Spa-Francorchamps, Belgium: World championship leader Sebastian Vettel will stay with Ferrari until 2020 after agreeing to a three-year contract extension, the Italian team announced on Saturday.
In a statement that ended weeks of speculation over the future of the four-time champion German, Ferrari said it had “extended its technical and racing agreement with driver Sebastian Vettel for the 2018, 2019 and 2020 racing seasons.”
It had been widely rumoured that the 30-year-old German was flirting with the possibility of joining Mercedes, a prospect dismissed on Friday by his title rival Lewis Hamilton.
The announcement came as little surprise to paddock observers, even if the timing was unexpected. Ferrari usually make their driver announcements at their home Italian Grand Prix at Monza, scheduled for next weekend.
The three-year extension ties in with Ferrari’s own contract with Formula One that runs until 2020 when the team will seek to negotiate new terms for its participation with the sport’s new US owners Liberty Media.
Vettel’s original contract with Ferrari was scheduled to run to the end of this season, a situation that allowed him to use possible talks with other teams as leverage in his negotiations to stay.
Mercedes non-executive chairman Niki Lauda revealed on Saturday that discussions had taken place with Vettel, but they did not go far.
“We discussed it briefly once with him, but the more competitive Ferrari goes, the less the reason he would want to leave,” Lauda told Sky Sports F1. “So therefore we stopped right away a couple of months ago.”
