Four-time champion Sebastian Vettel will need to “procure” his place at Ferrari past next season, team boss Maurizio Arrivabene has said.
A choice to augment the arrangement, among the most lucrative in Formula 1, would be made amid 2017, he included.
“Sebastian has a contract. We work together this year and next year. Then during next year we’ll see,” he said.
“Each of us has goals. So it is only right that anyone, no matter who it is, earns their place and their salary.”
Arrivabene’s remarks, made to Italian TV, came toward the end of a week in which Vettel has been intensely censured in the Italian media taking after his inclusion in a first-corner crash at the Malaysian Grand Prix a weekend ago.
Vettel was given a three-put network punishment during the current weekend’s race in Japan in the wake of slamming into Mercedes driver Nico Rosberg while attempting to overwhelm Red Bull’s Max Verstappen. The episode put Vettel out of the race with broken suspension.
The German commanded team-mate Kimi Raikkonen in his first year with Ferrari in 2015 in the wake of joining from Red Bull, and kept on doing likewise in the main portion of this current year.
Be that as it may, since Raikkonen’s agreement was stretched out until the end of next season, the Finn has coordinated Vettel, who trails him by seven focuses in the title.
Vettel would likely be ahead had he not endured a progression of specialized issues in early-season races, however the two drivers have without a doubt been all the more firmly coordinated since the late spring.
In the meantime, Ferrari have slipped back in aggressiveness, have neglected to win a race with five grands prix remaining and are liable to complete the season third in the constructors’ title behind Mercedes and Red Bull.
He replied: “I do not think people can be conquered with renewals.
“Sebastian just needs to focus on the car. He is a person who gives so much, and sometimes this means he is interested in a bit of everything – so sometimes you have to re-focus him, remind him to be focused on the main job.
“He does not do it in a polemical spirit, but because he is totally immersed in the family that is the Ferrari team.” Vettel said,
“I haven’t seen the comments. There have been a number of races where I haven’t been happy with my own performance. The main focus is to progress and carry everything we can learn on to next year’s car.
“I have a good relationship with him. If there is something I don’t like, I tell him and the same the other way around. But we have nothing to sort out.”
