Zandvoort, editor’s note] and it doesn’t seem like a category for the weak: he came directly from Formula 3, and in a championship where even the best struggle, he drives like a veteran. But if it’s just a driver for one season, then I would take someone like Paul di Resta or Nico Hülkenberg.