Scuderia Ferrari is taking a proactive approach to tackle its poor performance in the first half of the 2023 Formula 1 campaign, though it might not be sufficient to hope for fighting for the title next season.
Hence, it’s unsurprising that the paddock is witnessing increasing indications of their efforts to rectify their issues by actively seeking fresh expertise from the teams that currently outperform them. During the winter, Ferrari underwent its fourth change in team bosses in under a decade, with Fred Vasseur replacing Mattia Binotto.
The French manager inherited a Ferrari team that boasted a highly competitive single-seater last year, yet witnessed both championship aspirations unravel due to various factors like poor power unit reliability, major mistakes from the Maranello pit wall and a few driver blunders.
The sense of missed opportunities in 2023 remains familiar, with some underlying causes being parallel as well.
Although the Italian side commenced the championship with lofty expectations, they soon realized the challenges ahead, as certain weaknesses in the SF-23 car became evident right from the first laps in the Bahrain pre-season testing sessions. It’s been widely discussed that one of Ferrari’s concerns revolves around the car’s tendency to be sensitive. Once it’s pushed beyond its optimal operational range, drivers find it exceedingly challenging to manage.
Despite significant upgrades aimed at addressing this, starting as early as Australia in April and followed by another in Spain in June, and Ferrari asserting that improvements have occurred, there’s still uncertainty surrounding whether the Maranello team has truly gained control over this issue and can bring about substantial progress for next year. This underscores the reality that there’s a pressing need to bolster Ferrari’s technical personnel. Team principal Frederic Vasseur recognized this early on and has been working behind the scenes to address it, even though he understood immediate action might not be feasible, as explained by the French manager:
This analysis, you can jump on it, but it can be probably wrong. That means that you have to be a bit humble, to take time to understand the team, to understand the process, to understand where we are weak, where we are not. And then you have to try to take action. But the business where you are taking action and you want to recruit people, it’s a matter of months in the easiest positions and years in the more difficult.” – the Ferrari boss explained. – “It means that it’s a long one. It’s a matter of two years, but if you start in six months, it will be two years and a half. From the beginning you have to push. We started to recruit a lot. Massively. And this is also a message that we have to send to the paddock, and to the team, that we will do our best effort in every single area. It’s not that performance is just coming from aero, it has to come from everybody in the company. We did some good exercise in terms of production, to rush a lot the production of upgrades and so on. And the response from the factory was mega.” – Fred Vasseur continued.
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Since the early season, there has been a relative quiet in the realm of news and speculations about staff departures from Ferrari, along with the potential departure of others. The exits of individuals like David Sanchez have been downplayed to some extent, with the argument being that he held a non-vital role as the head of vehicle concept, and his effectiveness was not particularly pronounced. One theory circulating in the paddock suggests that given Ferrari’s lack of progress from a decent start in 2022 to hitting a wall in 2023, Sanchez’s concept might not have had substantial potential to begin with.
Interestingly, David Sanchez is now making his way to McLaren, which seems to express the opposite sentiment – that the concept role holds importance, and Sanchez, who played a central role in all of Scuderia Ferrari’s race-winning moments during the hybrid engine era, is a significant addition.
This situation has left Ferrari with positions to fill. The team continues to be associated with attempts to attract personnel from both Mercedes and Red Bull, with the initial major addition expected to be Loic Serra from Mercedes, though likely not until 2025.
While Ferrari has not directly named Loic Serra, and neither side is commenting publicly, both parties aim to privately negotiate any potential contractual releases.
Loic Serra, Mercedes’ performance director, ranks among the team’s most senior engineers. His expertise lies in vehicle dynamics, especially the intricate interplay between tires and suspension – a pivotal relationship in a racing car.
There are also murmurs in Germany suggesting that Loic Serra might be part of an effort by Fred Vasseur to entice another Frenchman – Pierre Wache, Red Bull’s technical director.
While the spotlight understandably often falls on Adrian Newey for Red Bull’s success, Pierre Wache‘s contributions are considerably underestimated. He holds substantial value within Red Bull and has indicated his commitment to the team earlier this season.
These discussions came to the fore when news first emerged of Ferrari’s attempts to draw several senior technical personnel from Red Bull – a trajectory that began years ago with a futile attempt to acquire Dan Fallows, now the technical director at Aston Martin.
More recently, the focus has turned to Wache and head of aerodynamics Enrico Balbo, prompting team principal Christian Horner to address these rumors with both individuals, who assured him of their loyalty to the team. Whether Loic Serra joins as part of a group of top engineers from rival teams or not, his inclusion at Ferrari will undoubtedly be valuable.
However, his impact might not be tangible for quite some time, as his potential start in 2025 would likely see him influencing upgrades that season but not contributing to the core car concept until 2026.
This strategy strongly emphasizes future-oriented endeavors and could form a pivotal aspect of Ferrari’s direction under Fred Vasseur, who needs the latitude to see these plans through, given the substantial lead times involved.
It raises the question: Why appoint him as team principal if his long-term plans are set in motion, only to make rash decisions before those plans yield results? Restarting the process with a new leader who might pursue a different strategy isn’t ideal.
Ferrari can’t rely on a narrative of ‘we have prominent names joining in 2024 or 2025, and competitiveness will follow their arrival.’ This won’t suffice.
In reality, Scuderia Ferrari’s existing technical team has erred on the side of caution with certain concepts, lacked creativity in others, and overlooked potential issues during development. Hence, regardless of the specific limitations of the SF-23, Ferrari finds itself with a car that lacks the same peaks as the Red Bull, lacks consistency, and has limited development potential.
Substantial changes are almost certainly needed for the 2024 Formula 1 car, not to mention the following year. Ferrari must swiftly demonstrate its ability to genuinely enhance performance, starting with the remainder of this year.
While teams like Aston Martin and McLaren have excelled during both the winter and the season, and Mercedes has showcased adeptness at maximizing its package’s potential each weekend, they all grapple with the same budget cap and development options, with variations stemming from the sliding scale of aerodynamic testing limitations based on their standings in the standings.
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