Doubts are growing over whether Sebastian Vettel will remain a Ferrari driver until the end of 2020.
The past two weekends have seen frustration and tensions grow between driver and team after the four-time world champion struggled massively compared to teammate Charles Leclerc at Silverstone.
At the heart of it was a lack of confidence in the SF1000 car, but unhappiness at constant mechanical issues and then a less than brilliant strategy on Sunday saw Vettel lash out at the hierarchy.
“It’s going to be a measure of Sebastian and the team how they deal with the rest of the season,” F1 motorsport boss and former Ferrari technical director Ross Brawn said.
“They clearly have a very frustrated driver and they need to find ways of keeping it together for the rest of the year for the interests of both of them.
Also Read:
- Binotto rejects Vettel strategy complaint, denies favouring Leclerc
- Vettel has ‘a lot to give’ still in F1 as he makes admission on 2021 decision
- Vettel lacked support at times but ‘doesn’t regret’ his time at Ferrari
“They need to try to turn a lose-lose into a win-win. When I met these situations in my career, I’d sit down with the driver one-to-one and understand what the issues are.
“Then you look at bringing people into the discussions, engineers etc, that are going to be helpful to improve things.”
Others though are a little less sure that reconciliation can take place.
“I don’t know if he can [see out the season with Ferrari],” ex-F1 driver Jolyon Palmer told BBC Five Live’s Chequered Flag podcast.
“It’s just getting more and more toxic by the day, not even by the race. He’s basically performing really badly compared to Leclerc, who is the golden boy at Ferrari.
“Leclerc is in his second year with the team and outshone Vettel in his first year. He got a big lucrative contract with them and is seen as their man going forward.
“Vettel, meanwhile, is leaving the team and he is really struggling to even get points right now. Four races he has barely been in the points and it was only Hungary where he showed any chance of getting sensible points – even then he ran off the road twice.
“Vettel believes there is something wrong with his car and that was evident in the very cagey post-race interviews and it’s just getting nasty between him and Ferrari.”
One man who knows the Scuderia better than most is Gerhard Berger, who had two stints at Maranello, and he has been strong in his belief that it’s best for Vettel to call it a day sooner rather than later.
“For the mood in the respective teams, it would be best to switch to the 2021 line-ups now,” he told Austrian TV last weekend.