Former Ferrari engineer Aldo Costa has opened up about the less glamorous side of working at Maranello, revealing the intense pressure he faced during his time with the Scuderia and why his later experience at Mercedes felt completely different.
Aldo Costa reflects on Ferrari pressure and life at Maranello
Aldo Costa, one of Ferrari’s most respected former technical figures, has shared honest insights into the challenges of working inside Formula 1’s most iconic team. While Ferrari team principal Frédéric Vasseur has recently spoken about a cultural shift within the Scuderia, describing a more open environment where engineers feel increasingly encouraged to push innovation, Aldo Costa’s experience belonged to a very different era.
Ferrari’s work on the SF-26 has shown clear progress in areas such as aerodynamics, chassis development, and mechanical refinement, but Aldo Costa explained that during his own years at Maranello, he often felt unable to fully leave his mark. Speaking on the Terruzzi Racconta podcast, the Italian engineer described how the pressure of working for Ferrari eventually took a serious personal toll.
Costa: “My wife kept telling me I was getting sick”
“Working at Ferrari is wonderful, of course, but you truly feel the pressure building more and more as your career progresses. I eventually left as technical director, also because my wife kept telling me that I was becoming ill.
The group I worked with was fantastic. Unfortunately, even in my later years there, I was still seen as that ‘young man who had grown up inside Ferrari’, and perhaps they did not see me as having developed enough authority to truly impose my vision.”
Aldo Costa then drew a sharp comparison with his move to Mercedes, where he found a completely different working culture.
“At Mercedes, everything was different. I was the outsider arriving in England after Ferrari’s successful era, both with Michael Schumacher and later with Kimi Raikkonen. At the beginning, there was a lot of uncertainty. They were coming out of the Ross Brawn era, where financial difficulties had forced staff reductions. Together with other engineers, we completely transformed the Mercedes of that time. I would ask questions, we would compare ideas and opinions, and the environment changed enormously. It became exceptional.” – he pointed out.
Aldo Costa’s reflections offer a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at how team culture can shape technical leadership in Formula 1, highlighting the stark contrast between Ferrari’s high-pressure legacy environment and the collaborative atmosphere that helped Mercedes build a dominant era.
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