It would be appear that there is a lot of confusion surrounding the future of Felipe Massa. Earlier this season it was expected that Massa would be replaced at Ferrari by Sauber's Sergio Perez, however Ferrari president Luca Di Motezemelo shot himself in the foot in my opinion as he said that Sergio who part of Ferari's young driver academy after saying that the young Mexican was not ready to step up to a big team like Ferrari.
The Ferrari president will be rueing that he made those comments as it was announced on Friday that McLaren have signed Sergio to replace Lewis Hamilton from next season. The signing of Perez is in my opinion a major coup for McLaren as Segio has shown so many times this season that he is quick and in Jenson Button they already have an extremely experienced driver who will do a great job in stepping up to the role of team leader.
I fully expect McLaren to be challenging for next year's world championship's as soon as the light's go out in Melbourne on St Patrick's Day.
So with Perez no longer an option for Ferrari, the question is who are they going to get to replace Massa? Well there is always the option of retaining the Brazilian for another year and then trying to swoop for Sebastian Vettel in 2014, however it would appear that the team's mind has more less been made up to let Massa go as during the Summer Mark Webber revealed that he had received an offer from Ferrari for next season, however the Aussie decided to stick with RedBull.
The BBC's Chief F1 writer Andrew Benson revealed yesterday that he believed having spoken to a source extremely close to Ferrari that Massa is out and the young German of Nico Hulkenberg is in, however in the same breathe he said that another equally close source said that Massa is set to continue with the team.
I for one, expect that Ferrari president Luca Di Motezemelo to announce Fernando Alonso's team-mate tomorrow (Monday).
Here is what I believe is going to happen, Nico Hulkenberg is going to replace Massa at Ferrari with Massa moving to Force India while Michael Schumacher will sign a one year deal to replace Sergio Perez at Sauber having driven for Sauber in Sports cars before moving to F1 with Jordan in 1991.
Meanwhile in my opinion, the Lotus pairing of Kimi Raikkonen and Romain Grosjean will remain the same as I believe that the team would be very foolish to get rid either driver particularly Kimi as he is currently in the title fight with six races to go.
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