The Frederic Vasseur era officially began today in Maranello. The Frenchman finally starts his activity for Scuderia Ferrari after ending his relationship with Sauber in the first half of December. Currently, there has only been a small contact between Maranello’s Sport Management and the French manager to take care of some institutional matters, such as the usual customary photos, but nothing too in-depth.
There is therefore a certain expectation, some define it as a ‘cold curiosity’, at least initial, about how the former boss of the Alfa Romeo team (2023 will be the Italian company’s last year in Formula 1) will present himself to the staff and various departments. At the moment, no important positions or different inputs have been leaked compared to what Mattia Binotto outlined in the last few months in Maranello.
Meanwhile, the Italian-Swiss engineer warmly greeted the team on December 20 by touring the various departments, to officially enter the gardening period which, according to what has been reported by Giuliano Duchessa and Piergiuseppe Donadoni for formu1a.uno, will be of 12 months, therefore until the end of the contract binding Mattia Binotto at Ferrari. A rather important gardening leave period, accepted by the Italian manager also thanks to an extra fee that the Scuderia will pay him in these 12 months to prevent its former team principal from ending up elsewhere: teams, FIA or Liberty Media.
Slightly less warm, to put it mildly, were the greeting with the senior management. After all, that week ahead of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix left a mark, further deteriorating a relationship which, as is known, had never been ideal. Moreover, it is not difficult to believe what has been heard: without that famous official denial approved by the top management, it would have been rather difficult to see him even in Abu Dhabi. This is nothing new, as history teaches that with Ferrari it is always difficult to part.
With the departure of Mattia Binotto it should be noted that there has been a significant adjustment in the hierarchies of the engine department in terms of responsibilities. Enrico Gualtieri has renewed his commitment by taking full command of all activities related to the power unit, including (and especially) those related to the preparation of the 2026 project.
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For several weeks already, 20% of the available time – 1200 hours – has been used for the development of the new unit of power that we will see in the five-year period following the introduction of the new PU rules, from 2026 to 2030. Of course, from now on, the budget hours dedicated to that unit will be appropriately and progressively increased.
At the same time, Davide Mazzoni returned in November after a few years in Maserati. The direction of the department that deals exclusively with the internal combustion unit has been delegated to the Italian technician. Davide Mazzoni had already worked in Maranello at the time of Jean Todt, Michael Schumacher with Ross Brawn and Paolo Martinelli, naturally working with Mattia Binotto from 2001 to 2013 as a specialist engineer both in mechanical development and in that relating to reliability problems. Previously, with the same outgoing team principal at the head of the project, this direction had been covered by Enrico Gualtieri ad interim, according to formu1a.uno.
Precisely on the issue of the 2026 power unit manufacturers – Fia, everything seems to have been clarified after Ferrari was not allowed to take part at a meeting in mid-December. Ferrari does not see particular problems on the horizon, although some issues will have to be defined in the next meetings in which the Italian manufacturer will obviously be represented by a new man in Mattia Binotto’s place.
Meanwhile, the 2023 power unit is completing the work on the bench with repeated long run sessions. Unlike last winter, these are races carried out at maximum power. According to what has been learned by formu1a.uno, there is cautious optimism, after the technical corrections, of being able to carry out the championship with no more than four high-performance units used. We remind you that only one software update will be available next season and therefore, in addition to reliability, it will be important to optimize power delivery over more than ten races. An important factor, which could create some “slight performance problems at certain tracks” that need to be managed, a member of the Italian team told formu1a.uno.
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