Ferrari chairman John Elkann was the one who blocked Jean Todt’s return to Ferrari, while Antonello Coletta did not agree with a potential move of Valentino Rossi to the GT competition with Ferrari.
The former President of the FIA and former Ferrari Team Principal would have strongly wanted to join the Maranello team in 2022, but John Elkann and the Head of Ferrari GT Sporting Activities Antonello Coletta preferred not to disturb the current balance reached in Ferrari to fulfill the wishes of the former team principal who was one of the key figures of succesfull Michael Schumacher era and also the dreams of the Doctor.
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“Jean Todt would have had a super-consultant role, placing himself as a point of reference for both the Ferrari president and Mattia Binotto. A sort of tutor for the Maranello team also on the sports policy front. Evidently John Elkann preferred to abandon a solution that perhaps seemed to him not completely defined, considering the personality of the French manager” – we can read in today’s edition of Corriere della Sera – “John Elkann wants to personally preside over both the new era in F1 and the return to Le Mans in the Hypercar class. A position that Todt would have understood even if those close to him speak of a certain disappointment given his desire to return in Ferrari.”
Valentino Rossi also took his time before answering Audi and BMW in order to wait for a possible agreement with Ferrari. But the Doctor’s inexperience in the world of GT it seems did not convince Antonello Coletta, while the owner of the Audi WRT team took the opportunity to sign Valentino Rossi, fulfilling all the requests of the Italian driver: “Contacts with Antonello Coletta, the head of Corse Clienti, did not produce the desired feeling between the two parts, who got lost between distinction and semi-bureaucratic complications”, added Giorgio Terruzzi in his analysis for the Italian newspaper. A bit like in the summer of 2003, with Audi in the role of Yamaha who ‘pampered’ Valentino Rossi until the successful conclusion of the negotiation “treating Valentino, unlike Ferrari, not as any other rider.” – Corriere della Sera concluded.
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