According to Gazzetta dello Sport, Ferrari are making changes in their Formula 1 team structure—big changes at the top. In a report today, Maurizio Arrivabene will be replaced as team boss by technical chief Mattia Binotto.
The wrong tires in Japan, falling behind in the development race with Mercedes and the team orders situation in Germany and Italy. All these issues have been offered as reasons for the change according to the report. Autosport also suggests long-standing disagreements between Arrivabene and Binotto.
I don’t read Italian but if the translation is decent, it does seem to suggest that Binotto is a person with a no nonsense approach and will approach Sebastian Vettel and Charles Leclerc the same. Arrivabene was keen to have Charles learn from Seb but perhaps Binotto will treat both the same and that’s good news for Charles.
Binotto, 49, has been with Ferrari since 1995 and worked through the Schumacher era. As we’ve mentioned before, when the team isn’t doing as well as it should, you can’t fire the whole team so normally the team boss is changed. Something we’ve been wondering about Williams F1 for a while now and if Ferrari are parting ways with Maurizio, perhaps a new role for Claire may make sense to shake that team up?
This is a major shift and one element that will be interesting to consider is Binotto’s handling of the new Concorde Agreement and negotiations around the 2020 direction. I would be surprised if Arrivabene’s position on that was much different than Binotto’s to be honest because Ferrari’s senior management would have been involved in defining their position going forward.
Hat Tip: Gazzetta dello Sport and Autosport
Also confirmed by “Motorsport Magazine” and “Autosport”.
Slightly shocking, but not surprising. Given all the strategic gaffs, I wondered how much longer Arrivabene would have stayed. Answer, apparently, is “not very long”. Now comes the next question: Is Binotto the right person for the job? If not him, then who?
I will miss Maurizio’s hair the most. That’s the hair I aspire to have when I’m his age.
Departabene.
Sorry, saw it elsewhere and I couldn’t resist.
Not surprising, and four years was enough time for Arrivabene to turn things around.
Regarding Williams F1, it’s true, you fire the coach, not the team.
But you can’t fire the owner, right? Or more accurately, the heir apparent.
True but you can replace an heir with another heir. Pretty sure Claire does have a brother…
She does. He runs the heritage side.
He’s gone but I’m not entirely certain it is for the best. I know he wasn’t exactly leading Ferrari to championship victory and a part thinks anything below that isn’t acceptable given this is Ferrari but on the other hand, part of me thinks yeah things were improving to the point of them at least challenging Mercedes until basically what happened in Germany and the development war loss in the latter part the season plus a few gaffs. I’m not sure whether maybe another year with Arrivabene leading VET and Leclerc would have been better than so much change at… Read more »