Instead of letting their former Team Principal join an opponent Formula 1 team, ex-Formula 1 driver Damon Hill suggests that Scuderia Ferrari should consider assigning Mattia Binotto to a technical position within the Maranello organization.
Amid public criticism from chief executive officer Laurent Rossi in recent weeks, there are speculations that Alpine might be interested in strengthening their technical team by recruiting former Ferrari boss Mattia Binotto or potentially replacing Team Principal Otmar Szafnauer.
At this moment Mattia Binotto is on gardening leave after departing from Scuderia Ferrari at the end of the 2022 Formula One season, a championship during which the team was not able to maintain a competitive edge against Red Bull, despite the fact that the Italian side started the season in a strong manner, with two race wins for Monegasque driver Charles Leclerc after the first three races and an F1-75 car that in the first part of the season seemed able to match the Red Bull cars of Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez, but was constantly affected by technical failures.
Having progressed through various technical roles within Scuderia Ferrari, the Italian eventually assumed the position of Team Principal before leaving Maranello ahead of the current season. Nonetheless, the 1996 Formula 1 World Champion feels that instead of letting Mattia Binotto to leave the company entirely, the Ferrari top management should have reassigned him to a different role:
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“I thought it wasn’t the right role for him,” Damon Hill explained in a recent discussion for the F1 Nation podcast – “He’s technical, and I think he’s very important to the team. I think he’s got enormous talent, and I’d bring him back in and say ‘okay, you can run all the technical side of things’ and obviously he’s a very bright guy, but I don’t know if that’s possible politically. There’s another aspect to being a team principal, which I think that some people are good at. A lot of it is about arguing over money, or the strategy or the marketing in F1. It might not be his prime focus, it might not be the something that you love and is your passion. But I was surprised that they [Ferrari] couldn’t fit the two in [Binotto and Team Principal Fred Vasseur], because I think Fred Vasseur is that sort of guy, he understands racing.” – the former Formula 1 driver concluded.
