Ferrari’s star driver speaks out about those contract rumours and explains why his team needs to follow Mercedes’ lead and switch to a new car concept for next season
INTERVIEW MATT KEW PORTRAIT JAKE GRANT/MOTORSPORT IMAGES
IN CONVERSATION WITH
There was a rumour over the summer break that you’d signed what could be a five-year contract extension with Ferrari worth up to £150 million. What’s the latest on your future?
I wish I did this deal because it looks like a good deal! But there are no new deals and no discussion whatsoever. But at some point we’ll definitely have those discussions. My intentions are clear. And then on the team side, I don’t know, but I’m not too worried either. But it’s not a priority for now. We just want to try and work as much as possible on the car to get back to where we were last year, which was to fight for wins. Then we’ll see. But at the end of the season, for sure, we’ll have those discussions.
Why wait until the season has finished? Isn’t Ferrari worried another team could poach you?
Honestly, I’m not concerned. If I was worried, I probably would have started the discussion early. But I’m not too worried. It’ll be all fine. Basically, we don’t speak to each other about this. Both of us have decided that way and I think it’s the right way. As I said, there’s no rush. I don’t even have any deadlines. I still have a year and a half [with the contract expiring in 2025], which seems only a little bit in a way because I’ve had a contract for five years. Now we’re getting closer to the end. But there’s still plenty of time.
For Ferrari to win races and titles again, is everything it needs already in place?
We already have some really good engineers within the team. New people will only help – to have different points of view and help us grow even better. Obviously, looking at the gap there is from Ferrari to Red Bull in race pace especially, this requires time to get back to that level of performance. We need to focus on the short-term goals in order to achieve our long-term goals, which is to be back winning races. For now, we need to improve our consistency because if you look at the first part of the season, McLaren, Mercedes, Aston Martin and ourselves were really inconsistent with who was going to be on top. If we manage to find what we have in the car that gives us the consistency to always be on top of our game, this will give us the upper hand compared with other teams. Then, of course, focus on the overall performance to try and close the gap to Red Bull. But that would be a bit later on.
What about t
