Sep.26 (GMM) Even if the Maranello based team is beaten to the chequered flag this year, "a little bit of Ferrari" is guaranteed the 2007 drivers' world championship.



That was the droll assessment on Tuesday of Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo, who referred to the World Motor Sport Council's decision recently to allow McLaren to stay in the championship despite being found effectively guilty of espionage.



"Whoever wins the drivers' title will do so either with a little bit of Ferrari or with a proper Ferrari," the Italian cynically told La Gazzetta dello Sport.



Ferrari driver Felipe Massa, meanwhile, insists the team is still a worthy winner of this year's constructors' championship, despite former runaway leader McLaren's exclusion.



"If we have won the championship because another team has not followed the rules, then we can say we did follow those rules and we won," he is quoted as saying by The Guardian in Britain.



"I am pleased with this result, even if it would have been better to win in a different way."



The Brazilian suggested to Gazzetta, meanwhile, that he suspects McLaren decided not to appeal the FIA sanctions for fear of even heftier penalties.



26-year-old Massa said: "My feeling is that our adversary understood that it would not have been a good idea to push further."