Team Principal: the person who in F1 leads a racing team, the helmsman navigating the ship, doing so in calm waters but especially when stormy winds threaten to turn the sea into hell. The individual who organizes the operational scheme of the team, manages the personnel, coordinates disparate departments, defines the communication strategy, and, not least, establishes hierarchies among the drivers. A challenging job that at Ferrari becomes downright titanic.
A fine-tuned conductor, ready to listen to every slight dissonance from the ensemble to record the tones and ensure that the performance flows harmoniously. And possibly winning. Or at least adhering to the targets set by ownership. A role that at Ferrari has often been in the eye of the storm and, for this reason, has seen its occupants not have a very long tenure.
Yes, because, ultimately, a “TP” is almost never an owner of a racing team. At least today, characterized by hyper-specialization and scientific division of labor and tasks. Once upon a time, the roles often coincided, but we are talking about a more romantic and less structurally organized Formula One. But not less fascinating and competitive for that matter. On the contrary.
Ferrari: a history made of continuous changes
Being at the helm of the Gestione Sportiva (Sporting Management) in Ferrari is never an easy task. And, above all, it almost never has a long life. Without listing tedious names, it is enough to emphasize that since the founding date of the Prancing Horse in 1929, there have been almost 29 heads of the Sporting Management. Since the Formula One World Championship was established – let’s set the clock to 1950 – Maranello has seen 25 heads succeed each other, from Federico Giberti to Frédéric Vasseur. 26 if we consider that in 1976 the leadership was shared, entrusted to Guido Rosani and Daniele Audetto.
Basically, by making a simple calculation, a team principal at Scuderia Ferrari stays in the saddle on average just under four and a half years. A time too short, especially in today’s F1, to lay the foundations for building the castle of success. Indeed, to confirm that one of Ferrari’s most serious management problems is the marked tendency to chop heads, there is the data related to the Jean Todt era.
By contrast, it is easily demonstrable that longevity pays off. It cannot be a coincidence that the French executive took office on July 1, 1993, to leave on December 12, 2007, opening a season of unprecedented and never replicated success. Since Todt’s departure, the Gestione Sportiva has been entrusted to five managers: Stefano Domenicali (the longest-serving), Marco Mattiacci (a meteor that lasted a blink, and no one remembers), Maurizio Arrivabene, Mattia Binotto, who handed over the baton to Vasseur earlier this year. A quintet of men in fifteen years. Frenetic mutations that have not offered a continuity of victories. Something that happened under the reign of King Jean de Pierrefort.
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Now John Elkann, Benedetto Vigna have confidently bet on Frédéric Vasseur. To make the operation successful, it is necessary for the first two to give the third the necessary support even when the ship is becalmed. Because it is that kind of trust and support that in the long run creates the substrate on which to build solid pillars. That’s how it was in the early years of Todt’s leadership: unconditional support gave birth to the most exciting red saga.
Indeed, speaking about the situation of the Prancing Horse on Canal Plus, the Frenchman referred to the need to establish a regime of operational stability that is mandatory to revive the glories of the past: “Ferrari is a somewhat different team because it creates emotions and passion like no other. Then, if it doesn’t work, the tendency is that, under the pressure of the media and fans, we have to change the team principal, and this is not necessarily a good thing. When I was there, one of the advantages that eventually allowed us to be successful was precisely the ability to benefit from stability.”
“Even though there was often strong pressure for change,” Jean Todt recounted, “we did not give in and remained united in difficulty. This bore fruit. Since I left in 2009, it has not been the best team, given that there has been Red Bull’s dominance with Vettel, Mercedes’ dominance with Hamilton, and now we are witnessing Max Verstappen’s dominance.”
“It won’t be long before Ferrari returns to the top, but we know very well that the last thousandths are the most difficult to obtain. This year has not been like that, will it be next year? Honestly, I hope so, but I don’t know. To win, you have to put together all the elements, and today, a small piece is missing.”
In the reasoning of the former head of the Sporting Management, the Red Bull and Mercedes models were mentioned, not by chance the most stable realities in sports management. In Milton Keynes, Chris Horner has been at home since the team’s debut in F1; in Brackley, Toto Wolff arrived in 2013, taking so much space as to become one of the three owners of the Anglo-German team. Clear cases of how, with the support of the right skills, continuity pays off. Have they learned the lesson at Ferrari?
Source: FUnoanalisitecnica
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