Former team principal and managing director of the Hispania Racing F1 Team Colin Kolles believes that the problems between Sebastian Vettel and Ferrari, which are very obvious in 2020, began “a few years ago”. The former boss of Force India, HRT and Caterham came to this analysis during a TV program on channel ‘SPORT1’:
“The misunderstandings are increasing. I believe that the trust between the team and Sebastian is no longer there. That is the main problem from my point of view,” says Kolles. It all started “when he could have won the world championship and even then he didn’t get 100% support from the team. Those were the first scratches in the relationship. Then he started making mistakes because he had to take way too much risk. In my opinion, a team that drives for the world championship has to have a number 1 driver and that and that should have been Sebastian Vettel two years ago.” – he explained.
“Then there wouldn’t have been this accident in Singapore [2017], then there wouldn’t have been the accident in Hockenheim [2018], where he made unnecessary mistakes. Because he doesn’t get the support from the team, he made mistakes. That is from my point of view the main problem with the story” – says Kolles.
According to the Romanian-German former team principal, this lack of trust between the driver and the team is “a vicious circle. That is the problem. Racing drivers are very sensitive beings. They feel when they are not receiving full support from the team.” It is a “big mistake by Ferrari that they have no number 1 status and no number 2. At least not clearly and unequivocally. You may have said to the outside world that Sebastian Vettel is your number 1 driver, but they didn’t practice it. Or weren’t able to enforce that with the second driver, Leclerc.”
“I know Sebastian. He drove Formula 3 for me for the first time, a long, long time ago,” recalls Kolles. That was in 2004, when Vettel was still driving Formula BMW and completing his first Formula 3 test with the Kolles team. Kolles explains: “Most of the drivers at such a level are very sensitive. They need a warm nest. They need the trust of the team. They have to feel that the team believes in them. That is very, very important. That is actually like that in every sport. “
“Racing is very much a matter of the mind. It’s about tenths of a second or hundredth, and at the end of the day it plays a massive role: Do I have confidence in the team, in the car? That can mean half a second or maybe more. And that’s missing at the moment.” Also because Ferrari told him “far too early” that he will no longer drive in red in 2021: “That means this season will be completely destroyed. But as I said: the problem was years ago,” argues the former F1 boss – and is practicing specific criticism of Mattia Binotto: “It’s the team boss’ job to get it under control. The problem is how he was dumped. That already plays a role. There were also various statements there. Some first placed in the press that Sebastian is playing poker with his salary and still wants a lot of money it’s the money. That didn’t happen.” – he explained.
Mattia Binotto, however, continues to assert that the separation was a joint decision: “If a decision is announced together, it is also a joint decision for me. Whether both parties are happy with the decision is a different matter.”
A statement that causes Kolles to shake his head. He considers the argument put forward by Ferrari weeks ago that one must save due to the corona crisis and therefore cannot meet Vettel’s salary expectations as an “excuse”. And it becomes even clearer when he says that Scuderia Ferrari’s explanations about the Vettel separation are “bullshit” and “very thin”. According to the 52-year-old, what Seb has to reproach himself for is that he may not have dealt with the politics behind the scenes at Ferrari – without a designated manager – too little callous:
“Over the past two years you have to say that it would have helped him to have someone by his side. One day he decided that he didn’t need a manager, that he would do it himself, with lawyers. That’s his right, he has to decide that,” says Kolles. “You have to understand that Formula 1 is very political. Very, very political. Motorsport as a whole is very political, but Formula 1 is extremely political.”
So a manager could possibly have helped Sebastian: “In the case where a planned second driver like Charles Leclerc has come into the team, with a management that includes Nicolas Todt, the son of FIA President Jean Todt, former Ferrari team boss, it changes how things look in perspective…”
Leave a Reply