It was the summer of 1996
“When I hear talk about getting rid of Todt, it makes me laugh. Only someone who doesn’t know how to think could come up with something like that. If you want to destroy Ferrari, then yes, get rid of Jean Todt. But I’m convinced that this idea came only from someone in the press. I find all the fuss made about what happened quite surprising,” thundered Michael Schumacher in July 1996, after the disastrous French Grand Prix where his Ferrari engine went up in smoke during the formation lap.
Stories of yesterday, stories of today, cyclical stories. Ten days later, Jean Todt directly addressed the criticism: “Whatever happens at Ferrari, it’s my fault. It has to be, because my position is that of the head of sporting management. It’s my fault and it must be my fault—I’m also paid for this. I consider myself a manager. My desire is to stay at Ferrari, but if Ferrari wants to get rid of me, it can do so at any moment.”
And the journalists were not kind. In those very days, Carlo Marincovich wrote in La Repubblica: “The man is certainly unpleasant to many, he’s not charming, not sycophantic, in fact he’s always distrustful of everyone. According to many, Maranello under his leadership has become a sort of reign of terror, with people walking around with their heads down and their tails between their legs. Some even portray him as a kind of Ceausescu, surrounded by a court ready to bring him his slippers and wag their tails at the slightest snap of his fingers.”
Here too, recurring situations, a crossroads that never seems definitive: “But aside from his mood and that of his enemies, putting Todt on trial or showing him the door would be pointless. Worse: it would be a huge blow to Ferrari. It would mean replacing him with someone else, and frankly, looking around, the landscape is pretty empty. It would mean starting all over again, yet again, with ‘restructuring’—which in Maranello means ‘purges’, eliminations, blacklists, dismissals, punishments involving transfers to the geranium vase warehouse.”
Gianni Agnelli blamed the Italian press: “In Italy it’s always someone’s fault: either Todt’s or Sacchi’s or someone else’s.” A month later—in August—Luca Cordero di Montezemolo told France Soir to clear the air: “I believe Todt has done a good job, even though there’s still progress to be made. Todt will be a leading figure in our team for a long time to come.”
In hindsight, in December 2023, Jean Todt recalled to La Stampa: “In ’96 there was a lot of talk about my dismissal. Michael had just arrived and could see that my plan was solid, that the people who were about to join and with whom I was secretly negotiating aligned with our project. That’s why he stepped in and said: ‘If Todt goes, I go too.’ He definitely stopped those who were thinking of firing me.”
Words we’ve already heard
It’s easy now to draw a parallel with the words of Italian journalists, of Charles Leclerc, Lewis Hamilton, and Frederic Vasseur in the summer of 2025—so far without a response from Ferrari’s management.
But tying back to these recurring words, to a past that is always present, here’s a vintage Fred Vasseur: “We need to focus on this season, to extract the maximum potential from our car and our technicians. We’ll decide later when the time is right to start working on next year’s car.” It was 2016, and he was wearing Renault’s yellow uniform.
And again: “I think at the moment we’re quite fast on race pace, but in qualifying we’re a complete disaster! Still, we need to stay calm, not react impulsively, and try to understand what’s not working. We have to be realistic—we’ll have this handicap until we manage to get the most out of our package over a single lap.” Again, Frederic Vasseur, 2020, Sauber Alfa Romeo.
The potential, the execution, the weak qualifying performance: it really is always the same story…
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