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Schumacher wanted to drive for us - di Montezemolo

Luca di Montezemolo thinks Michael Schumacher would have stayed at Ferrari if he could © Sutton Images

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Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo believes Michael Schumacher would have signed for his team and not Mercedes if the regulations allowed Ferrari to run a third car.

The team asked Schumacher to replace the injured Felipe Massa last year, but the seven-time champion had to decline the offer due to a neck injury. Di Montezemolo claims it was this that sparked Schumacher's interest in an F1 comeback and that he would have chosen Ferrari over Mercedes if it had been possible. Labelling Schumacher's switch as a "misdeed", di Montezemolo added that he was not concerned about Schumacher taking any technical information from Ferrari to his new team.

"I like Schumacher and I'm this misdeed's author," said di Montezemolo. "It was me who woke his desire to come back to racing and honestly I never thought I'd see him in a car that wasn't a Ferrari. A third car could have been useful for Schumacher. I believe had the third car been there, with all respect to Mercedes, Schumacher would have been promoting Ferraris, not Mercedes. He's a competitor now, an opponent, like many others. I'm not worried about the possibility that he might have taken material from our development."

Di Montezemolo has been a proponent of three-car teams for some time, but he said he would also be willing to supply smaller teams with a chassis for the benefit of F1. His comments were made as speculation continues to grow over how prepared some of the new teams are ahead of the season opener on March 14. This week, F1 CEO Bernie Ecclestone continued to question whether Campos and US F1 will make the first race, with the former admitting it is still looking for investors. Di Montezemolo said that the use of customer cars would be cheaper for smaller teams and offer benefits for F1 as a whole.

"I want to be a little more general: I spoke about the possibility of a third car, but I didn't say that Ferrari needs to have three cars," he said. "Here's the idea: I would happily give a Ferrari to an American, German or Australian team and let the car be managed by them. They would definitely spend less than if they had to build a car on their own from scratch. They could hand it over to a talented and strong driver or try it with a young driver with a certain potential. I told [Ferrari team principal Stefano] Domenicali to work on the possibility that some teams, like ours, could hand over cars to other teams."

The customer car debate is not new to F1 and sharing cars is banned under FIA regulations. That means all 13 teams in 2010 will be running a car entirely of its own construction, including Toro Rosso, for the first time in its four year history. David Richard's Prodrive outfit applied to race in Formula One in 2008 with McLaren customer cars but decided against it when it faced opposition from other teams.

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