On 1 July 1993, Jean Todt arrived in Maranello to take on the role of Ferrari team principal. The French executive (who would go on to win 14 world titles and 106 Grands Prix with Ferrari) came from Peugeot Sport, and was the last Prancing Horse team principal not to come from the Ferrari area.
On 1 January 2008, Stefano Domenicali, previously Sporting Director of the Scuderia, took his place, and six years later (14 April 2014) the current CEO of Formula 1 was replaced by Marco Mattiacci, after working for the Italian side since 1999.
On 24 November of the same year Maurizio Arrivabene took over from Marco Mattiacci, who was previously Event Manager of Philip Morris but was also present for many years in the Ferrari garage.
Also in this case the choice focused on a manager who was very familiar with how things were working inside the team and it would be the same for his successor, Mattia Binotto, who took over from Maurizio Arrivabene on 7 January 2019, covering both the role of team principal and that of Technical Director which he already held since 2016.
After the choice of Jean Todt, almost thirty years ago, all the team principals who have followed one another at the helm of the Scuderia have always been managers who knew Maranello well, a characteristic that has been a prerogative.
However, the tradition could be interrupted with the one who will replace Mattia Binotto, given the fact that several sources indicated the new team principal as being an external person, without any previous experience in Ferrari and this is not a coincidence. There are two aspects behind this choice. The first is linked to the lack of leading personalities already working in Maranello with experience, professional profile and the will to cover an undoubtedly rewarding but also uncomfortable role.
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The ideal person to carry on the internal tradition would have been that of Antonello Coletta, but the head of the Maranello GT Sports Activities is totally focused on Ferrari’s return to the Endurance world championship with the 499P project, a program that Antonello Coletta received after a very long wait.
Apart from the Italian manager, in recent years the Scuderia’s organizational structure has not included any personalities like Stefano Domenicali’ and in fact the resignation of Mattia Binotto has left a hole that cannot be filled with internal staff. Hence the need to leave the Maranello area to start recruiting.
Even in this ‘campaign’ things turned out to be more complex than expected. For many years, Maranello attracted foreign engineers and managers, who saw Ferrari as an indispensable opportunity for earnings and a career.
Things have changed, and not just a little, given that according to information that has been circulating in the Formula 1 paddock for months, the Maranello management has received a series of “no, thank you” from several top managers.
Also in this case there are several reasons that have changed the situation over time. The salaries guaranteed to team principals by British teams have increased a lot, reaching eight figures in the case of the most famous names.
Ferrari is no longer seen as an opportunity to “retire” from the business, and faced with financial conditions similar (if not lower) than the one guaranteed by other top teams, for home managers in England, moving to Maranello is not a very attractive prospect, as well as entering a context that is not always easy for those coming from outside.
As also happens with the drivers, there is then a tendency to be contractually bound to a team for long periods, and this aspect also makes negotiating with important names even more difficult.
It is not surprising that in this scenario the only name inside the Ferrari environment for potentially replacing Mattia Binotto at the top of the Racing Department is Frederic Vasseur. The French manager is in fact the only one who can be released from his current contractual obligations and who moved to Switzerland in 2017 after the dismissal of Monisha Kaltenborn from the leadership of Sauber. In the event of a call from Maranello, for Frederic Vasseur there would only be a slight difficulty in moving to Italy.
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