Who knows if Frédéric Vasseur, thinking back to the offer received from Ferrari, ever regretted accepting the “Maranello hornet’s nest” instead of continuing in the quiet place of Hinwil. What should have been the season of redemption has turned into a nightmare year. Indeed, in the turbo-hybrid era, after three grands prix, the Prancing Horse had never collected so few points. An even meager total that was even scored by the 2020 car, conditioned by the power unit limitations, which we are not afraid to define in a gate with wheels. And forgive us for the irreverent expression.
Ferrari: a long history of severed heads
In the historic Italian team, being head of the Sport Management is never a simple task. Also because you almost never have a long life. Without making tedious lists of names, it is enough to point out that since the glorious Italian team was founded in 1929, there have been no less than 27 team bosses. Since the creation of the Formula One world championship – let’s set the clock to 1950 – Maranello has seen a succession of 23 bosses, from Federico Giberti to the outgoing Mattia Binotto. 24 if we consider that in 1976 the management was two-headed, entrusted to Guido Rosani and Daniele Audetto. 25 with Fred Vasseur.
Basically, making an elementary calculation, a Ferrari team principal stays in his role on average for just under four and a half years. A time too short, especially in current Formula 1 era, to be able to lay the foundations for building a period of success. And in fact, to confirm that one of the most serious management problems of the Italian side is the clear tendency to change key figures, is the data relating to the Jean Todt era.
By contrast, then, it is easily demonstrable that longevity pays off. It cannot be a coincidence that the French executive took possession of his offices on July 1, 1993 and left them on December 12, 2007, writing a thrilling success story never seen before and never repeated since.
Fourteen years. A totally new period of time in Maranello and which led to six drivers’ titles (five with Michael Schumacher and one with Kimi Raikkonen, ed) and six constructors titles. Record-breaking achievements given that we are talking, referring to the period 1999-2004, of the second streak of consecutive triumphs in the history of the category after the probably unrepeatable one of Mercedes.
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Ferrari, therefore, would have in its own history the shining example of how to work to build. And instead it shies away from that very effective mechanism. Why? The question does not have a complete answer, clearly. Probably, wishing to conjecture, the Ferrari Formula 1 Racing Division is too exposed to the “moons” of the property which in recent years has experienced real performance anxiety. It is built and deconstructed too quickly, falsely believing that change is synonymous with improvement. It’s not like that.
The experience of Ferrari says it, the operational paradigms of the most accredited competitors show it. Red Bull and Mercedes, to name two that have won almost everything in the last fifteen years have based their actions on an iron managerial continuity. And the top management made a block and square especially on difficult days. In Ferrari, on the other hand, unity of purpose is perceived only when – and if – it triumphs. As soon as you enter difficult phases, the creaks become deafening noises of houses falling under the impulse of an earthquake.
What did not happen in the Jean Todt period. When the manager took over the reins of the Italian team, he was quicker to count what had to be thrown away than what could be saved. Luca Cordero di Montezemolo and Gianni Agnelli were able to take several steps to the side leaving the scene to the organizational sagacity of the French manager who came to inherit a framework which in five years began to offer very sweet fruits that in Maranello they enjoyed for a lot of time. Here, this simple warning would be enough to understand that the key word to climb the steps of glory is stability.
Ferrari: Luca Cordero di Montezemolo’s advice
Precisely the aforementioned Luca di Montezemolo, one of the main architects of that extraordinary season of triumphs, expressed his opinion on the current moment which Ferrari is going through, saying his part and trying to give some advice. The former Ferrari president believes it will take time to get out of a complex crisis because it is rooted in the most hidden in the roots of the team.
“I don’t think it’s a short-term crisis, it’s about rebuilding and we need to bring together the best technicians,” the manager explained in an interview for La7: “I took Todt, Domenicali, Brawn and Byrne. Schumacher arrived two years later. The crisis was very black, but a team was built. Also by going to sign some technicians of different nationalities on the market. Even now, culture should be brought into the company in sectors where there is a need”.
Words that lead back to another difficulty that Ferrari has encountered in recent years: attracting technicians from the “Silicon Valley” of Formula One, where the vast majority of teams have set up operational offices that have developed a thriving market of skills and a top-level technical induced.
It is as if Ferrari were too far from this reality. Situation that discourages the technicians who work in that area and who, after all, do not find a team attractive that often appears, externally, as too confusing and incapable of producing victories. What in practice did not happen in the three decades of Jean Todt, when he was put on such a solid team that he was able to charm the most trained professionals of the time who came, precisely, from the British school.
Luca di Montezemolo also hit out at those who have become the protagonists of slightly too daring comments made when the Ferrari SF-23 was shown to the public. “I found the triumphal comments in the presentation wrong, I was expecting an evolutionary car from last year”. Indeed those words had sounded out of context. And they are even more so now when they have been harshly rejected by history.
The most paradoxical thing is that, after those moments, the CEO of Ferrari, Benedetto Vigna, has never returned to talk about Formula One. As if you wanted to remove the suffering of an area of vital importance for the team: the sporting one. A corporate sector that must necessarily be shored up because it is the first showcase for a sales market that is working well anyway. And perhaps this is precisely one of the main problems that explains the results.
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