Story highlights
Ferrari will prioritize 2014 campaign for the rest of this season
Ferrari's Fernando Alonso trails Sebastian Vettel by 60 points in the drivers' standings
Vettel's win at the Singapore Grand Prix was his seventh of 2013
The Red Bull driver is bidding for a fourth consecutive world championship
Sebastian Vettel has already won the 2013 Formula One world championship – at least that’s the view of his Ferrari rivals, despite there being six races left this season.
Red Bull driver Vettel took the checkered flag at Sunday’s Singapore Grand Prix to win his seventh race of the year and extend his lead over Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso in the drivers’ standings to 60 points.
Despite an encouraging race which saw Alonso finish in second place after starting seventh on the grid, team principal Stefano Domenicali declared that Ferrari will be prioritizing 2014 between now and the end of the current season.
Read: Vettel wins Singapore Grand Prix
“Now it’s clear that 99% of our energies will be concentrated on the 2014 project,” Domenicali told Ferrari’s official website.
“Ahead of the summer break we were striving hard for a performance gain in Singapore, on a track with characteristics that are particularly unsuitable for our car.
“Instead we lost even more ground, despite the fact that the F138 has improved in certain ways, otherwise Fernando would never have managed to do what he did in the second part of the race in terms of tire management.
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“We still have some new parts for the car that we will bring to the coming races but, above all, we will now try to make the most out of what we already have.”
Two-time world champion Alonso last week pledged his loyalty to Ferrari amid reported interest from former team McLaren, and on Saturday said he wants to extend his contract.
Next season Alonso will be partnered by Kimi Raikkonen, the current Lotus driver who was the last man to win the drivers’ championship for Ferrari in 2007.
Read: Raikkonen switch to wake up Alonso?
Alonso hopes a raft of new technical regulations which will be introduced to the sport next season will benefit Ferrari.
“We started (the season) in a good way,” the 32-year-old, who is without a grand prix win since May, told the BBC.
“We were competitive in Australia, maybe not in qualifying but in the race we were taking care of the tires very, very well, together with Lotus.
“We won in China, we won in Spain and then we seemed to lose a little bit of performance, especially when the 2012 tires came back.
“For next year, we start from zero. Really we will put all our effort and hopes into 2014, because starting from zero is our best opportunity to close the gap with all the top teams.”