'Toxic' relationship at Ferrari could lead to early exit for Vettel

The increasingly difficult relationship between Ferrari and Sebastian Vettel has led to doubts about whether the four-time world champion will see out the season with the Scuderia.

Vettel's recent spectacular underperformance relative to teammate Charles Leclerc has visibly miffed the German driver who also openly criticized his team's strategy call in last weekend's 70th Anniversary Grand Prix.

After Ferrari brought in Vettel and then released him in traffic, he radioed in to say: "It is in the gap that we didn’t like. We spoke about it this morning. I’ll hang in there, but we know that you’ve messed up".

Ferrari team boss Mattia Binotto responded to the gibe by saying that Vettel's race at Silverstone had especially been impacted by his first lap mistake.

• Ferrari not against replacing Vettel's SF1000 chassis

Vettel has steered clear from accusing his team of favoring his teammate but the 33-year-old's body language - coupled team and driver's comments - appears to indicate that the relationship between the House of Maranello and its driver has run its course.

Speaking on Austrian TV this week, former Ferrari driver Gerhard Berger believes the two parties should split, here and now.

"For the atmosphere in the teams, it would be best to switch to the 2021 line-ups now," said Berger.

However, replacing Vettel in-season could prove complicated - and costly - for Ferrari. The Italian outfit would need to honour the financial terms of Vettel's final months of contract, but replacing the F1 veteran be equally troublesome given the lack of available and qualified candidates, although one Nicoi Hulkenberg comes to mind.

BBC Five Live consultant Jolyon Palmer also has his doubts as to whether Vettel and Ferrari can continue working together in the short term.

"I don’t know if he can [see out the season with Ferrari]," the ex-F1 driver commented in BBC Five Live’s Chequered Flag podcast.

"It’s just getting more and more toxic by the day, not even by the race. He’s basically performing really badly compared to Leclerc, who is the golden boy at Ferrari.

"Leclerc is in his second year with the team and outshone Vettel in his first year. He got a big lucrative contract with them and is seen as their man going forward.

"Vettel, meanwhile, is leaving the team and he is really struggling to even get points right now. Four races he has barely been in the points and it was only Hungary where he showed any chance of getting sensible points – even then he ran off the road twice.

"Vettel believes there is something wrong with his car and that was evident in the very cagey post-race interviews and it’s just getting nasty between him and Ferrari."

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