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After two years at Ferrari, Felipe Massa gave his best season in the year 2008, achieving six wins and a total of nine podium finishes in the season. He raced along with Michael Schumacher, who was in his last race with Ferrari, which sadly turned out to be last win for Felipe Massa.
Since the 2009 season, Felipe Massa hasn’t recorded a single win in his Formula One career, which raises a lot of eyebrows of the Ferrari fans, who feel that he should be replaced soon enough. Massa had only two podium finishes last year, which by the standards of a Ferrari driver, are very less. Also, the 2013 season has not been very promising for the 32 year old Ferrari driver, who has had only one podium finish and 2 early retirements from the races.
The Formula One team, Scuderia Ferrari had won the Constructors’ Championship consecutively in 2007 and 2008. And after the signing of Fernando Alonso in 2010, things looked very promising for this highly rated Formula One team, but it hardly turned out so. Since 2009, Ferrari hasn’t won the Constructors’ Championship and is missing it out by a margin of a few points.
The Constructors’ points are calculated as a sum of points earned by the drivers in a particular race. Apart from a few early retirements, Fernando Alonso has finished in the top 10 for every race he has completed since 2011. And with Fernando doing his job well, earning himself and his team valuable points, the only missing piece in the puzzle for Ferrari here is the support from it’s second driver, which is Felipe Massa. As mentioned earlier, points earned by both the drivers make up for the team’s points, and only one driver achieving that objective will never be enough to actually win the Constructors’ Championship.
The Red Bull Racing team has used this formula perfectly, with one young and fast driver (Vettel) and the other more experienced one (Webber). Red Bull Racing team has won the Constructors’ Championship not once, but thrice in a row.
It is elementary that both the drivers of a particular Formula One team need to contribute to become number one. This looks a little shaky for Ferrari as only one driver has been providing good results. This puts the team, Ferrari, in a tough situation as Massa has been with the team since 2006 and the team needs to support the driver in his bad days.
But looking from a strictly business point of view, not renewing Massa’s contract would be a really wise decision and the team can look into other options for more younger drivers. Either that or some serious work needs to be done on Massa’s part for the reaming of the season, and if good improvement is shown from him then it is really obvious that Massa has still got some wins left in him and Ferrari should continue with him.
Taking any decision right now will be really hasty and impatient on the team’s part. So we just need to wait and watch on whether Ferrari will keep Massa for the next season or not.
