Fred Vassuer pinpoints main differences between his role and ex-Ferrari boss Mattia Binotto’s. Fred Vassuer on his role at Ferrari.

During the recent press conference from Fiorano, new Ferrari boss Frederic Vasseur also clarified his effective role in Maranello, pinpointing some of the differences with the tasks that Mattia Binotto had in the last few years.

The Italian-Swiss engineer was Team Principal and Managing Director while the Frenchman was only appointed Team Principal and General Manager. This is a nominal difference that does not change his responsibilities much, with Benedetto Vigna still CEO of the company and John Elkann President. “The Scuderia is a department of the Ferrari company. There is therefore not a CEO of the Formula 1 team, but of the brand, and I, like every other member of Ferrari, have to report directly to Benedetto. However, John (Elkann) is also very involved in the Scuderia’s projects. We talk to each other every day to keep us updated on everything” – the French manager explained.

Fred Vasseur: “Technical director? It certainly won’t be me. My job will also be to build relationships with the FIA, FOM and other teams.”
One of the question marks that remains on is related to the position of Technical Director. With Mattia Binotto leaving the Maranello team, that role remained vacant. It had been previously covered by the Swiss engineer himself with the help and tasks delegated to Enrico Cardile and David Sanchez, alongside Enrico Gualteri for the area concerning the Power Unit.

Fred Vasseur immediately withdrew his candidacy: “I’m not a technical director. Even though I’m an engineer, I won’t take on this role and it’s crystal clear.” Immediately afterwards he praised the head of the chassis department and project manager of the last car designed by the Maranello team (F1-75), Enrico Cardile. “Enrico is doing an excellent job, his role is transversal in the organization”.

One of the jobs that will be up to the new Team Principal will also be to re-establish relations with the FIA at a political level which have deteriorated quite bad recently. In terms of decision-making and the regulations or with the stewards, the Italian team seemed to have had a too passive approach as compared to the important English teams. Mattia Binotto has often been an ‘uncomfortable’ character behind the scenes, determined to carry on his ideas and even coming to confrontation if necessary. John Elkann participated personally and with him men of his status in the discussions on 2026 power unit regulations and, just together with Fred Vasseur, will continue to keep up to date on the issue. But how could Frederic Vasseur improve FIA – Ferrari relations? “A big part of my job is to build a good relationship with all the stakeholders in the system: FOM, FIA and the other teams. I don’t want to comment on what happened in the past but we have to have a very transparent relationship with all the stakeholders in the system. It’s one of the aspects we need to work on and I’ll do it.” – the Frenchman pointed out.

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Fred Vasseur then revealed that there will soon be further meetings regarding the 2026 engines – in which Ferrari will participate given that, as anticipated, the initial problems have been resolved – and on the general situation of Formula 1, which is experiencing a delicate and challenging moment, with strong tension between the FIA and Liberty Media, due to Andretti’s request to be able to enter as the eleventh F1 team.

Also in this case, Fred Vasseur did not want to give a clear answer because he did not consider it as a topic in line with the main objective of the press conference: “Briefly dealing with the point: if we want to accept any team then this must be an added value for the system”. Andretti and Cadillac would be. It is a pity that the teams, compared to the agreements made in 2020, no longer value 200 million dollars as a suitable figure for entry into Formula 1, which at the time was the money needed to be paid to buy a team. In fact, between 400 and 500 million are needed today. It would mean for the teams at least double the fee since that amount would be divided between 10 teams.