F1 refugee claims Massa will not be permitted to fight for this year's world drivers' laurels, even if he continues to out-perform team-mate Raikkonen.

Ralf Schumacher has suggested that Ferrari has already elected to pin all its efforts on Kimi Raikkonen for this year's Formula 1 World Championship - despite the reigning title-winner being largely out-qualified by team-mate Felipe Massa in 2008 to-date, and out-raced three times to two.

Massa's spin in the Malaysian Grand Prix means he now sits seven points behind Raikkonen in the drivers' standings, but if anything he has been the more impressive of the Scuderia's performers so far this season. That, though, Schumacher warns, is likely to count for a little at a team that, he argues, has always had a very clear number one and number two.

"Ferrari usually has a set number one and I think that is the case now," the former Jordan, Williams and Toyota ace - and now DTM star - said in his regular post-race analysis for German newspaper Bild.

Maranello has always outwardly professed to sticking to an equal opportunities policy for its two drivers until later on in the campaign, when if one of them is in the mix for championship glory they will naturally be favoured. During the eleven years that Schumacher's older brother Michael raced for Ferrari, though, his team-mates Eddie Irvine, Rubens Barrichello and latterly Felipe Massa were always required to play second fiddle, on a number of occasions - most notably the infamous 2002 Austrian Grand Prix - to all-too obvious effect.

McLaren-Mercedes' Heikki Kovalainen, however, is adamant that it would be wrong to write off Massa's chances of title glory.

"I think it would be stupid to overlook Felipe," the Finn told the Daily Telegraph. "He looks very strong."