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.”

Michael Schumacher has been pipped at the post in the race to be the world’s richest sportsman.

According to the Sunday Times’ annual listings, the seven time world champion’s (US) $823 million in career earnings is beaten only by golf legend Tiger Woods.

American Woods has earned $869 million in his own ultra-successful career, the newspaper found.

And the Sunday Times said the pair have each earned hundreds of millions of dollars more than other high-earning sportsmen, including Michael Jordan ($516m), Roger Federer ($316m) and David Beckham ($258m).

F1′s two other representatives, Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen, were way down the top-twenty list, with their respective earnings at about $161 million apiece.

McLaren’s world champions Lewis Hamilton ($89m) and Jenson Button ($85m), meanwhile, appear only on the list for British sportsmen, and they are both outpaced by the $129m earned by former Ferrari driver Eddie Irvine mainly through property investment.

However, Hamilton and Button have each earned more in their careers than David Coulthard, Nigel Mansell, former BAR boss David Richards (all $80m) and Sir Jackie Stewart ($67m).

Those earnings, however, are all dwarfed by Bernie Ecclestone’s estimated $4 billion, although the 81-year-old F1 chief executive does not appear at all on the list of the world’s richest overall.

That list is headed by mega-earners like Sauber sponsor Carlos Slim, who according to the Sunday Times is worth $71 billion.

F1′s class of 2012 will take some more shape at the F1 Commission meeting this week in Geneva.
It was already known that Team Lotus, set to be Caterham next season, and Enstone based Renault – to be renamed Lotus – will likely have their applications rubber-stamped on Thursday.

The Sunday Times also reports that Virgin could be set for an official name change.

The team is currently known as Marussia Virgin Racing, in deference to its Russian supercar partner, but the chassis continues to be called simply ‘Virgin’.

“The team are to ask the F1 Commission for permission to erase the Virgin title and replace it with Marussia”, said the British report.

Another touted change was the rebranding of Red Bull’s Renault engine deal to reflect its partnership with the luxury Nissan marque Infiniti.

Renault president Carlos Ghosn ruled that out.

“I don’t think you can have a name artificially,” he is quoted by the SID news agency. “If Renault supplies the technology you can’t say that for marketing reasons we call it Infiniti.”

He also ruled out the possibility Renault will return to the grid as a works chassis manufacturer any time soon.

“We adapt according to the circumstances but we will not change our programme in the next three to five years,” Ghosn is quoted by France’s autohebdo.fr.

“I am more comfortable with our current strategy, where next year we are the partner of four teams,” he added.

The BBC’s F1 anchor Jake Humphrey has dismissed reports the British broadcaster is looking to drop its coverage of the sport beyond 2013.

The Sunday Times, citing “senior sources”, is reporting that BBC chiefs are aiming to use the money saved by axing its expensive formula one coverage to avoid shutting down a digital channel.

“I have no inside information on its (the coverage’s) future,” host Humphrey wrote on Twitter.

“But I know little else gets the audience share and the millions that we do. BBC F1 is a huge success.”

He added that there were “many inaccuracies” in the Sunday Times article.

Eddie Irvine has outpaced F1′s current British stars on the Sunday Times’ sporting rich list for 2011.
The former Ferrari and Jaguar driver and 1999 championship runner-up has made a US $128 million fortune in property development since retiring from formula one in 2002.

1979 world champion Jody Scheckter, now a successful organic farmer, has $96 million, with Prodrive boss David Richards and David Coulthard coming next.

2008 title winner Lewis Hamilton’s $80m fortune matches Scottish veteran Coulthard’s, which is more than McLaren’s other driver Jenson Button at $77m.

1992 world champion Nigel Mansell’s fortune is the same as Button’s, according to the list.

Bernie Ecclestone is reportedly no longer denying he paid millions to jailed German banker Gerhard Gribkowsky.

The German weekly newsmagazine Focus claims the F1 chief executive, accused by Munich prosecutors of aiding and abetting a breach of trust, has alleged Gribkowsky blackmailed him to the tune of $40 million as he oversaw the sale of the sport to current owner CVC.

The report said Ecclestone made the accusation of extortion, which if proved could result in the return of the payment to the 80-year-old, in the form of official testimony.

It is believed Gribkowsky threatened Ecclestone with the divulgence of sensitive information regarding the structure of his businesses.

Austria’s Salzburger Nachrichten said Ecclestone may be electing to cooperate with authorities now in the hope of receiving a lighter penalty in the event any wrongdoing is found.

Fascinatingly, the development coincides with reports that Rupert Murdoch and Carlos Slim are moving to buy F1, and a rare admission by Ecclestone that he might retire if he thinks he cannot work with them.

“I’m old enough to get a pension, so I don’t have to get a job,” he told the Sunday Times.

Italian police have handed back Flavio Briatore’s luxury yacht.

The former Renault boss’ 60-metre boat ‘Force Blue’ was seized a month ago on suspicion of tax fraud.

But according to a report in the Spanish newspaper Diario Sport, Briatore has taken back possession with two conditions.

The first is a deposit of 5 million euros, and the promise that the boat will not leave Mediterranean waters.

The Sunday Times said in May that the evasion of millions in taxes could cost Briatore, expelled from F1 for the 2009 crashgate scandal, EUR 40 million in fines or a six-year prison sentence.

The 60-year-old denies any wrongdoing.

“It was a big television production by the police and completely unfair, so we are fighting them now,” he told the Telegraph.

“That boat was a commercial boat with a 50 million euro turnover in the past four years, but the police seem to think that was all for me.”

Briatore does not deny using the boat, and claims he is supported by seven Italian MPs who have written to the government “to find out what happened”.

“Of course, I use the yacht, because if you are going to own a business, it may as well be one you can enjoy — otherwise, I would have bought a funeral home.”
(GMM)