Montezemolo: I'm sad to see Marchionne is very jealous

On 10 September 2014, Montezemolo resigned as president and chairman of Ferrari following headline-grabbing tension between him and Marchionne at Maranello, home of Formula 1's legendary and most successful team.

On the occasion of the launch of a new exhibition in Cologne highlighting Michael Schumacher's career, Di Montezemolo told reporters, "I'm sad to see that Marchionne is very jealous about the past. This is bad because to be jealous of the past it means you have something strange in the mind. I'm very proud of what we achieved, Michael, Ross [Brawn], [Jean] Todt, so happy with what we did.

"Of course Ferrari is always present and I hope now we have the conditions to win again because Ferrari needs to win and for Formula 1 Ferrari is very important. I'm still in contact with a few people there, but after 24 years, I was so lucky to win with Niki [Lauda], with Michael, with Kimi, 19 championship titles, it's enough."

Of Schumacher, Di Montezemolo said, "I think of Michael very often, I think of him every race weekend still. He was a good supporter of Vettel, and when I hired Sebastian – because I was the guy who just a few weeks before leaving the team signed the deal with Vettel – Michael was for sure pleased."

"He told me a few years before that Vettel, in his opinion, was a good driver for Ferrari. Michael won many world championships with us, Seb unfortunately not yet. I hope that he too will soon start a new era by winning many championships like Michael."

"To achieve the same results as Michael will not be so easy, but he's young and strong, a good driver and this year finally he has a very competitive car."

Heading to the French Grand Prix, Round 8 of the world championship, Vettel leads the championship by one point over Lewis Hamilton.

"I hope Seb will not have too much pressure on him. He's strong and the car is good. Until now Mercedes, don't seem to be very competitive. There are a lot of opportunities and maybe this could be a good year," added Di Montezemolo.