Scuderia Ferrari Team Principal Mattia Binotto admitted that the Maranello team is backing Antonio Giovinazzi to keep his place at the Alfa Romeo Racing team for next season. Alfa Romeo have officially confirmed that former Ferrari driver Kimi Raikkonen will retire at the end of the 2021 Formula 1 championship and current Mercedes driver Valtteri Bottas will replace him in 2021, which means that there is only one more place available at the Ferrari-powered team.
Antonio Giovinazzi, a former member of the Ferrari Driver Academy, has a contract which is available only until the end of the current season and is doing everything possible to keep his place on the grid, but according to the latest rumors Formula 2 driver Guanyu Zhou has the best chances of driving for Alfa in 2022.
Mattia Binotto admitted that Scuderia Ferrari don’t “really have much” say regarding who Alfa Romeo decided to choose and have not discussed options outside of Formula 1 with Antonio Giovinazzi.
“That’s really a choice of the team. The team is really independent on the choice of their driver, which is important for us as well. Antonio is our reserve driver, he’s an Italian driver, he’s part of the Ferrari family, he’s a Ferrari driver. For us, it will be great to have him still driving next year. We believe that he is a good driver and he deserves to have a seat next year. But [we] cannot influence the team’s decision. As power unit supplier, I think we are always evaluating the collaboration, the partnership with the team and, obviously, the driver choice is part of the evaluation.” – Scuderia Ferrari Team Principal Mattia Binotto said.
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