Is Mattia Binotto’s departure from Scuderia Ferrari strictly related to the sporting results? Is it due to the four seasons as Team Principal during which Ferrari won only seven races, half of the number of races won with Maurizio Arrivabene who had preceded him?
According to Alberto Antonini, no: sporting results alone do not explain the separation between the engineer from Lausanne and the Maranello team.
The former head of the press office of Ferrari in Formula 1, in a recent article for FormulaPassion, recalled how “to those who, mindful of the good old days, pointed out over a pizza how utopian it was to simultaneously play the role of Jean Todt and Ross Brawn, he laconically replied that he had no choice, because ‘I can’t trust anyone’”.
Antonio Antonini then recalls a curious episode that involved Mattia Binotto himself, immediately after his promotion as Team Principal. According to the former Autosprint journalist, this story would explain, in its apparent irrelevance, why we have arrived at the current situation.
“It’s Saturday – says Antonini -, and the rooms of the Ferrari Racing Department are not full of activities as usual. The new team principal has an animated discussion with a group of technicians. They are not power unit engineers. They are not from the aerodynamic department. They are not from the chassis department. They are plumbers, they are the workers who have come to repair the toilets in Maranello. And MB (as everyone now calls him, at work and even outside) is questioning them on the use of siphons and the assembly of taps”.
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And after the facts, Antonini’s comment: “Now, it is understandable that a team manager cares about the structure in which he works, especially since that red and black building helped to design it (indeed, the malicious say that is the only thing he ever planned in his life). But it is assumed that, having reached the top, the boss of Ferrari F1 has other things to think about. And instead this episode, almost anecdotal in its apparent irrelevance, is the icon of an attitude that has led to the current situation”.
The story, perhaps a little “fictionalized”, serves the former Ferrari press officer to point out that “it was above all Mattia who betrayed Binotto”. And this is because from the moment Binotto occupied that role, Ferrari no longer had a real technical director. The management of the team, that of the technical office but also communication, were all in his hands.
“But today – adds Antonini – when you look at the overall image (from outside at least) the indecisions of the pit wall weigh above all, the inability to bring home the world championship with a winning single-seater designed from the pencil of the working group. If you allow me, I have a somewhat transversal point of view. Ferrari’s problem isn’t going out on wet tires on a dry track. That, over time, can be fixed. The problem of Ferrari is getting the tires wrong and then, in debriefings and in interviews, having someone claim that it wasn’t the wrong decision after all. Fixing that is a little more difficult.” – he explained.
Finally, the FormulaPassion journalist ends his article with a comment on the man who is indicated by (almost) everyone as Mattia Binotto’s replacement: “Betting on Fred Vasseur – at the end of an incredible series of refusals – it is a seemingly strange choice. A man close to Tavares and the Stellantis group, which reinforces the impression of a Ferrari controlled by a management that is more French than Italian. But also a man with work habits very different from those of a Todt or a Binotto, also willing to sleep in the company, while Vasseur in Switzerland divided his F1 commitment with the many external activities, from minor categories to Formula E. Above all, however, I wonder what would happen, in terms of image, if Milan, Juve, Napoli or Inter were left without a coach and approached – no offense! – those of Cremonese and Sampdoria” – Antonio Antonini concluded.
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