The 2024 Formula 1 World Championship, even for Scuderia Ferrari, has entered the final third of the season. The remaining eight Grands Prix will be crucial not only for the teams competing for the 2024 drivers’ and constructors’ titles. Never before has the development of the cars in this championship represented an investment for the next campaign. 2025 will be the last Formula 1 championship under the current regulations, before yet another technical revolution that, as we know, will be characterized by extensive use of active aerodynamics and second-generation turbo-hybrid engines.
As suggested by the team principals of various Formula 1 teams, starting next January, almost all teams will allocate a significant number of engineers that will focus on the 2026 project. It could not be otherwise, after all. When asked about the subject, insiders confirmed that next season’s technical projects will be nothing more than “normal” evolutions of the current cars. The reason is quite simple and at the same time intuitive: teams do not intend to revolutionize their designs for the 2025 Formula 1 cars by risking a real leap into the unknown.
Therefore, it is reasonable to expect that the teams will develop their cars until the end of the current season, just to have a solid and reliable platform as a starting point for the next technical project. For Ferrari, the resignation of Italian aerodynamicist Enrico Cardile, former technical director of the Prancing Horse, could represent a critical issue in the design process of the Ferrari 677. It is worth noting that, in fact, under regulatory continuity, the design of the 2025 car began almost simultaneously with the development of the SF-24.
In principle, the process of creating a new Formula 1 car begins with the design phase. This is a stage of the technical project where multiple activities take place, which, in turn, to manage the situation effectively, are divided among different work teams made up of hundreds of people. Everything starts with the senior designers defining the basic principles around which the new F1 car will be created. To give a clear example, we refer to the type of suspension schemes intended for use or the wheelbase of the car.
Once the basic concepts are fully consolidated, the development path splits into various avenues. These avenues, of course, must be able to interact with each other as much as possible. The departments work on suspension, hydraulics, transmission, composite materials, and electronics. Each of these divisions has a group dedicated to the virtual and physical testing of individual components. These tests are progressively refined until they are finally approved and “released” to move on to the next phases.
It should be clarified that the role Enrico Cardile held at Ferrari was not operational but served as a link between the various divisions of the Ferrari Racing Department. At this point, a spontaneous question arises: at what stage of the 677 project did the immediate resignation of the Italian technical director occur? During Frederic Vasseur’s interim period, who assumed the role of acting technical director, did the work teams operate without problems, or did the departure of the Italian aerodynamicist and technician slow down the definition of the next car?
In our opinion, Enrico Cardile’s resignation took Ferrari by surprise. The Italian engineer had been appointed technical director of the historic Maranello team at the beginning of the 2024 Formula 1 season, and nothing suggested his “technical departure” from Ferrari before the expected time. Therefore, it is necessary to retrace the events to understand how their sequence influenced the resignation of the Italian technician. In the spring, it seemed that the hiring of Adrian Newey at Ferrari was a done deal, with a pre-contract in place. This was the information from the major international media outlets following Formula 1.
In hindsight, the resignation of the Maranello team’s technical director was not due to the arrival of the brilliant British car designer, as the two technicians will soon be colleagues at Aston Martin. The arrival of Loic Serra was the real cause of Enrico Cardile’s discomfort, who realized he had only taken on the role of technical director on an interim basis, waiting for the French engineer’s gardening leave to expire. The immediate resignation of the Italian engineer made it impossible for any handover between Enrico Cardile and the former Mercedes manager.
In theory, as a manager, Enrico Cardile should have given at least two months’ notice. This does not mean that the development of the 677 project has stopped, but under Mattia Binotto’s mandate, Ferrari has already paid the price for the departure of a technical director who did not leave “instructions” regarding the project he was overseeing. A dynamic that had painful consequences in the past season. The hope is that the experienced French manager will be able to take over from Enrico Cardile, managing to compensate with his experience for a handover that never actually happened.
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