Ferrari boss Marco Mattiacci keen to increase numbers in young Driver Academy

Ferrari are planning to expand their Driver Academy as the team seek to increase the pool of talent they have to pick from in the future.

The Scuderia launched their own junior programme in late 2009 with the aim of developing young drivers with the ultimate goal of them driving for their race team.

However, no driver from the academy's roster has yet graduated to the senior Ferrari team, although Jules Bianchi, its founding member, was thought likely to eventually receive a call-up before the horrific accident in October's Japanese GP which has left him in a critically-injured condition in hospital.

As things stand the academy contains four other members who compete in the junior ranks – GP2’s Raffaele Marciello, F3’s Antonio Fuoco, Italian F4 Champion Lance Stroll and karter Guanyu Zhou – but Ferrari team boss Marco Mattiacci has indicated that they are ready to increase the programme’s numbers.

“We are trying to make some tuning, but I think the strategy is to bring on board more and more young drivers and be more proactive," Mattiacci said.

The F1 Show

“I hope to have around me more young people as possible to have a pool of talent which I can poach [from] for the future of Ferrari.”

Ferrari have traditionally hired experienced, race-winning drivers with a then 24-year-old Felipe Massa the only driver under the age of 27 to race for the Maranello team in the last two decades. Sergio Perez, an academy member between 2010 and 2012, had at one stage appeared set to buck that trend, but was deemed to be too inexperienced for a promotion and eventually joined McLaren.

The Scuderia currently field the oldest driver line-up in F1, 33-year-old Fernando Alonso and 35-year-old Kimi Raikkonen, although the expected arrival of 27-year-old Sebastian Vettel for 2015 in the Spaniard's place will reduce that average age.

Rivals Red Bull operate F1’s most successful young driver programme with the scheme’s alumni including four-times World Champion Vettel, three-times race winner Daniel Ricciardo, Toro Rosso's Daniil Kvyat and teenager Max Verstappen, who will become F1’s youngest ever race driver in 2015.