Alonso and Raikkonen will “collide” at Ferrari, warns Massa

Outgoing Ferrari driver Felipe Massa has said that his current teammate, Fernando Alonso, is likely to “collide” with Kimi Raikkonen next season, when the pair will be racing together. The Brazilian also made clear that he would spend the remainder of this year racing for himself, rather than playing his usual support role for the Spanish double world champion.

In comments broadcast on Brazilian network Globo TV, and reported online by UK magazine Autosport, Massa predicted that Ferrari would have a torrid time in 2014, when Alonso and Raikkonen will be sharing a garage. “I know both Fernando and Kimi on and off the track and I rate them as excellent drivers, but I’m afraid they will collide when sharing the team,” Massa said.

The upcoming season will mark the first time that Ferrari has had two world champions racing together for 60 years. Alonso won his two titles at Renault, in 2005 and 2006, while Raikkonen took his drivers’ championship while at Ferrari in 2007.

The Finn remained at the Italian outfit for two more seasons, but his results were disappointing. He finished third in 2008, and sixth in 2009. Despite still having a year to run on his contract, in 2010 Ferrari decide to bump him from their team to make way for Alonso, who had endured a turbulent year at McLaren in 2007, and had returned to Renault for the 2008 and 2009 seasons.

I told the bosses to breathe as much as possible now because it will be hard for them to breathe next season"

The problems for Alonso at McLaren stemmed from his teammate of the time, rookie Lewis Hamilton. From the very first race of 2007 it was clear that Hamilton was going to be a genuine competitor for Alonso, and in fact the pair ended the year on equal points. Since then, Alonso has raced with drivers who have acted in a support role for him, such as Nelson Piquet Jr. at Renault and Felipe Massa at Ferrari.

“I told the bosses [at Ferrari] to breathe as much as possible while they still can because it will be hard for them to breathe next season,” Massa told Globo TV, in reference to the friction that could be caused by having two competitive drivers under the same roof.

Massa, who narrowly missed out on winning the world championship in 2008, also made clear that he would be racing for himself for the remainder of the season. “I will not race for Alonso from now on,” he explained. “Right from Friday at Singapore I’ll be working for myself. I will attack all the time, every lap. The time has come to look after myself.”

Over recent years Massa has often been called on by Ferrari to sacrifice his own race for Alonso, either by letting him pass on the track, or in more novel ways, such as at the US Grand Prix last year, when team engineers cracked the seal on Massa’s gearbox ahead of the race, thus incurring a grid penalty for the Brazilian, and moving Alonso on to the clean side of the track.