What should be Felipe's next move?

An emotional comeback in to the team, after an life-threatening accident last year, has turned sour so far for the Brazilian, Felipe Massa, who is in to his fifth year with Ferrari.

Once considered the blue-eyed boy of of Ferrari, Massa is no longer in the favoured books of the team.

Nurtured under the legedary Michael Schumacher in his first year, one witnessed more applause and roar from the pitwall of Ferrari for Massa than their new million dollar recruit Kimi Raikkonen.

The story has since changed it's script, with the coming of Fernando Alonso, as Massa was not only out-performed on track, but the Spaniard is now the more favoured driver in the Italian team.

What are his options now?

Felipe has signed contract extension with Ferrari up until the end of 2012 season, but competing with Fernando would be tough task.

Fernando, unlike, Raikkonen, is a complete workaholic, who gels and build quick rapport with his team.

Moreover, Felipe has yet not come to terms with the set-up of the car, which doesn't seem to his liking. Fernando, though in just his first year at Ferrari, has quickly adapted to the car.

It is not just one or two races, but Fernando has performed consistently better than Felipe over majority of the races so far. The graph below depicts the qualifying performance of both drivers.

(Alonso leads 9-3, while he didn't run qualifying at Monaco due to crash on Friday)

In modern formula one races, qualifying has become extremely important, and to get a good qualifying result, a good grip and handling of the car is important.

There is no doubt that Felipe might come up triumphs in the coming races, or by the next season. However, with Ferrari already impressed with Alonso's performance, there would be no doubt that next year the car would be even more to Alonso's liking, than Felipe's.

One is witnessing how the great Michael Schumacher is struggling with the car, which was built around the team's former driver, Jenson Button. Yes, Michael has come back after three years, but the fact that he is still struggling suggest that the car set-up and design has more to say than the driver's performance in this sport.

The ban on in-season testing is also limiting drivers to iron out their problems.

The car, as we say in formula one, is 90% of the performance, and hence, it is imperative for Felipe to get acclimatised to the car as soon as he could, or Alonso would better him race after race.

The second option for Felipe would be to look at an equal opportunity in some other team. The good thing about this is that he would start the season on equal footing with his team mate.

Except, Renault, however, all other top teams have both their seats blocked.

Renault has improved quite a lot and won podiums too this season. Hence, there is little doubt that this team is moving forward and might be even challenging for championship next year.

Then, there were rumours of Mark Webber's interest in driving for a Ferrari, which was fuelled further when his manager, Flavior Briatore, visited Ferrrari. However, with Sebastian Vettel being the team's firm favourite at Red Bull, a switch wouldn't be much sensible.

The likes of Sebastian Vettel and Robert Kubica etc., are also eyeing a drive for Ferrari in the very near future. With binding contracts of drivers to teams not holding much water these days, this becomes again a threat to Felipe's future at Ferrari.

The best move for Felipe then, since the team has unofficially announced Alonso as No.1 driver of the team this year, is to get the maximum out of the car and fine tune his driving to adapt to the set-up, so that he is running on par or better than his team-mate come next season.

We might see the Brazilian having an extensive and extended sessions on Ferrari's F1 stimulator during off-season.