2023 Scuderia Ferrari F1 Team

[Shal_Leg16]

Given how far back this team is from being a contender, I would think Leclerc would probably not be interested in spending some of his best years with them trying to rebuild unless he has confidence in some of the engineers joining the Scuderia from other teams.

It's a bad situation all around unfortunately.

Ferrari’s problem is not the lack of competent engineers, but the lack of a healthy and structural leadership. If the big bosses don’t stop intervening in matters they don’t have a clue about (for example car development or pit wall management etc.), not much will change.

The hope I have is that Fred manages to change this culture.

Disagree a bit. I will compare this situation with football. For Example take United bad ownership but till SAF they were dominant take Liverpool same owners but they were shyt under other mangers won UCL with Klopp.
Point is Sports has become a business long ago and obviously the owners will interfere but if the TP and technical staff is good i dont think politics would hold the team back. With Ferrari it’s obvious they lac technically. Why is Adrian Newey not designing cars for them is a question they should ask themselves. The point is not Newey but if you want to be best you must have best driver best car best of the technical staff/Team management . After 2005 they have seldom managed to have that. Its a shame for a team like Ferrari.

[MTL79]

Given how far back this team is from being a contender, I would think Leclerc would probably not be interested in spending some of his best years with them trying to rebuild unless he has confidence in some of the engineers joining the Scuderia from other teams.

It's a bad situation all around unfortunately.

The thing is, where does he go? The only contender right now is RB... and he'd go there to be a #2, battling Verstappen. I think thats a higher risk than staying here. Mercedes has been the last year and a half and are no closer to #1 than Ferrari. Aston is dropping off a bit lately, McLaren looks promising, but it's only one race. And again, I cant see them pushing Lando to be a #2, And Piastri is not doing too bad.

There's really no sure thing at the moment, I think Ferrari is his best spot right now. The fans love him, Ferrari love him, and they have more money than any other team. Where could he go?

I agree! If he leaves, IMO, it means he has more faith in another team (other than Red Bull) to reach the top before Ferrari.

[MTL79]

Given how far back this team is from being a contender, I would think Leclerc would probably not be interested in spending some of his best years with them trying to rebuild unless he has confidence in some of the engineers joining the Scuderia from other teams.

It's a bad situation all around unfortunately.

Ferrari’s problem is not the lack of competent engineers, but the lack of a healthy and structural leadership. If the big bosses don’t stop intervening in matters they don’t have a clue about (for example car development or pit wall management etc.), not much will change.

The hope I have is that Fred manages to change this culture.

I think it's a mix of lack of proper leadership and loss of political pull with Liberty Media. Mercedes and Red Bull seemingly have more pull in F1 politics than Ferrari at this time.

[MTL79]

Given how far back this team is from being a contender, I would think Leclerc would probably not be interested in spending some of his best years with them trying to rebuild unless he has confidence in some of the engineers joining the Scuderia from other teams.

It's a bad situation all around unfortunately.

Ferrari’s problem is not the lack of competent engineers, but the lack of a healthy and structural leadership. If the big bosses don’t stop intervening in matters they don’t have a clue about (for example car development or pit wall management etc.), not much will change.

The hope I have is that Fred manages to change this culture.

I think it's a mix of lack of proper leadership and loss of political pull with Liberty Media. Mercedes and Red Bull seemingly have more pull in F1 than Ferrari at this time.

[dialtone]

Given how far back this team is from being a contender, I would think Leclerc would probably not be interested in spending some of his best years with them trying to rebuild unless he has confidence in some of the engineers joining the Scuderia from other teams.

It's a bad situation all around unfortunately.

Ferrari’s problem is not the lack of competent engineers, but the lack of a healthy and structural leadership. If the big bosses don’t stop intervening in matters they don’t have a clue about (for example car development or pit wall management etc.), not much will change.

The hope I have is that Fred manages to change this culture.

Disagree a bit. I will compare this situation with football. For Example take United bad ownership but till SAF they were dominant take Liverpool same owners but they were shyt under other mangers won UCL with Klopp.
Point is Sports has become a business long ago and obviously the owners will interfere but if the TP and technical staff is good i dont think politics would hold the team back. With Ferrari it’s obvious they lac technically. Why is Adrian Newey not designing cars for them is a question they should ask themselves. The point is not Newey but if you want to be best you must have best driver best car best of the technical staff/Team management . After 2005 they have seldom managed to have that. Its a shame for a team like Ferrari.

yeah I kind of agree. I can totally see management interfering in Ferrari but really if you have a good seniored technical team with confidence they end up doing what they need anyway. Furthermore it's unlikely management asked for less drag and give up downforce, giving up downforce is what ended up happening when they couldn't think of what else to do. RBR has less drag and more consistent downforce, I expect management asked to be like RBR.

Anyway...

[Shal_Leg16]

Ferrari’s problem is not the lack of competent engineers, but the lack of a healthy and structural leadership. If the big bosses don’t stop intervening in matters they don’t have a clue about (for example car development or pit wall management etc.), not much will change.

The hope I have is that Fred manages to change this culture.

Disagree a bit. I will compare this situation with football. For Example take United bad ownership but till SAF they were dominant take Liverpool same owners but they were shyt under other mangers won UCL with Klopp.
Point is Sports has become a business long ago and obviously the owners will interfere but if the TP and technical staff is good i dont think politics would hold the team back. With Ferrari it’s obvious they lac technically. Why is Adrian Newey not designing cars for them is a question they should ask themselves. The point is not Newey but if you want to be best you must have best driver best car best of the technical staff/Team management . After 2005 they have seldom managed to have that. Its a shame for a team like Ferrari.

yeah I kind of agree. I can totally see management interfering in Ferrari but really if you have a good seniored technical team with confidence they end up doing what they need anyway. Furthermore it's unlikely management asked for less drag and give up downforce, giving up downforce is what ended up happening when they couldn't think of what else to do. RBR has less drag and more consistent downforce, I expect management asked to be like RBR.

Anyway...

Exactly. They have fallen long way back from drawing circles around max’s RB19 at Bahrain2022 to struggling to pass a HAAS is a joke.

[gshevlin]

Ferrari has under-achieved for most of the time it has been in F1. The Schumacher-Todt-Brawn era was very much an aberration. The power structure was that Todt kept senior Ferrari management happy, and Brawn ran the team and led the technical side.
Mattia Binotto did not have a Jean Todt in his corner, and with Ferrari failing to build on 2021, he ran out of rope.
Now Fred Vasseur is in Binotto's job, and the team is (if anything) going backwards, based on the Silverstone performance.
It is generally accepted that Ferrari has tried on more than one occasion to hire Adrian Newey, but he keeps turning them down. I would turn them down if I was Newey. Newey has total leadership freedom at Red Bull, with totally supportive leadership and Christian Horner running the team. Why would he give that up to go to an organization that is (relatively speaking) an unstable snake pit?
(Side Note: Other F1 drivers have commented that the Alfa Romeo car is basically good, but that the team is not good at actually running it over a Grand Prix weekend. Alfa was under-achieving under Vasseur, who is not Italian. I still do not understand why Ferrari replaced an Italian with a non-Italian).
The uncomfortable truth for Ferrari leadership and fans is that in this era of F1, the team might have reached its ceiling under Mattia Binotto, and it is now slipping back into the familiar zone of under-performance coupled with behind-the-scenes finger-pointing. A finger-pointing culture will not attract or retain top technical talent.

[Xyz22]

Ferrari has under-achieved for most of the time it has been in F1. The Schumacher-Todt-Brawn era was very much an aberration. The power structure was that Todt kept senior Ferrari management happy, and Brawn ran the team and led the technical side.
Mattia Binotto did not have a Jean Todt in his corner, and with Ferrari failing to build on 2021, he ran out of rope.
Now Fred Vasseur is in Binotto's job, and the team is (if anything) going backwards, based on the Silverstone performance.
It is generally accepted that Ferrari has tried on more than one occasion to hire Adrian Newey, but he keeps turning them down. I would turn them down if I was Newey. Newey has total leadership freedom at Red Bull, with totally supportive leadership and Christian Horner running the team. Why would he give that up to go to an organization that is (relatively speaking) an unstable snake pit?
(Side Note: Other F1 drivers have commented that the Alfa Romeo car is basically good, but that the team is not good at actually running it over a Grand Prix weekend. Alfa was under-achieving under Vasseur, who is not Italian. I still do not understand why Ferrari replaced an Italian with a non-Italian).
The uncomfortable truth for Ferrari leadership and fans is that in this era of F1, the team might have reached its ceiling under Mattia Binotto, and it is now slipping back into the familiar zone of under-performance coupled with behind-the-scenes finger-pointing. A finger-pointing culture will not attract or retain top technical talent.

Binotto years:

2019: Bad
2020: Garbage
2021: Trash
2022: Mediocre

[Big Tea]

Ferrari has under-achieved for most of the time it has been in F1. The Schumacher-Todt-Brawn era was very much an aberration. The power structure was that Todt kept senior Ferrari management happy, and Brawn ran the team and led the technical side.
Mattia Binotto did not have a Jean Todt in his corner, and with Ferrari failing to build on 2021, he ran out of rope.
Now Fred Vasseur is in Binotto's job, and the team is (if anything) going backwards, based on the Silverstone performance.
It is generally accepted that Ferrari has tried on more than one occasion to hire Adrian Newey, but he keeps turning them down. I would turn them down if I was Newey. Newey has total leadership freedom at Red Bull, with totally supportive leadership and Christian Horner running the team. Why would he give that up to go to an organization that is (relatively speaking) an unstable snake pit?
(Side Note: Other F1 drivers have commented that the Alfa Romeo car is basically good, but that the team is not good at actually running it over a Grand Prix weekend. Alfa was under-achieving under Vasseur, who is not Italian. I still do not understand why Ferrari replaced an Italian with a non-Italian).
The uncomfortable truth for Ferrari leadership and fans is that in this era of F1, the team might have reached its ceiling under Mattia Binotto, and it is now slipping back into the familiar zone of under-performance coupled with behind-the-scenes finger-pointing. A finger-pointing culture will not attract or retain top technical talent.

I can not help but feel Ferraris problems stem from interference by management not directly involved wit the race team encouraged by the Italian press. During the -Todt Brawn Schumacher era Todt was powerful enough to 'talk back' to them and Brawn canny enough to make them want what he was doing which gave Schumacher a clear run and plenty of tracktime while the trackteam was protected by Todt and Brawn.

I admit I have no insider knowledge concerning this, just 'gut feelings' from what team members have said, or plainly not said in interviews.

[bagajohny]

Ferrari has under-achieved for most of the time it has been in F1. The Schumacher-Todt-Brawn era was very much an aberration. The power structure was that Todt kept senior Ferrari management happy, and Brawn ran the team and led the technical side.
Mattia Binotto did not have a Jean Todt in his corner, and with Ferrari failing to build on 2021, he ran out of rope.
Now Fred Vasseur is in Binotto's job, and the team is (if anything) going backwards, based on the Silverstone performance.
It is generally accepted that Ferrari has tried on more than one occasion to hire Adrian Newey, but he keeps turning them down. I would turn them down if I was Newey. Newey has total leadership freedom at Red Bull, with totally supportive leadership and Christian Horner running the team. Why would he give that up to go to an organization that is (relatively speaking) an unstable snake pit?
(Side Note: Other F1 drivers have commented that the Alfa Romeo car is basically good, but that the team is not good at actually running it over a Grand Prix weekend. Alfa was under-achieving under Vasseur, who is not Italian. I still do not understand why Ferrari replaced an Italian with a non-Italian).
The uncomfortable truth for Ferrari leadership and fans is that in this era of F1, the team might have reached its ceiling under Mattia Binotto, and it is now slipping back into the familiar zone of under-performance coupled with behind-the-scenes finger-pointing. A finger-pointing culture will not attract or retain top technical talent.

I agree. No one can deny it. There have been hardly any races where team has been able to maximise the result. On occasions, redbull & mercedes have always triumphed ferrari even when they didn't have the best car on the day. The idea of Ferrari winning when they are the underdogs is a futile one.

I honestly think that even if Ferrari had the redbull car they wouldn't have the same number of wins under their belt. They would manage to --- something up even with a car 1s faster than the rest of the field. I feel bad for Leclerc. As much as he wants it, and we want it, the truth is that he cannot achieve any success at Ferrari with the level at which the team is performing & the level at which the competition is performing.

[Xyz22]

Ferrari has under-achieved for most of the time it has been in F1. The Schumacher-Todt-Brawn era was very much an aberration. The power structure was that Todt kept senior Ferrari management happy, and Brawn ran the team and led the technical side.
Mattia Binotto did not have a Jean Todt in his corner, and with Ferrari failing to build on 2021, he ran out of rope.
Now Fred Vasseur is in Binotto's job, and the team is (if anything) going backwards, based on the Silverstone performance.
It is generally accepted that Ferrari has tried on more than one occasion to hire Adrian Newey, but he keeps turning them down. I would turn them down if I was Newey. Newey has total leadership freedom at Red Bull, with totally supportive leadership and Christian Horner running the team. Why would he give that up to go to an organization that is (relatively speaking) an unstable snake pit?
(Side Note: Other F1 drivers have commented that the Alfa Romeo car is basically good, but that the team is not good at actually running it over a Grand Prix weekend. Alfa was under-achieving under Vasseur, who is not Italian. I still do not understand why Ferrari replaced an Italian with a non-Italian).
The uncomfortable truth for Ferrari leadership and fans is that in this era of F1, the team might have reached its ceiling under Mattia Binotto, and it is now slipping back into the familiar zone of under-performance coupled with behind-the-scenes finger-pointing. A finger-pointing culture will not attract or retain top technical talent.

I agree. No one can deny it. There have been hardly any races where team has been able to maximise the result. On occasions, redbull & mercedes have always triumphed ferrari even when they didn't have the best car on the day. The idea of Ferrari winning when they are the underdogs is a futile one.

I honestly think that even if Ferrari had the redbull car they wouldn't have the same number of wins under their belt. They would manage to --- something up even with a car 1s faster than the rest of the field. I feel bad for Leclerc. As much as he wants it, and we want it, the truth is that he cannot achieve any success at Ferrari with the level at which the team is performing & the level at which the competition is performing.

This is unfortunately true. My estimate is that Ferrari to be in the title fight need a car at least 0.5s quicker than the competition at the start of the year.

This is needed to compensate for:

- Insane strategies
- Slower in season development compared to the competition
- Political TDs aimed to slow Ferrari down (happened every year)
- Terrible driver management

[Shal_Leg16]

Given how far back this team is from being a contender, I would think Leclerc would probably not be interested in spending some of his best years with them trying to rebuild unless he has confidence in some of the engineers joining the Scuderia from other teams.

It's a bad situation all around unfortunately.

Ferrari’s problem is not the lack of competent engineers, but the lack of a healthy and structural leadership. If the big bosses don’t stop intervening in matters they don’t have a clue about (for example car development or pit wall management etc.), not much will change.

The hope I have is that Fred manages to change this culture.

I think it's a mix of lack of proper leadership and loss of political pull with Liberty Media. Mercedes and Red Bull seemingly have more pull in F1 than Ferrari at this time.

Thats true. Imo Ferrari should neverever had allowed TD39.

For me its either They had no idea how it will destroy them or they had no political clout to stop it.

[f1316]

I think this idea of lacking political clout is pretty silly.

(1) F1 knows how important Ferrari is to F1 or they wouldn’t have continue to give them a power of veto for new rules
(2) they *have* said veto - so not only could they choose to use it but anything they said carries the weight of a team who could choose to use their veto should they choose
(3) Lest we forget, in the period we’re discussing, Jean Todt was FIA president and Stefano Domenicalli is now head of F1. If nothing else, the relationships are very strong

Also, while certainly Adrian Newey is a special and rare animal, Ferrari have often finished 2nd in the period mentioned - so their technical team is clearly good enough to outperform either Red Bull or Mercedes at one time or another. They haven’t been able to beat both at the same time and that’s the extra 2% which often comes down to something very specific, like investing early and heavily enough in hybrid engines or being the foremost expert on ground effect aerodynamics in your field.

So I go back to leadership as the key: making the strategic decisions around either early investment or hiring or infrastructure are what’s needed and these things need to happen years in advance but will then yield fruit for multiple years thereafter. I personally believe Marchionne was on the right track here prior to his health issues and ultimately death, but I suppose we will never know.

[Andres125sx]

Red Bull approached Charles Leclerc to explore potential Ferrari departure

Specifically, discussions have taken place with Lando Norris, who Helmut Marko has described as “the best young driver on the grid,” and Charles Leclerc, a highly significant and unexpected candidate considered by the Anglo-Austrian team. Talks with Charles Leclerc occurred in late May to explore the potential for a separation from Ferrari.

This strategic approach mirrors what Aston Martin has previously undertaken in anticipation of Fernando Alonso’s eventual departure, as they too sought a top-tier driver.

Consequently, Fred Vasseur has prioritized securing Charles Leclerc’s contract renewal for the past few weeks, leaving Carlos Sainz in a state of uncertainty. Unofficially, it appears that Sainz has not taken the situation well.

For those who read this thread, but you have read me complaining about Ferrari doing something new in F1, wich is providing TOs to favour the driver with less points in the table. Twice in a row at least

I didn´t notice this approach to Lecrerc by RBR, but now this explain this absurd behaviour by Ferrari, the dates match perfectly. RBR approach Lecrerc at the end of may, and instantly (june) Ferrari start to favour Lecrerc despite the fewer points he´s scored, to prove to Lecrerc he´s the priority for the team

Disclaimer: I´ve not provided any opinion, I´m just analysing why Ferrari did what they did, as it looked absurd from any point of view. Now there´s a reason for such absurd behaviour, like it or not, but at least there´s a reason

Opinion: Ferrari will lose both Lecrerc, because they will not provide a title contender car to him, but also Sainz for this unfair behaviour with him, despite he´s always been a true team player with Ferrari, and any other team


Basically Ferrari continue his tendency to ruin every single department, if some is working nice, Ferrari will manage to make it explode in no time

[R_Redding]

Ferrari’s problem is not the lack of competent engineers, but the lack of a healthy and structural leadership. If the big bosses don’t stop intervening in matters they don’t have a clue about (for example car development or pit wall management etc.), not much will change.

The hope I have is that Fred manages to change this culture.

There may be a few issues that UK F1 engineers have to consider when deciding to move to Ferrari...
1) uprooting familys etc.
2) can Ferrari now pay the exhorbitant wages that they used to attract personel under the cost cap?
3)How they treated James Allison when his wife died.
4)How they treated ex Merc suspension designer Steve Clark (the bobsled case where Clark took them to a Maranello court and Won). leading to .....
5)do they want you...or do they want to deprive your current team of you.