the journey of Frederic Vasseur as team leader Ferrari It has only just started and is already on its way to its first crisis. The bad feelings of the preseason were confirmed in the Bahrain Grand Prixwhere Charles Leclerc had to retire due to a reliability failure Carlos Sainz the podium options vanished for the already famous SF-23 degradation.
He resigned last Thursday David Sanchez, head of the aerodynamic development of the single-seater. According to various Italian media, Sánchez would have received a million-dollar offer from McLaren, so he would have to leave his position in Maranello to be able to join the work dynamics of the British team.
But it has not been the only change in Ferrari, since during the winter break, Vasseur fired Madrid engineer Iñaki Rueda as head of strategy, relegating him to the position of assistant to the new strategic manager, Ravin Jain.
The theory says that Vasseur is in charge of leading this internal restructuring in the team, but according to Fluvio Solms, a journalist for the ‘Corriere dello Sport’, the French are not being able to exercise their power freely. John Elkannpresident of Ferrari, would have given the order to Benedetto Vigna, CEO of Ferrari, to direct Vasseur’s decisions. Solms assures that “by order of Elkann, Vigna acts as commissioner on Vasseur” and that the French “has much less decision-making power than its predecessors“.
Vasseur arrived at Ferrari in January from alfa romeo to succeed to Mattia Binotto. The Swiss exited through the back door after a disastrous season finale in 2022 that saw both the drivers’ and constructors’ championships vanish. The start of this season has not been very different from the second half of 2022, and Vasseur, after one race, is already on the ropes.
In fact, various media indicate that Charles Leclerc, his main supporter, would be looking for a way out of Ferrari towards Mercedes, which would be a lethal blow to the mandate of Frédéric Vasseur. The Frenchman arrived to bring peace of mind to Ferrari, but if he does not manage to redirect the situation, it would not be strange if he went from being Ferrari’s peacemaker to reissue the case of Marco Matiacciwhose time at Ferrari it barely lasted half a year.
