Felipe Massa’s New Ferrari Contract: Keeping the Seat Warm for Sebastian Vettel?

By
at Internationaled.org

Published: October 17, 2012

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Felipe Massa is the luckiest driver in the Formula One paddock at the moment.

Quite aside from the miraculous survival and recovery after taking a high speed spring to the head and crashing in Budapest in 2009—an incident that almost claimed his life—Massa now seems to have escaped with his racing life.

After a dreadful couple of seasons as Fernando Alonso’s sidekick at Ferrari, Massa looked a certainty to be thrown on the driver scrapheap when his contract expired at the end of the 2012 season.

In 2011, Massa failed to finish above fifth and ended the year securing less than half of the points tally of Alonso. The trend looked set to continue as he secured points in only three of the first 10 races of the 2012 season.

It became obvious from very early in the 2012 season that Massa was testing the patience of Ferrari management. In March, after two dismal races, Massa was recalled to Maranello instead of heading home for a break.

Ferrari painted the recall as an opportunity for Massa to work with the engineers to improve the car, but the undertone was definitely one of a team unhappy with their driver. Team boss Stefano Domenicali explained it to ESPN F1:

Felipe has changed his plans and, instead of heading home to see his family in Brazil, he will be in Maranello tomorrow to work alongside the engineers to calmly analyse everything that happened in these past two races, trying to identify why he was not able to deliver what he is capable of. That's the right spirit and we are here, ready to help him.



Elsewhere, the media was rife with reports that Massa’s replacement was imminent with Jarno Trulli, Sergio Perez and Adrian Sutil being offered up as possible replacements. YallaF1.com reported polls being held in influential Italian media circles that pointed to anyone but Massa.

Since the dismal performance at the European Grand P...
Article Source: Bleacher Report - Formula 1

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