It was a winter afternoon when the media bomb exploded: Jean Todt, after the end of his presidential term in the International Automobile Federation, would have signed with Ferrari to renew a partnership full of satisfactions and titles. Many media reported the news as a certain fact even though they did not define the role that the Frenchman would have played in the historic Italian team.
Someone spoke of a representative office. A sort of mega ambassador of the Prancing Horse in the world. A “front” position with no signatory powers. And the thing, in itself, seemed credibile since the transalpine executive has always been used to making decisions thanks to his very strong leadership attitude.
Other observers, precisely by virtue of what has just been pointed out, reported an agreement with the Ferrari presidency that would have given full powers to the former FIA president. Jean Todt was supposed to become a sort of super-consultant to the Scuderia with a wide range of powers and big responsibilities as a decision maker. He would have had the right and top-down legitimacy to speak out in logistical, sporting and technical aspects.
A job, configured in this way, that would have created a certain “decision-making embarrassment” since it would have generated a conflict with the tasks that were and are the prerogative of Mattia Binotto who is something more than a simple team principal given his past as an engineer .
In the end, nothing materialized. Jean Todt continues to be the special representative for road safety for the United Nations. A cover charge that would not have generated conflicts with a job at Ferrari. The fact that the partnership was not signed does not mean that there were not words between the parties who in the end preferred to continue their own ways. And this thing, perhaps, also explains how much power and consideration Mattia Binotto has in the offices of Maranello and in the operational headquarters of the group that controls Ferrari.
Evidently the work carried out in these years in which the team has had to face very difficult seasons in terms of results has been appreciated by those who have the power to decide. The F1-75 project is the result of a technical and organizational journey that lasted years and that started after the secret agreement that Ferrari had to sign with the FIA following the controversial investigation of its power unit.
What followed were two difficult season, but a period in which a lot has been learned and the regulation has been exploited, resulting in a car that has immediately become the reference point in the start of the season. Although it has a mechanical heart that is a little too fragile and tends to suffer from a “heart attack” a little too often.
If Maranello has returned to fight for race wins, it is also thanks to Mattia Binotto and his way of organizing the team that could no longer count on Sergio Marchionne and his structural paradigm. The Swiss executive inherited a not fully consolidated framework. He worked hard on it and this season managed to overtake Mercedes and challenge Red Bull on the field of technology. But, once it reached the threshold of glory, “Binotto architecture” began to creak.
Driver management, strategies, reliability. These are the areas in which Ferrari is showing weakness in a year that could have been great but in which it is capitalizing much less than it should. Let’s start with the last factor. Ferrari has decided to focus on performance at the expense of reliability knowing that the regulation, with a rather bizarre procedure, allows these problems to be resolved even after the development technical freeze that has already begun and will continue from September. The strategy would have been valid if it had been possible to overcome the difficulties in the current year.
Instead, it is Binotto himself who reported that the goal of full reliability will be reached next year. 2022 will be managed with buffer solutions such as introducing more new engines to lower average mileage. That leads to automatic penalties which both Charles Lelcerc and Carlos Sainz have incurred. And which they will have to take again. The short-term solutions mentioned by Mattia Binotto after Charles Leclerc’s retirement from a Spanish GP that he was literally dominating have turned into long-term answers. A communication error that is generating discontent in the Ferrari base.
The management of strategies is another failure attributable to Mattia Binotto. Not because he makes the choices, in Ferrari there is a staff headed by Inaki Rueda which is responsable for this. The manager’s fault is constant defense even faced with obvious, non-concealable errors. Monaco, Silverstone, Hungary, to name the most obvious, are unacceptable mistakes from this point of view.
When Mattia Binotto was questioned about the dynamics behind the incontrovertibly wrong choices, he closed himself off like a hedgehog, exalting the work of his men. Perhaps an attempt to keep the ranks close, which, from the media point of view, has not been met with too many favors. But more serious is that the track is clearly showing that the Ferrari staff has not been the best when running tactical plans. For a long time now.
The management of the driver pair is another Achilles heel in Mattia Binotto’s management. There is a feeling that points have been lost along the way due to a lack of courage in defining roles. And we shouldn’t think about the generous double tow granted by Carlos Sainz to Charles Leclerc in France. In that circumstance the Spaniard had nothing to race for in the qualifying session.
Enhancing that gesture is mere sporting sentimentality, which do not lead to victories. A healthy and massive dose of management cynicism would be needed in identifying and chaining roles. Just like Jean Todt did when he wanted Michael Schumacher and literally built the team around him. The German was put in the best operating conditions and never had to worry about the teammate who was totally at his service.
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What, in a nutshell, happens today in Red Bull. If you have a champion in your hand, you put him in a position to perform even more by sublimating his specificities. Today this does not happen in Ferrari which should consider Charles Leclerc as its main driver. 2022 says that instead the Monegasque was the one repeatedly disadvantaged by his own team with unbelievably poor strategies.
Perhaps, even if we have no proof, this would not have happened with Jean Todt. His long experience, his knowledge of being unpopular but damn fruitful and effective would have put Ferrari in a position to be ahead or at least not so far away from a Red Bull that is overcoming its small technical difficulties thanks to the mistakes made in series by Maranello and an organizational model that Ferrari should aim for.
The reason why the flashback between Ferrari and Jean Todt did not happen is and will remain mysterious. It is certain that a figure of such greatness and experience, if well placed in the team, could have been a resource that would have relieved Mattia Binotto of some responsibilities that he evidently is not able to manage at times.
Perhaps the engineer from Lausanne could have dealt with the issue of reliability on a permanent basis since it relates to his immeasurable skills in the discipline. An operative “liberation” that would have allowed Jean Todt to take possession of sporting things avoiding the occurrence of topics such as those seen recently.
But these are only imagined scenarios, midsummer conjectures that are made with the engines off and in the cool air-conditioned of newsrooms that are not at full capacity. What is certain is that Jean Todt – Ferrari would have been a nice suggestion and, who knows, a move that could have challenged the Red Bull – Verstappen duo that is now far ahead on the standings without ever having given the feeling of being dominant in the 2022 Formula 1 season.
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