Vitaly Petrov thinks it is possible Felipe Massa will lose his Ferrari seat long before the 2012 season is over.

But Caterham’s Russian driver, who moved from Renault (now Lotus) at the end of last season, does not believe reports that Ferrari could sack the struggling Brazilian imminently, such as after next weekend’s Monaco grand prix.

“I don’t think they’ll fire Massa just now. At least not until August,” Petrov is quoted by the state owned Moscow news agency Ria Novosti.

There are six races until August’s month-long calendar ‘summer’ break.

So while Petrov thinks Massa’s career is genuinely in danger, he does not agree that Ferrari is ramping up the pressure on the 30-year-old.

“I wouldn’t say that Ferrari are criticising him that strongly,” he said. “They’re not saying he has one more chance or anything like that.”

Flavio Briatore could be readying to burst back into formula one.

Germany’s Auto Motor und Sport said the ousted and formerly banned Italian is busily writing regulations for a ‘GP1′ championship.

They could be adopted should the FIA not sign up to the 2013 Concorde Agreement, according to the report.

Apparently, the political rumblings in F1 at present are not limited to the sport’s planned floatation, or Bernie Ecclestone’s spat with Mercedes.

Cost-control is also a buzzword. As reported recently, the vast majority of F1′s teams want the FIA to enshrine cost-cutting in the actual sporting regulations, even to the point of pushing for a once highly-controversial budget cap.

F1 chief executive Ecclestone, however, is not famously close with the FIA’s new president Jean Todt, and according to Auto Motor und Sport he is not convinced that the Paris federation needs to write and control the rules.

Enter Briatore. The German report said Ferrari will be a fan of the former Renault chief’s rumoured regulations, as they steer away from the premium on aerodynamics.

F1′s next winner could be at the wheel of a black and gold car.

“I think Kimi (Raikkonen) will be the sixth different winner in the sixth race,” said Finnish commentator and former driver Mika Salo, to the MTV3 broadcaster.

Although the results in 2012 have proved impossible to predict so far, many paddock pundits expected Lotus’ E20 to be the car to beat last weekend in Barcelona.

“The big surprise was when Kimi didn’t win,” admitted former Ferrari driver Salo, referring to Pastor Maldonado’s victory for Williams.

Also confident about Lotus’ potential is Raikkonen’s teammate, Romain Grosjean, who finished behind the 2007 world champion last weekend.

“It’s good to be a little disappointed with third and fourth,” he told the French language RMC Sport. “It shows that as a team we are convinced we can win.”

According to the reigning world champion team Red Bull’s drivers, however, there is a downside to this year’s impossible-to-predict F1 landscape.

“Maybe we will see an HRT or a Marussia on pole in Monaco,” world champion Sebastian Vettel said, unenthusiastically and half-seriously.

Mark Webber insists that what has been described as the Pirelli ‘lottery’ might not be a good thing for the sport.

“I don’t know if they (the fans) will get sick of seeing so many different winners,” the Australian told Fox Sports.

“It’s nice to have different winners but also we want rivals.”

It is possible formula one teams will be limited to a budget cap in 2013, according to Germany’s Auto Motor und Sport.

The budget cap idea saw the sport almost implode amid the bitter political war of 2009, when proposed by controversial former FIA president Max Mosley.

But it is back on the agenda in 2012, and according to new rules – where a majority of teams can now push through a change – it could be imposed next season.

“Ten of the 12 teams are in favour,” Auto Motor und Sport said, referring to the push to have cost-cutting moved from the FOTA gentleman’s agreement to the actual sporting regulations.

It means that the two dissenting teams, the Red Bull-owned Red Bull Racing and Toro Rosso, will have no say.

“The cost to be competitive in formula one at present is too high,” the boss of the energy drink company’s premier team, Christian Horner, said recently. “I don’t think anybody will dispute that.

“The debate is how we achieve it.”

Not only that, the German report said nine teams are in favour of Mosley’s old budget cap idea, with annual expenditure limited initially to EUR 170 million and then diminishing to 100 million over a few seasons.

More than half of Michael Schumacher’s German compatriots think the seven time world champion will return to retirement at the end of this year.

After three years of retirement, the 43-year-old returned to F1 in 2010 on a three-year Mercedes contract, which runs out in 2012.

SID news agency commissioned the German market research company Promit to carry out a survey as to whether respondents think Schumacher will quit at the end of this year.

55.4 per cent answered yes, while only 26.2 per cent said they think Schumacher should sign on for at least another season.

The winner of a record 91 grands prix has failed to see the chequered flag in three of the five races so far this year, finishing just tenth in both Malaysia and Bahrain.

In contrast, teammate Nico Rosberg’s three top-seven finishes in 2012 included pole and victory in China, netting him 41 points compared with Schumacher’s 2 overall.

“I don’t think we can write him (Schumacher) off yet,” insisted Telegraph correspondent Tom Cary this week.

“His pace hasn’t been bad and he started the season very well. (He) was unlucky in quite a few races, his wheel fell off when he was running second in China and could have had a big haul of points.

“He is making mistakes in wheel-to-wheel racing though. But if he gets a few decent finishes or even wins a race then we could see him continue (in 2013),” added Cary.

Ferrari has played down rumours it is close to immediately ousting Felipe Massa, insisting it is possible the struggling Brazilian will still be in a red car next year.

On Twitter, the famous Italian team said the latest rumours – including a claim that former Virgin driver Jerome d’Ambrosio is a candidate to replace Massa in 2012 – are “funny”.

But it was Ferrari itself who fuelled the speculation, publishing a statement on its website that read like a warning to Massa.

“It was a very carefully-worded statement, wasn’t it?” said Telegraph correspondent Tom Cary.

“The way this crazy season is going, I really would not be massively shocked if they ditched him mid-season.”

The Swiss newspaper Blick said Monaco next weekend could be the 30-year-old’s last chance to up his game.

And the candidates are lining up.

“Ferrari knows that I’m ready. If they need me or they want me, then they will call me,” Adrian Sutil, who accompanied his manager to last weekend’s Spanish grand prix, said.

The Spanish newspaper El Mundo said some paddock pundits believe “the only reason” Massa still has its seat is because the “name Todt” – a reference not only to Massa’s manager Nicolas but to the FIA president – has a “protective arm” around him.

Ferrari spokesman Luca Colajanni told Brazil’s O Estado de S.Paulo newspaper this week: “Felipe has the full confidence of the team, starting with our president.

“We have not decided who will be our driver in 2013 but Felipe is not ruled out,” he insisted.

Indeed, while some believe Ferrari has hung a sword of Damocles above Massa’s head, others think the Maranello based team have been patient since the Paulista’s recovery from his near-fatal head injuries of 2009.

“We have no evidence that makes us think that Felipe has slowed down because of the accident. Zero,” Colajanni said.

F1 doctor Gary Hartstein agreed: “An experience like that (Hungary 2009) changes you, but you can’t say that’s why Felipe has not won again.”

Charlie Whiting has defended the decision in Spain to move Lewis Hamilton from pole to the very rear of the grid.

Although McLaren was widely criticised for making a grave error, the stewards’ penalty was at the same time described by the world’s press as “draconian”.

“Quite frankly I did not expect the penalty that we received,” said McLaren team boss Martin Whitmarsh.

Indeed, given that McLaren’s fuel indiscretion occurred only in the decisive Q3, why not simply delete Hamilton’s Q3 laptimes, thereby putting the Briton mid-grid for the race?

“We had no room to move,” Whiting, the FIA’s race director, responded to Germany’s Auto Motor und Sport when told that Hamilton’s penalty seemed too severe.

“If there is a violation, it applies to the whole session, not just part of it,” he insisted. “Qualifying begins with Q1.”

Whiting explained that if Hamilton had only lost his Q3 time, a precedent would have been set tempting teams to risk not being checked for the mandatory 1 litre fuel sample in post-qualifying scrutineering.

Auto Motor und Sport said only one or two fuel samples are actually checked after qualifying at grands prix.

Competitors could, therefore, genuinely “run the risk” of using less fuel than is allowed in Q3, if the penalty for being caught is relatively light, Whiting argued.

He recalled last year’s German grand prix, when Sebastien Buemi was sent to the back of the grid because his fuel sample showed irregularities.

As it was not possible to check if the illegal fuel had also been used in Q1 and Q2, the Toro Rosso driver had to be disqualified from qualifying, Whiting argued.

Jerome d’Ambrosio is the latest name linked with struggling Felipe Massa’s Ferrari race seat.

While Mark Webber or Sergio Perez are the Maranello team’s more likely longer term solutions, Ferrari may be looking simply for a stop-gap solution, having reportedly run out of patience for Brazilian Massa’s lack of pace and results.

The French sports daily L’Equipe named d’Ambrosio, the Belgian driver who lost his Virgin/Marussia seat at the end of last season.

He is managed by Eric Boullier, and now Lotus’ reserve driver.

Also named as potential substitutes for Massa in recent days were Nico Hulkenberg, Paul di Resta and Kamui Kobayashi.

But, according to L’Equipe, d’Ambrosio “has the advantage of being immediately available, giving Ferrari time to find a more permanent solution” for 2013.

Also ready to step in now is Adrian Sutil, the former Force India driver who is putting his career back together after the Eric Lux assault affair.

“I have no money to offer,” the German is quoted as saying. “After five seasons, people know what is my level. I want a normal salary, that’s all.”

Pirelli stands ready to supply special ‘qualifying tyres’ to formula one teams next year.

With the emphasis of the sport’s spectacle now relying on the complex and heavily degrading control tyres, it was the qualifying session that suffered last weekend in Barcelona.

Arguably to the detriment of Saturday’s spectacle, teams took an exceedingly strategic view of the fight for pole position, with some drivers sitting out the decisive ‘Q3′ runout altogether.

One solution, according to Pirelli’s chairman Marco Tronchetti Provera, is the return of ‘qualifying tyres’.

The proposal has been made following recent criticism, notably by seven time world champion Michael Schumacher, of Pirelli’s 2012 product.

Tronchetti defended his marque’s approach.

“What we have is many competitive cars, which is what the teams wanted — opprtunity for everyone who is able to win,” he told Italian radio Rai GR Parlamento.

“So it’s fine if someone complains. We are available to the teams. We are ready to make qualifying tyres tomorrow.

“But they are choices that are not ours.”

Jaime Alguersuari has told Spanish publications he is “absolute certain” he will be on the 2013 grid.

“This is the best year of my life,” he told Mundo Deportivo, referring to 2012, the year after his young F1 career stalled when he was dropped by backer Red Bull.

“I’m only 22,” said Spaniard Alguersuari, who is now Pirelli’s main test driver and a co-commentator for British radio. “I’m in the prime of my life.

“It is increasingly clear that what happened with Toro Rosso was not a sporting decision. It was an internal decision and I don’t want to go deeper.”

He sounded confident about the future.

“It is 100 per cent that I will return in 2013. After being with Pirelli I will have very important knowledge. I knew that this transitionary step was necessary and I’m very happy,” said Alguersuari.

“If I had gone (to be test driver) with a team, with all due respect, I’d have no options now.

“I am developing a product (Pirelli) that nobody understands but that is vital for formula one — to know the tyres and to understand them. I’m in the right place,” he is quoted by La Vanguardia newspaper.

“I chose to be with Pirelli because I knew it would be the most important (element) in formula one.

“I know where I am and I know where I’ll be next year,” he insisted.

Felipe Massa’s formula one career is on the brink of collapse.

Ferrari boss Stefano Domenicali left Barcelona insisting he expects the struggling Brazilian to “fight back starting in Monaco”.

“We absolutely need his points to also fight for the constructors’ title,” he said.

Earlier, the Maranello based team said on Twitter that Ferrari is “disappointed with” the 30-year-old’s performance.

When asked about that comment, a Ferrari spokesman told the Sunday Times: “It was a poor choice of grammar. We are disappointed in the outcome of Felipe but not with Felipe himself.”

But the very latest development is that Ferrari is now making it abundantly clear that Massa needs to up his game immediately.

In a statement posted on its official website, Ferrari said Massa’s teammate Fernando Alonso “has always maintained a very high level”.

As for Massa, his “drop off has made itself felt”, the report stated.

“The Brazilian had picked up 49 points two years ago and 24 the following year, while so far this season he has just 2,” said Ferrari.

“Everyone, he more than anyone, is expecting a change of gear starting right away with the Monaco grand prix”, the statement concluded.

Even Massa’s strongest supporters in Brazil, like the O Globo journalist Celso Itibere, admit the situation is dire.

“He is at risk,” said Itibere, “his decline is progressive, he is failing to react and he runs the real risk of not finishing the season.

“At this time Ferrari has no one to take the job. Everyone they would like to have there – Perez, Kobayashi, Webber – are not available.”

Tuesday’s edition of the Italian sports daily Corriere dello Sport will report that Massa’s ousting is imminent.

And the latest edition of La Gazzetta dello Sport did not even once mention Massa’s name. “It is as though he does not exist,” wrote the Brazilian journalist Livio Oricchio in O Estado de S.Paulo newspaper.

“Yet it is an Italian newspaper, and he is a Ferrari driver.”

When asked if he fears for his F1 career, Massa said in Barcelona last weekend: “No. I live in the present. What will happen will happen.”

Asked if he is afraid another bad performance will seal his fate, Massa insisted: “I’m not afraid of anything, especially criticism. It doesn’t affect me.”

Two days after winning in Spain, Williams is scrambling to put together the equipment it needs to contest next weekend’s Monaco grand prix.

Mere hours after Pastor Maldonado secured the once-great British team’s first victory since 2004, a huge fire broke out in the pits, leaving one team member still in a Barcelona hospital with burns.

“His family are in constant communication and he is in good spirits,” Williams said in a media statement.

The Oxfordshire based team is now making efforts to ensure it can race in Monte Carlo, having lost a lot of equipment in the fire.

Mercifully, however, Bruno Senna’s car appears to have survived, with the Finnish broadcaster MTV3 saying an initial inspection of the chassis showed no devastating damage.

Maldonado’s winning car was in parc ferme at the time of the incident.

“We had a lot of damage and lost a lot of equipment, including IT equipment,” chief operations engineer Mark Gillan said, according to the Daily Mail.

“Over the next couple of days we will be looking at where we are parts-wise.

“We will have everything we need to run operationally at Monaco, but we may be missing a few of the extras because obviously we don’t carry a complete set of spares for everything,” he said.

It is believed more than one rival team has offered to help Williams by loaning the Sir Frank Williams-led outfit any equipment it needs.

A McLaren spokesman confirmed the Woking based team has offered to help.

Germany’s Bild newspaper said Williams’ damage bill runs into the millions.

Team manager Dickie Stanford denied a rumour the fire was caused by a cigarette in the vicinity of Senna’s fuel tank while it was being emptied.

“We don’t know the cause, but we would never allow smoking in the pits,” he insisted.

Williams and F1′s governing FIA are investigating.

F1′s season of confusion looks set to continue, with an uncertain weather forecast only adding to the uncertainty ahead of the Spanish grand prix.

The bizarre 2012 contest stepped into yet another gear on Saturday, with events unfolding to put the previously-derided pay driver Pastor Maldonado on pole, alongside the crisis-ridden Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso.

And the Pirelli tyre predicament, worsened on the challenging Circuit de Catalunya layout and under hot Spanish skies, will continue to confound teams on Sunday, with temperatures set to drop and rain clouds predicted to gather.

“I am telling you now, honestly,” said Red Bull’s Mark Webber. “We don’t have even the slightest idea who will benefit when it gets colder.”

The German magazine Auto Motor und Sport laid out the fascinating if bewildering situation as of Saturday in Spain: “Sebastian Vettel doesn’t know why his car suddenly lost grip in qualifying.

“Jenson Button has no idea why he couldn’t generate any tyre temperature on the 40 degrees track. Williams don’t know why Pastor Maldonado clocked the second fastest lap.

“Mercedes’ engineers had to admit they still don’t understand the Pirelli rubber.”

Acting team principal Bob Bell smiled tortuously: “If we did understand, we’d be on pole. But even Pirelli don’t know all the answers.”

Writing in O Estado de S.Paulo newspaper, Livio Oricchio estimated there are up to 12 candidates for victory.

“A grid of madness!” said former F1 driver Patrick Tambay on France’s RMC Sport. “And it’s not over yet.”

So, is Michael Schumacher – having sat out Q3 in order to save tyres for the race – now even more critical of Pirelli?

“I’ll leave it with what has already been said,” he insisted late on Saturday.

The penalty might be harsh, but the loss of Lewis Hamilton’s pole in Spain is just the latest calamitous mistake by McLaren.

That was the tone of the paddock’s reaction to the news late on Saturday that a McLaren gaffe saw the FIA send Hamilton from first to last on the Spanish grand prix grid.

The Sun newspaper called it a draconian “24-place grid penalty” imposed by the FIA after an “astonishing cock-up” by McLaren.

Hamilton was told on the radio to pull over after his pole lap due to a “technical problem”.

Sporting director Sam Michael argued ‘force majeure’, but the stewards ruled that it had been entirely McLaren’s fault that not enough fuel was put into Hamilton’s car to ensure a scrutineering fuel sample.

Writing in the Telegraph, Tom Cary said the severity of the disqualification “raised eyebrows”, but agreed that “McLaren’s mistake was horrendous”.

He said it has been “a season of errors” by the famous British team, who are yet to get Hamilton’s signature on a new contract beyond 2012.

“Hamilton must be seething,” read an article in the Daily Mail newspaper, while The Times laid out McLaren’s “catalogue of errors”.

27-year-old Hamilton’s “raw talent is being thwarted by mishap and cock-up,” said journalist Kevin Eason.

“McLaren are lovely people but how the hell do they get themselves in this position?” wrote the Mirror’s Byron Young on Twitter.

Even the non-English language media agreed.

“It was another great mistake by McLaren that could eventually cost Hamilton the championship,” wrote Livio Oricchio in O Estado de S.Paulo.

Italy’s La Stampa called McLaren’s fuel gaffe a case of “harakiri”.

Germany’s Auto Motor und Sport added: “It was error number 13 for McLaren since last year”.

While highly critical of McLaren’s own-goal, however, the feeling in the paddock is that the stewards’ penalty – although accepted by McLaren – was overly harsh.

“Back of the grid? Way, way too harsh”, said the Mirror’s Young on Twitter.

“Draconian penalty in my view,” agreed PA Sport’s Ian Parkes. “Dropping Q3 time would have sufficed.”

Sky commentator Martin Brundle added: “(I) feel they should have deleted that (Q3) laptime only which would have put him sixth”.

And excluding Hamilton from Q3 altogether would have put him 11th. Now, he will be “lucky to score a point”, Auto Motor und Sport predicted.

In the Independent, however, David Tremayne noted: “Welcome to the draconian world of F1.”

David Croft, the lead Sky commentator, said the FIA stewards had acted correctly.

“A good rule should be one that covers all eventualities with a penalty that acts as a deterrent which in this case is what happened.

“Too little fuel can’t be tolerated,” he added. “It seems harsh but had Lewis taken pole by one thousandth of a second, would it be harsh then?”

The Spanish fans – not Hamilton’s biggest supporters dating back to his spats with Fernando Alonso in 2007 – were happy.

Asked on the El Mundo website whether the penalty was fair, 76 per cent answered yes.

Valencia will not be on next year’s F1 calendar, Bernie Ecclestone said on Saturday.

He confirmed that, starting in 2013, an annually alternating deal between the Spanish port city and Barcelona will begin.

Barcelona, the scene of this weekend’s Spanish grand prix, will host the race in 2013, before Valencia returns to the schedule in 2014, the F1 chief executive told Reuters.

Less secure, meanwhile, is France’s touted spot on the 2013 calendar, particularly with the country’s new anti-F1 president Francois Hollande now taking power.

Until recently, the F1 chief executive was saying Paul Ricard was set to join the 2013 calendar, annually alternating a race date with Belgium’s Spa Francorchamps.

As for the state of the deal now, the 81-year-old admitted: “I have no idea. No idea what they (France) are doing.

“It’s a funny arrangement they were making anyway. So I just don’t know.”

Ecclestone is also working on a new deal for the popular Canadian grand prix, having told promoter Francois Dumontier that the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve needs to be upgraded.

“There are two ways of looking at it,” Dumontier, in the paddock of the Circuit de Catalunya, is quoted by La Presse newspaper.

“Either Bernie requires an annual fee windfall, or he will charge a reasonable fee and ask in return for investment in the infrastructure.”

He said the contract on the table is for 10 more years, taking Montreal’s existing deal through 2024.

Ecclestone said on Saturday that he is sure an agreement will be reached, because Canada is one of F1′s most loved destinations.

“I remember saying to Bernie, ‘New York, Austin, I don’t know why you want to go there. Your sure bet is Montreal’. He knows that.

“He’s been in Montreal for 34 years. And in the 22 years of the grands prix in the United States, they’ve had eight different cities.

“He said ‘You’re right’,” added Dumontier.

Another rumour, repeated by The Times’ Kevin Eason on Saturday, is that the planned 2014 Russian grand prix in Sochi “is doomed”.