Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo is keen to sign MotoGP ace Valentino Rossi for 2011 should the opportunity arise.
Rossi impressed Ferrari with his pace in a Formula One test last week and di Montezemolo says he would have no hesitation in offering the Italian a place in the Ferrari team.
“He's a friend and an undisputed champion, from Emilia-Romagna, a great fan of Formula 1 and engines, and also a potential Formula 1 champion," he said.
"If there was the possibility in 2011 and he wanted to do it and had the possibility for testing and adapting to F1, then why not?"
However, di Montezemolo’s plans depend on teams being allowed to run a third car in the championship. This is currently not allowed under the Concorde Agreement and the idea has met with disapproval from smaller teams.
The Ferrari chief believes a third car could be run as customer cars and would allow younger drivers the chance to gain valuable F1 experience.
"I spoke about the possibility of a third car, but I didn't say that Ferrari needs to have three cars," he said. "I'm well aware of the objections coming from the small teams. I was talking from the point of view of the interest of Formula 1 and of potential new entries in Formula 1.
"The third car could also be helpful for young drivers, to let them grow,” he said. “It's not right that a boy, who has never driven in Formula 1, starts into a race without training and tests. Here's the idea: I would happily give a Ferrari to an American, German or Australian team and let the car be managed by them.
"They would definitely spend less than if they had to build a car on their own from scratch. They could hand it over to a talented and strong driver or try it with a young driver with a certain potential.”
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Re: Ferrari: 'Door open for Rossi'
Toro Rosso was set up as a junior team under the previous rules which allowed a team to buy in a design from another team (in this case Red Bull Racing. Honda and Super Aguri had a similar setup). RBR also built a lot of the larger components for Toro Rosso (tubs, etc) while Toro Rosso built most of the smaller components.
The rules now more clearly state that each team must be a constructor in its own right, and so this year Toro Rosso have to design and build their own car. The team has been unofficially for sale for the last couple of years, but there is not really a strong market to buy the remains of Minardi right now when there have been plenty of better equipped teams falling over and being sold (Honda, BMW-Sauber, Renault) and smaller entrants forming their own teams from scratch more easily than buying a customer outfit based in Faenza.
So, short story long, Ferrari couldn't sell an F10 to another team to run under the current regulations, which is why Montezemolo wants the rules changed to allow the bigger teams to sell customer cars to smaller teams. It is the same argument which has been around since the mid-noughties, and Toro Rosso/Super Aguri were formed with this in mind. When the rules got canned, they had to get creative and find loopholes. This is also why the Prodrive-McLaren deal fell over, and why the current Force India-McLaren deal is not simply a customer car operation.
Re: Ferrari: 'Door open for Rossi'
Re: Ferrari: 'Door open for Rossi'
What the hell are you talking about?
Long words are just a cover for a lack of intelligence.
Your bush!t is pathetic as it adds nothing to the debate,
It is not in the interest of the sport to have a third car, when there are enough teams as things are.
Ferrari has no interest in the wider picture, except as long as it is in their own interest.
The same goes for the rest and anyone else involved in top level sport