La Gazzetta dello Sport assures that Mattia Binotto will not be the Ferrari team principal in 2023: the team responds with a press release.
Sensational earthquake in the Ferrari house: the property has decided to give the sack a Matthias Binotto which starting next season will no longer be the team principal of the Formula 1 team. Instead of him, barring surprises, there will be Frederic Vasseurcurrent sports manager of Sauber Alfa Romeo.
The French engineer, as reported today by “La Gazzetta dello Sport”, was chosen for his excellent relations with Charles Leclerc, as well as for the excellent collaboration built over the years with the Stellantis group. There is no official confirmation yet, but the end of the 2022 season is probably expected, which will close next weekend in Abu Dhabi.
Even because for now Ferrari has denied everythingwith a brief statement in which he reaffirms his trust in the current team principal: “In relation to the speculation that has appeared in some press organs regarding the position of the Team Principal of the Scuderia, Mattia Binotto, Ferrari announces that these are entirely rumors groundless“.
Will Ferrari change? Last race in sight, perhaps, for Mattia Binotto
Mattia Binotto would pay for not having managed, over the course of four seasons, to enter Ferrari in the world fight between 2019 and 2022.
This year the championship had started under very different auspiceswith the conquest of two of the first three races of the season, but once again the prancing horse failed in the decisive phase and between mistakes, bad luck and lack of reliability, the title easily went in the direction of Red Bull and Max Verstappen.
The Binotto management began in 2019 with the takeover of a Maurice Arrivabene, which had in turn collected a legacy made up of titles touched and never conquered. Under his leadership, Ferrari managed to struggle with Mercedes and Lewis Hamilton in the 2017 and 2018 vintages, before falling, however, in the second half of the season.
Mattia Binotto’s first year was instead marked by the “power unit” issue, which led to a secret agreement between the FIA and Ferrari the effects of which evidently continued in 2020 and 2021, with an engine that was poorly competitive and a car unable to fight with the leaders.
In 2022 the promised turning point arrived and after a start with the best wishes, between errors by the pilots, by the wall, incomprehensible strategic choices and a reliability that was lacking in the key moment of the championship, is approaching the conclusion in the way the Red fans are now used to.
To this they add the bad moods of the star Charles Leclercevidently displeased, not to say “sick” of the team’s sports management, guilty this year of not having given him a car capable of fighting for the world championship right up to the last race and the main victim of the strategic errors of the wall.
The relationship between Vasseur and Leclerc it could be one of the reasons that will lead to the change in the Ferrari house: for the moment, however, everything is denied. However, further developments should arrive during the weekend in Abu Dhabi, the last race of the season.
