Team boss Christian Horner told BBC Sport: “Sebastian Vettel, without a
shadow of doubt, will be part of the Red Bull Racing team in 2014.”
Vettel moved ahead of Alonso in the 2012 driver’s championship standings
following yesterday’s Korean Grand Prix, with his victory and Alonso’s third
place translating into a six-point advantage.
Alonso clashed with Lewis Hamilton when the two were allowed to compete as
rivals while team-mates at McLaren, and is said to have a clause in his
contract which gives him approval over the identity of his Ferrari
team-mate.
There has been speculation over the future of Massa with Ferrari all season
after a series of indifferent performances, but he has improved of late and
took fourth place yesterday.
Montezemolo sounded positive about the Brazilian’s future.
“We have the best team: yesterday too, the work on track was perfect,”
he said. “We also have the best driver in Fernando Alonso and I’m happy
to see Felipe Massa back at a high level: tomorrow I will meet him at
Maranello, we will have a chance to talk about his future and then I will
take a decision.”
He added: “You can see from the constructors’ championship that he has
returned to the levels that we used to know well. I expect a lot from him
and his capacity to take points from our rivals.”
Today’s speculation also suggested respected designer Adrian Newey could make
the move from Red Bull to Ferrari, but this was likewise rejected by
Montezemolo.
“As for Newey, I can say that he is very good at his job but we also
managed to win eight constructors’ titles in the last 13 championships
without him: I have huge faith in our own engineers,” he said.