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$80M Ferrari deal would make Vettel world's highest-paid sportsman

Formula One is in for a big shakeup next season, as the only two multiple World Champions on the grid are kicking off a game of musical chairs. Just who will end up where has yet to be figured out, but the overwhelmingly prevailing wisdom has Sebastian Vettel, who has already announced his departure from Red Bull, inking a contract with Ferrari worth 150 million pounds sterling for three years - that works out to over $80 million per year.
If the reports are true, that would make Vettel (pictured above with his assumed new teammate Kimi Raikkonen) the highest-salaried sportsman in the world. Compared to Vettel's rumored $80 million/year, soccer player Cristiano Ronaldo was paid $52 million last year and NFL quarterback Matt Ryan got $42 million, just ahead of soccer player Lionel Messi at $41.7 million. Boxer Floyd Mayweather was reportedly paid a whopping $100 million last year, but that's based on how many fights he fights and wins, putting him on a different earnings spectrum.
Those figures are also just for salaries, and do not include sponsorship and endorsement deals - and therein may lie part of the reason for Vettel's reportedly stratospheric salary. In addition to his salary from the Red Bull team with which he's won four World Championships, Vettel also pulls in a large retainer from Infiniti, which sponsors both the team and himself personally. In departing Red Bull, he'd undoubtedly have to sever the tie with Infiniti as well.

Montezemolo steps down, Marchionne steps up as chairman of Ferrari

If the history of an automaker is divided up by the mandate of its leadership, then this is surely the end of an era for Ferrari. After repeatedly locking horns with Fiat Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne over a variety of issues, longtime Ferrari chairman Luca di Montezemolo has announced his resignation.
Montezemolo has a long history with both Fiat and Ferrari. He started his career at the former before moving over to the latter in 1973 (only a few years Fiat took over half of Ferrari), starting out as Enzo Ferrari's assistant. He was appointed head of the Scuderia the following year, driving the team to success and subsequently taking over all of the Fiat group's racing activities. After the Prancing Horse marque struggled in the wake of its founder's death in 1988, Montezemolo was appointed to take it over in '91 and has been at the helm ever since.
Following Fiat chairman Gianni Agnelli's passing in 2003, both Montezemolo and Marchionne were named to the Fiat board. A year later, after the passing of Gianni's younger brother Umberto, Montezemolo was named chairman of the Fiat Group (to be succeeded six years later by Agnelli heir John Elkann) and Marchionne its chief executive.

Ferrari believes F1 title is still possible

Ferrari believes the changing shape of the Formula 1 championship battle, with points leader Nico Rosberg hitting a difficult patch, means its own title hopes are far from over. Despite more frustrations at the Monaco Grand Prix, where a poor qualifying showing left its drivers unable to fight for the win, both Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen remain within striking distance of the leading Mercedes driver. Raikkonen is 45 points behind Rosberg - and only five behind Daniel Ricciardo - while Vettel is just one point further back. With the title momentum appearing to have shifted in recent weeks as Rosberg's winning streak has come to an end, team boss Maurizio Arrivabene believes the story of the championship this year has yet to be settled, as he predicted some 'interesting' times ahead. When asked if he feared the title was slipping away, he said: "No way. You saw Ricciardo here was quite good, and Hamilton is coming back. "So what we have to do is to keep our concentration, to keep focus, concentrate and look forward. This championship is going to be quite interesting I think." Qualifying frustration Arrivabene thinks that key to Ferrari's campaign going forward is in getting to the bottom of what is going wrong with qualifying, as again the team was slower in Q3 than in Q1. "I don't want to find any excuses, but we were not good enough in Barcelona in Q3 and it has happened also here - and we paid the price during the race," added Arrivabene. "It was a heavy price to pay, but I take the lesson that we need to really understand where the problem is. "If you compare Q1, it was more or less similar. Here in Q1 we were 1m14.1s and were slower in Q3. So there is the problem that we have to look for."Related Video: This article by Jonathan Noble originally appeared on Motorsport.com. Image Credit: Motorsport.com Motorsports Ferrari F1 motorsport.com