Since last summer, the rumours about Mattia Binotto’s uncertain future at the helm of the Ferrari team have gradually increased in the media, up to the point of being reported as a certain fact yesterday, as the now imminent removal of Mattia Binotto from the role of Ferrari team principal was assured based on sources inside Maranello.
At the same time, the name of his potential successor emerged, namely that of his counterpart in the Alfa Romeo Sauber team: Frenchman Frederic Vasseur. Scuderia Ferrari then officially denied the articles released in the afternoon branding them as “rumours totally without foundation”. In fact, the Ferrari management – whose top leaders are chairman John Elkann and Chief Executive Officer Benedetto Vigna – is faced with a major choice, which can basically be summed up in a decision to give continuity to the current working group or generate a restructuring process with the arrival of a new team principal.
While also pointing out that Scuderia Ferrari’s 2023 project is practically already defined, several experts are wondering if it might be the right move to remove Mattia Binotto at this stage. During his four years in charge of the Maranello team, Ferrari has collected seven wins, 23 pole positions, a second place in the Constructors Standings in 2019, a result that can be repeated on Sunday in Abu Dhabi.
According to RacingNews365’s Dieter Rencken, the Italian manager “needs the full support of John Elkann and Benedetto Vigna, not delayed comments or a public lynching regardless of what ignorant shareholders, rabid tifosi and sensationalist Italian media may demand”, adding that “he did not force Charles Leclerc’s car into a spin in Imola, where the Monegasque frittered away a certain podium, nor did Binotto turn the steering wheel during Carlos Sainz’s various excursions.”
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Dieter Rencken also points out that “he was not even in Brazil to check local weather forecasts, so how could the Swiss-born Italian even be blamed for the team “waiting for the rain that never came,” as Leclerc so quaintly put it.”
For the well-known journalist, the main criticism that can be made against the current team principal is linked to “his refusal/failure/inability (delete as considered appropriate) to take decisive action against those individuals who directly committed the blunders, be they drivers, senior managers, engineers or technicians, and then to ensure that systems are in place to prevent reoccurrences.”
Even F1 correspondent and technical editor for The Race, Mark Hughes, suggests that the line of continuity would be better in Maranello, because these rumors “seem to resemble football logic”, evoking Jean Todt’s winless period, essential for laying the foundations for the successes of the Micahel Schumacher era. The Briton explains that “a couple of years ago, Elkann set Binotto a target, that by 2022 he expected the team to be in contention and winning races. That’s exactly where it has been this year.”
Mark Hughes also notes that “Mattia Binotto helped get rid of the poisonous fear culture which pervaded during Arrivabene’s time, but it’s not yet been replaced by a culture where specific problems are accepted by all and simply processed into oblivion without anyone feeling their position is at risk.”
Weekly French automobile sport magazine Auto Hebdo does not exclude a confirmation for Mick Binotto “even if a restructuring seems obvious, given that Binotto is accused for his approach of wanting to manage everything”, perhaps by placing a sort of supervisor of the motorsport area alongside him, as reported in today’s edition of La Gazzetta dello Sport.
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