Williams should be bold: Let Massa retire

This story was supposed to be over. Felipe Massa said his tearful farewell to Formula 1 last November, draped in the flag of his native Brazil and waving an emotional goodbye to the sport that made him a much-loved star.

Then world champion Nico Rosberg made his shock decision to retire with immediate effect, Mercedes identified Massa's Williams team-mate Valtteri Bottas as the man it wants to replace him, Williams said he could only leave if it could secure an 'experienced, credible alternative' to step into the breech, and now it looks as though Massa will begin to challenge Nigel Mansell as F1's leading proponent of faux retirement.

Successful comebacks are rare in F1. Niki Lauda is the undoubted master, coming back from the dead to fight James Hunt for the 1976 world championship after his horrendous Nurburgring accident, and then returning from a two-year hiatus following an uncompetitive stint with Brabham to win races and the '84 title for McLaren.

Mansell had two famous stabs of course - both successful to begin with. His first retirement was hardly worthy of the name, lasting only a matter of months before Frank Williams found him a competitive balm with which to sooth the mental wounds created by the frustration of feeling second rate to Alain Prost at Ferrari in 1990. Mansell fought Ayrton Senna for the world championship in 1991, and dominated en route to his only title the following year.

His second comeback from retirement was ultimately an embarrassing failure. Coaxed back into F1 as the reigning Indycar champion to be a part-time replacement for Senna, following the Brazilian's death at Imola in 1994, Mansell was on pole for the season finale in Adelaide, and won that race after Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill collided.

He made a full-time comeback in 1995 with McLaren, after Williams opted to pair Hill with young Scot David Coulthard instead of Mansell, but his frame wouldn't fit in the original MP4/10, so he was replaced by Mark Blundell until the updated B-car arrived for round three at Imola. Mansell only made two starts before his F1 career finally bit the dust for good.

Prost took an enforced sabbatical after losing his Ferrari drive at the end of 1991, before returning to win the world championship with Williams one last time in '93 then calling it quits.

Kimi Raikkonen won two races for Lotus and has subsequently enjoyed gainful employment with Ferrari after losing his original drive with the Scuderia to Fernando Alonso for 2010. The Finn has arguably not been at his very best since returning, but nevertheless still competitive enough to remain at Maranello, despite missing two seasons of F1.

Massa owes the most fruitful portion of his own F1 career to Schumacher's first retirement at the end of 2006. That move allowed the Brazilian to extend his Ferrari career, going on to win nine races over the next two seasons and challenge Lewis Hamilton for the 2008 world championship.

Schumacher stayed away for three years, before making a comeback with Mercedes in 2010. His performances were respectable enough, including a podium finish in '12, but the great champion was firmly shaded by team-mate Rosberg and retired for good after Mercedes signed Hamilton for '13. Given Schumacher's previous legendary achievements, this comeback can hardly be considered an unqualified success.

Timing, and the nature of a driver's departure, appear to be key. Lauda quit because Brabham was not competitive, not because he was too old to race on, or because he'd lost his edge. Mansell - first time around at least - was still at the peak of his powers, but 1995 was arguably a stretch too far for a driver who'd missed the best part of two seasons (and major rule changes), despite that Adelaide victory.

Raikkonen didn't want to stop; he was forced out. Schumacher chose to stop while he was still competitive, but arguably sat on the sidelines a little too long before making his comeback. He was 41 at the start of the 2010 season and not quite the same driver that dominated F1 for so long first time around.

Massa clearly doesn't need to worry about getting left behind by the passing of time. After all, he finished the final race of 2016 in the points, bowing out with a performance that made former Williams technical chief Pat Symonds question why the Brazilian was retiring from F1 in the first place. If Massa lines up on the 2017 grid for Williams, in place of Bottas, it will ostensibly look as though he never left.

There is understandable logic to Williams identifying Massa as the man it wants to replace Bottas. Before he left the team at the end of last month, Symonds spoke repeatedly about the importance of continuity in driver line-ups - especially heading into the significant regulatory upheaval of this season.

Symonds was actually referring to the importance of retaining Bottas, something he described in the run up to Christmas as "crucial" to Williams's chances of future success. Williams needs a fast and reliable reference point in order to best understand the strengths and weaknesses of its new car, and to help bring rookie signing Lance Stroll up to speed.

But that logic could equally apply to Massa. At this late stage he is the only credible driver of experience not already contracted to a rival team. He is a veteran of 250 grands prix, winner of 11, and was briefly set to become world champion in 2008, before Hamilton squeaked ahead of Timo Glock's Toyota on the run to the Interlagos finishing line to steal the crown away.

Given the dearth of alternatives, Massa is the logical and safe choice for Williams - experienced, known and liked by the team, and capable (on his good days) of putting Bottas under serious pressure.

But those good days grew further apart in frequency during last season, which makes Massa simultaneously a risky option too. This is a driver who was comprehensively beaten by his team-mate in 2016; a driver that Williams ranked behind Bottas, Stroll, and McLaren's own semi-retired Jenson Button on its original '17 wishlist; a driver who had no other serious options to remain in F1 once Williams decided to let him go.

Massa could come back better and more motivated than ever, given he hasn't actually missed any races and arguably didn't really want to retire in the first instance. Or he could struggle to gather the necessary strength of conviction to do it all over again, given he had clearly decided to leave F1 for good, embarked on a farewell tour and said his goodbyes. A lot will depend on his state of mind.

He always said he wanted to continue racing this year, whether in F1 or not, so one assumes he will be motivated, but he was an inconsistent performer for much of last season, so will need to do more than simply make a comeback to fill Bottas's boots. Massa will need to be better. That's no easy task for any driver, let alone one whose best days in F1 looked to be behind him.

Williams could end up with the Massa that drove his heart out in Abu Dhabi and so impressed Symonds, or it could get stuck with the Massa that retired his car to the garage with an untraceable handling problem in Germany, after a woefully uncompetitive showing. Therein lies the risk with this seemingly 'safe' option.

Of course Williams could have just left Massa to his retirement. Originally, Mercedes offered junior driver Pascal Wehrlein, plus a reduction in the cost of its 2017 customer engine supply to Williams, in exchange for Bottas. But Williams rejected that offer on the grounds that it absolutely needed an experienced driver.

This is a time-old folly of Formula 1 teams. For organisations that are designed to innovate technically, they often seem distinctly analogue when it comes to drivers. Wehrlein was F1's outstanding rookie in 2016, a driver that lapped within 0.15 seconds of Massa in Q1 at the Austrian Grand Prix (where Wehrlein also scored Manor's only championship point), despite driving a substantially inferior chassis, and someone who Mercedes rates among the best young drivers on the planet.

Why pass up that sort of ability? If Mercedes fails in its quest to sign Bottas, you can bet Wehrlein is the man it would want in the car instead.

Wehrlein could very well be faster than Massa, Wehrlein's capacity to improve will be greater, his desire to do so should be greater too, and surely the knowledge of a top car he's gained already by working closely with Mercedes as its test driver is just as valuable (if not more so) as Massa's vaster experience to an ambitious squad like Williams, which still has serious ground to cover in its mission to return to the front in F1?

There are suggestions that principal sponsor Martini was concerned by the prospect of Williams running two drivers under 23 years of age, and questions remain about Wehrlein's attitude, which played a part in Force India's decision to pick Esteban Ocon over him as Nico Hulkenberg's replacement.

While certainly not the finished article, Wehrlein still looks a fine prospect, and will still land on his feet, most likely at Sauber, but this feels like a missed opportunity for Williams as much as for Wehrlein.

Often it seems F1 teams are predisposed to overlook the greater promise of young drivers in favour of the devil they already know, even if that devil's best days are already behind them.

This sort of thinking has kept Raikkonen at Ferrari, despite long fallow periods of underachievement. Perhaps this situation would be different had Jules Bianchi not died following his 2014 Japanese GP accident; perhaps it has also made Ferrari realise the need to invest more in young drivers. GP3 champion Charles Leclerc looks a very promising prospect within its driver academy, and it has also signed Antonio Giovinazzi (GP2's outstanding rookie and runner-up in 2016) to be its third driver this year.

Williams itself recently enjoyed the fruits of backing Bottas on the strength of his practice outings for the team in 2012, and the recent success Red Bull has enjoyed with Sebastian Vettel, Daniel Ricciardo, and Max Verstappen suggests the ability and promise of the driver counts for more than previous levels of experience.

Of course it's possible to get better with age, but sometimes it pays more to give youth a chance. Williams should be bold and leave Massa to his retirement.