In a sensational moment of stating the ruddy obvious, Ferrari F1 test driver Marc Gene has stated that Ferrari were pushing on with their plans to allow third cars for teams in 2010 in order to give Michael Schumacher a drive with the team.
Ferrari pushed ludicrously hard for the rules to allow a third car for the teams in 2010, despite the principle seeming to go against the whole "cost-cutting" ideal, but their plans were drowned out by the other teams.
And Gene says in his newspaper column for Spanish rag El Mundo that the Ferrari plan would have been to run an unholy superteam of Fernando Alonso, Felipe Massa and Michael Schumacher in 2010 had the three car plan been successfully implemented.
Schumacher left the Ferrari team after 14 years with them last week, when he announced his return to F1 with Mercedes.
According to friends of the German seven-time champion, he had upped his fitness training behind the scenes throughout the second half of 2009, ever since he was forced to cancel a planned stand-in role for Ferrari in place of the injured Felipe Massa, and Schumacher himself admitted that the planned comeback had reaffirmed his interest in the sport.
And it seems that Ferrari, aware of Schumacher's plans to come out of retirement for 2010, pushed the three car team idea in order to avoid losing him to one of their rivals.
Gene said in his column that losing Schumacher "hurts" within the Ferrari team, and that the Ferrari plan was indeed to open up the possibility for the German to race their third car next season. But he also insists that the now-Schumacherless Ferrari team will be ready to make his comeback year "difficult" with their driver pairing of Alonso and Massa.
"It hurts to see Schumacher leave our team," Gene bawled, "I am convinced that if the rules would allow us to run a third car per team Michael would be with us next year."
He added that: "But now we can only thank him for all he has done at Ferrari and try to defeat him next year. At Ferrari we are ready for it. Alonso and Massa will make it a difficult season for him."
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