Deliberately spread leaks
If the first weeks as team principal and general manager of Scuderia Ferrari were rather calm for Frederic Vasseur, the same cannot be said of the days following the first disappointing grand prix of the 2023 Formula One season, the Bahrain Grand Prix. The SF-23 car proved not to be as competitive as Red Bull and Charles Leclerc’s retirement due to technical problems was definitely a low blow for both the fans and the Maranello team, who did not expect to be faced with more reliability problems following the issues that were experienced last year.
In addition to the large gap from the top, Fred Vasseur however had to deal with the speculation in the press that multiplied day after day. Thus the departures of Gino Rosato and Jonathan Giacobazzi which took place in recent months were leaked by the media, in a context of widespread discontent, which seems to have pushed aerodynamicist David Sanchez to resign and sporting director Laurent Mekies and chassis manager Enrico Cardile to make profound reflections on their future with the Maranello team.
And the speculation also involved Frederic Vasseur himself, given that he was described as “fed up” due to the constant interventions of Benedetto Vigna, as the media reported a rift between the French manager and the Ferrari chief executive officer. There was also a rumor about Charles Leclerc, who would have requested and obtained a direct meeting with the president John Elkann to discuss the difficult moment the team is going through.
The leaks
Frederic Vasseur on Monday denied in an interview for Auto Hebdo most of the recent rumors, confirming that some personalities close to Mattia Binotto have chosen to take a step back, while others have considered whether or not to continue their work in Maranello. However, the French manager assured that he had room for maneuver at the top of the Gestione Sportiva, thus contradicting those who felt that Benedetto Vigna was in fact making the key decisions following the departure of Mattia Binotto.
German motorsport magazine ‘Auto, Motor und Sport’ – through the journalist Andreas Haupt – recounted the chaotic events of the last few days at Ferrari, placing his attention on the many leak. Obviously the employees are reading the newspapers and are on social media, so Fred Vasseur needs to stop these “internal games” (leaks), because what Ferrari needs right now is internal peace (being calm).
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AMuS reports that there was a leak about Enrico Cardile’s contract. The leak said that his contract was running out. Those leaks are deliberately spread, so that people think that there is a hire/fire culture at Ferrari now. However, that is not the case. AMuS adds that Fred Vasseur is calm and that there is no panic inside the Ferrari team.
The only problem is, that it seems there is a leak internally at Ferrari: someone is deliberately spreading internal information, eg. contract lengths of employees. According to the German magazine, David Sanchez was a “Binotto man”, he already searched for another team in the winter (!) and Ferrari didn‘t want to put unnecessary obstacles in his way, so they let him go. Gardening leave at Ferrari is usually 1 year.
The German journalist then concluded: “I don’t want to go so far as to say that there is a mole at Ferrari, but someone or some group that has its own agenda within the Scuderia”.
