Luca Badoer will return to Formula One this coming weekend after Ferrari unsuccessfully tried to replace the injured Felipe Massa with the injured Michael Schumacher. Badoer will compete in a Grand Prix for the first time in almost ten years and will be making his first race appearance with Ferrari as their reserve driver.

Marc Gene was largely expected to be given the substitute role at Ferrari. Of the team’s two test drivers Gene has the most recent F1 experience and won the Le Mans 24 Hour race in June. However, that does not mean Luca Badoer is not deserving of his promotion. The 38 year old Italian has driven more kilometres in a Ferrari F1 car than anyone else in the world and has very close links with the race team. He is present in the garage during most Grand Prix weekends.

Badoer has not yet driven the 2009 Ferrari F60, and although he will get behind the wheel of one this week as part of a film shoot, he will be up against it when he arrives at the unfamiliar Valencia circuit on Friday.

It will be interesting to see how long Badoer remains in the available race seat. A Ferrari press release noted that Luca is currently preparing for the European and Belgian Grands Prix but made no mention of the team’s plans beyond that.

There is a possibility that Ferrari will place someone totally new in the car for Monza and that Badoer will return to his testing duties.

The team has plenty of motivation to try something different.

Ferrari is going through a very rough patch at the moment and has reached the podium only three times in the last ten races. Maranello won last year’s constructors title with eight wins but is now trying to salvage whatever respectability it can from the remainder of the season.

The vacancy in the race team resulting from Felipe Massa’s injury has given Ferrari a unique opportunity to inject some life into their 2009 campaign.

Ferrari’s plans to slot Michael Schumacher into the car were as much about show as they were about substance. It gave the company a huge amount of positive media coverage around the world and was exactly what the team needed to deflect attention away from their poor results. Now that Michael has confirmed he will not be coming back, Ferrari may still want to spice up their season with another big name signing.

The options for Ferrari are limited but nothing is impossible.

The Scuderia’s home race in Monza is four weeks away so there is enough time to come up with something special for the Tifosi and the Italian media.

Ferrari would gain a lot of publicity by introducing a total rookie into the sport since there is always a lot of excitement around an F1 debutant.

Mirko Bortolotti tested for the team last November as part of his prize for winning the 2008 Italian Formula Three Championship. Amazingly, the teenager set the fastest time of the whole year at Fiorano and claims that he made a mistake on his quickest lap that cost him a few extra tenths. He’s certainly not short on confidence!

A Ferrari debut for the young Italian would be very exciting, especially at Monza, and it might be the morale boost that Luca Di Montezemolo is looking for.

There are other sensible rookie options available to Ferrari, and one of them happens to have a very recognisable F1 name.

Bruno Senna is going to cause a hurricane of media attention when he eventually lines up for a Formula One Grand Prix (even if that’s the only reason he gets a drive in the first place). Ferrari might want to tap into that before anyone else gets the chance and the association between the Senna name, and the most successful team in F1 history, would be highly emotive for many of the sport’s fans.

Bruno is good enough to race in F1 and although he might not be good enough to carve out a long and successful career, he isn’t a talentless hack. Ferrari might be wise to have connections with him from the start of his career anyway should he develop into a superstar.

Regardless of that, having the name ‘Senna’ on the side of a Ferrari at Monza would be a special moment for the sport.

If Ferrari’s management don’t believe that a rookie driver is a viable short term option for the team in 2009 they can just as easily look to the current field of F1 talent instead.

They are already rumoured have their eye on someone in particular.

Fernando Alonso has long been linked with a potential move to Ferrari and there is now an outside chance that he could be lured into the F60 before Felipe Massa is back to full fitness.

Alonso has reportedly signed a deal to become a Ferrari driver in 2010 at the expense of Kimi Raikkonen. He might be allowed to make the switch a bit early if the mess surrounding Renault’s initial exclusion from the European Grand Prix invokes some sort of get-out clause in his contract.

A midseason transfer to Ferrari for Alonso would give the Scuderia a massive surge of fresh motivation, and would also give Raikkonen the wakeup call many think he needs. Although such a driver change partway through a championship would be unprecedented there are still four weeks of dealing to be done before Monza.

It will be interesting to see if Ferrari makes the most of it.

It would be great to see a youngster like Mirko Bortolotti or Bruno Senna in the team, and it would be sensational if Fernando Alonso got the drive as well, but despite the potential excitement Luca Badoer seems fairly certain to remain in the car until Massa returns.

That is unless Ferrari looks into one other option. An option that would rock the sport to its core.

Say hello to Valentino Rossi.

The Italian motorcycling legend is almost certainly never going to compete in a Formula One Grand Prix, and is even less likely to do so at Monza this September. He wouldn’t be able to get an FIA Superlicence, there would be contractual issues, and a monumental amount of money would need to change hands to make just one appearance possible.

He would also struggle to keep up with the backmarkers if he made his debut in four weeks time. The superfast Monza circuit is all about heavy braking and riding the kerbs which are two aspects of driving an F1 car that take a lot of getting used to. With even less experience than Jamie Alguersuari, Rossi might be considered a danger to others.

However, nothing is impossible in the world of Luca Di Montezemolo, especially when you consider that FIAT sponsors Rossi’s Yamaha team.

Valentino Rossi has driven a Ferrari F1 car on a number of occasions before and has proven to be a quick learner. He has also proven to be quick in general. He could feasibly race at Monza as there is no clash with his MotoGP schedule, and he will probably be in the country anyway because the San Marino Motorcycle Grand Prix at Misano is being held just a week earlier.

Valentino can also afford to have some fun this year now that he has amassed a 50 point lead in the championship standings. Only his teammate, Jorge Lorenzo, can beat him from here and Rossi seemingly has his closest rival under control.

Rossi is a real showman and would love to say that he won the MotoGP title in the same year that he drove in Formula One. It would certainly make his ninth World Championship a lot more valuable than a routine victory.

The willingness could be there on Ferrari’s part, and it might very well be there on Valentino’s.

It could be the makings of something very special.

Valentino Rossi will almost certainly not drive a Ferrari at Monza, or any F1 car at any Grand Prix in the future, but Luca Di Montezemolo knows that he has a great chance to do something special with Ferrari this year and he won’t want to let that opportunity slip by. He did very well by initially securing the return of Michael Schumacher, but will now need to think even bigger if he wants to equal that level of excitement for his team.

Anything is possible in Formula One.

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