Ferrari: Felipe Massa in 2013 then Sebastian Vettel in 2014?

By returning to the podium in Suzuka and knocking on the door again in South Korea, notably playing his role as a model teammate by not attacking Fernando Alonso, Felipe Massa has certainly secured his future in red for 2013, something Luca di Montezemolo half-confirms on Radio1: « Without a doubt, by mid-season, it was unthinkable to confirm Massa. Now, he meets our expectations, we will discuss it tomorrow and then make a decision. Massa was very good in Monza and Japan: it’s a resurrected Massa. I asked him to come to Maranello tomorrow and we will have a lengthy discussion. I think he has always given a lot to Ferrari and built a good team spirit with Alonso. I’m counting on him to take points from our opponents. »

The President of Ferrari also assures that he has always had a good relationship with the Paulista: « I had to talk to him forty times this year. It is true that the characteristics of the car we had at the start of the season were such that he could not drive it, but I always maintained that we needed him to react, and from Spa, he started to improve his performance: he knew he could count on the support of the whole team. »

Indeed, if we consider the results of all the drivers since the summer break, the Brazilian is the man who has scored the most points (56) since the Belgian Grand Prix, behind Sebastian Vettel (93). The Sao Paulo native is ahead of Jenson Button (55), Kimi Räikkönen (51), and especially Fernando Alonso. Thus, during the same period, Ferrari has scored 101 points compared to 121 for Red Bull and 91 for McLaren, allowing it to hold the provisional second place in the constructors’ championship.

The future of Felipe Massa, however, would only be short-term at Maranello, as the BBC assures on its website that his replacement for 2014 is already found: the double world champion, Sebastian Vettel, is set to join Ferrari in 2014, with Felipe Massa remaining in the Italian team in 2013. Internal sources at Ferrari state that they have signed a contract with Vettel, 25, with an option to join in 2014, depending on their results. The contract would define a position that Ferrari must occupy in the title race at a certain point in 2013. And the BBC adds: Vettel’s eventual arrival at Ferrari has been approved by Fernando Alonso.

The German’s interest in the Scuderia is an open secret, and vice-versa. Nonetheless, an association between the current Red Bull driver and his Spanish rival would be unprecedented on the Maranello side, as it would be the first time Ferrari pairs two world champions since 1953, when Giuseppe Farina and Alberto Ascari teamed up, albeit in an era when the Italian team fielded at least four cars at each event.

In any case, Sebastian Vettel is normally under contract with Red Bull until the end of 2014, but Helmut Marko had told Bild, last May, that the German could possibly leave the Austrian team before this date: « Regarding 2014, there is a performance clause in his contract, for him as well as for the team. It depends on the positions in the 2013 championship, but if Vettel and Red Bull fall in the drivers or constructors’ championship, he can leave for elsewhere. »

We will therefore have to wait to see how the 2013 season unfolds, while for many it could be summed up as a German-Spanish duel following Lewis Hamilton’s move to Mercedes. However, Luca di Montezemolo implicitly rejected such an association, still on the airwaves of Radio1: « Today, the issue is not with the drivers. Nothing is set for 2013 yet, but I don’t want two roosters in the same henhouse; I want two drivers who race for Ferrari and not for themselves. I don’t want problems and rivalries, which we didn’t have between Schumacher and Irvine, Schumacher and Barrichello, Alonso and Massa, Massa and Schumi, or even with Massa and Räikkönen. »

If Red Bull described the BBC article as factually incorrect, adding that Sebastian would certainly be at Red Bull in 2014, the Horse Whisperer, Ferrari’s column, did not fail to mock on Twitter: There must be a contagious virus: those who think they know everything about Ferrari first emerged in Brazil, then now in England.