‘Even Red Bull boss Christian Horner would struggle at Ferrari’

A respected Formula 1 observer has claimed that even Red Bull team principal Christian Horner would struggle to manage Ferrari effectively, if he was not granted the necessary power and control.

Former Alfa Romeo boss Frédéric Vasseur was announced as Ferrari’s new team boss earlier this month following departure of Mattia Binotto, who resigned from his position at the end of the 2022 season after the team failed to capitalise on a strong start to the campaign.

Ferrari have failed to win a Drivers’ Championship since 2007, with Vasseur the fifth different team principal since Jean Todt left the team at the end of that season.

Appearing on Motor Sport Magazine’s season review podcast, experienced reporter Mark Hughes has argued that Ferrari’s problems are deep rooted and lie at the heart of the team’s culture.

Speaking before Binotto’s resignation was officially announced, he said: “There’s something clearly not fundamentally right within how decisions are taken in the field and at the track and it’s not a new problem. It’s been there for years. You remember Fernando Alonso essentially dictating strategy from the car, you remember Sebastian Vettel doing it.

“They’re such basic things that they can’t just be because somebody hasn’t understood something, it can only be because they’re overloaded in the moment with too many things coming at them.

“It’s not feasible that these are just failures of understanding, because some of them are so obvious. There’s got to be something fundamentally wrong with the environment there.”

After two years in the competitive wilderness, Ferrari did at least return to race-winning contention in 2022 as Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz claimed a combined total of four victories in the innovative F1-75 , which comfortably claimed more pole positions than any other car across the season.

Hughes believes Binotto deserves praise for bringing Ferrari back to the forefront of technical thinking in Formula 1, but feels his departure has come due to his failure to address the team’s cultural issues.

And he feels Ferrari’s success during Michael Schumacher’s spell of dominance, overseen by Todt and Ross Brawn at the turn of the century, should act as a template to return to World Championship contention.

He said: “That’s something that Binotto hasn’t been able to put right in his time there. Whereas he has put right the lack of creativity – and the following of the trend of last year’s car, so you’re always half a step behind – he has put that right.

“That’s the really difficult, the creative bit – and he’s fixed the creative bits and that’s remarkable – but the underlying culture bit is still there.

“And that’s ultimately why he’s going to be made the scapegoat and rather than supporting him and helping him put it right they’ll just say, ‘right, next’.

“And [the new] guy will be there and if he’s really good he’ll be there for a while, but he will ultimately be fired. And if he’s not very good, he will not be there for very long before he’s fired. That’s just how it is.

“Until the culture above the team changes, the same thing is going to keep happening.

“And the only time it hasn’t been structured like that was in the Jean Todt, Ross Brawn era and look what happened – it became the greatest team that had ever been seen in F1 up to that time.

“Before then, it massively underdelivered on its potential; after then, it massively underdelivered on its potential. There’s a correlation there and I can’t help thinking it’s causation also.”

Binotto’s promotion to the role of team principal in 2019 was the pinnacle of his 28-year career at Ferrari, having risen through the ranks after first joining the team’s engine department in 1995.

Hughes feels that Binotto’s background was a factor in his failure in the top job, claiming the Ferrari team principal must be a leader rather than an employee and be granted total authority by the board.

“I think part of the problem is that Binotto is a product of Ferrari, he’s been there since he graduated from university and as an employee, you cannot do that job as an employee, you’ve got to be the boss,” he explained.

“And that’s what Ross and Jean Todt were. And they formed this force field around them – those two and Michael Schumacher – knowing that they were the best at their jobs in the field and just said: ‘Leave us alone. Tell us the budget, leave us alone’.

“If anybody tried to get in between the three of them, the others closed rank and they couldn’t. Nobody could get in. As soon as that was broken up, it started to fall apart.

“I think [Vasseur will be] another employee. It’s not so much who the person is, it’s how they are empowered once they’re there. And I don’t think that realisation has hit the people above the team principal role.

“Because if they do accept that, then they accept it’s their fault.”

When asked if a figure of Horner’s stature could turn Ferrari around, Hughes said: “He would have to be empowered in the same way that Jean and Ross made themselves empowered. If he came in as an employee, it would make not the slightest bit of difference.”

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