Additionally, the Valencia group test so far has been a Red Bull-Ferrari affair all the way, with reigning world champion Sebastian Vettel exchanging positions on top of the timing reports with 2-time world champion Fernando Alonso.
On Wednesday however, the battle between the two teams reached a more... sponsorship-like level. And that's because Italian shoe brand Geox announced a new partnership with the Austrian team. Under normal circumstances, there would be nothing that could spark a new dispute between Ferrari and Red Bull there. Geox's announcement however, caught the attention of Ferrari's press department.
“We decided to go with a young team that wins," Geox's Mario Moretti Polegato told Italian newspaper La Stampa.
Needless to say, Ferrari needed to react, and how else could they do that (unofficially, that is) if not through its stinging “Horse Whisperer” column, posted on their official website from time to time? According to the aforementioned column, it seems that Geox had made several attempts to reach a sponsorship deal with Ferrari through 2010, “backed up with significant amounts of cash made on numerous occasions by the very same Moretti Polegato.”
“Ferrari deemed the (Geox) proposal to be incompatible with a brand of this level: could this be why Moretti Polegato has fallen back on the energy drink manufacturer's company?” added the columnist.
According to the same source, Ferrari turned out the deal because of its existent collaboration with Puma.
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