The end of 2022 couldn’t go out without a last hurrah of silliness. Shortly after the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, three teams announced major changes to their pit walls in 2023. The biggest news was Mattia Binotto announcing his resignation as Team Principal of Ferrari on Nov. 29, 2022.
It is fair to say that Ferrari’s actions as a team were their downfall for their 2022 seasons for a number of different reasons. Mistakes that cost them their lead at the beginning of the season, and any chances of getting back into the championship. Finishing second place in both the Driver’s and Constructor’s championships is a good result after a few winless seasons. It’s not good enough when considering the long-term goals of Ferrari’s very personal and hands-on governing board to be back to winning races and contending for championships after the team’s struggles through this turbo-hybrid era of cars. A goal that under Binotto’s direction, Ferrari lost out on last season.
The answer Ferrari’s management structure chose was to replace the Team Principal and softly restructure. Ferrari has used this approach before, but it’s an answer that can bring on as much harm as it does good.
Binotto’s nearly 30-year-long career with the team started in the engine department. He has seen years of insight into the team and the company’s owners and board, and a clear direction for the team’s development. It is clear that Ferrari needs to make structural and director changes to not repeat last year. Chief engineers, mechanics, and other team members in Ferrari could be replaced first before changing the top positions.
On Dec. 13, Fred Vasseur, the (now former) team Principal at Alfa Romeo/Sauber, was announced as Ferrari’s new Team Principal. Vasseur is now the fifth Ferrari team principal since 2008, coming in after relative successes at Renault and Alfa Romeo as their Team Principals. Progressing Alfa to their most successful season last year in decades. Most importantly, Vasseur comes with a great, long working relationship with driver Charles Leclerc. The two met at the start of Leclerc’s motorsport career in GP3 and Formula 3 and 2, and Vasseur was team principal Sauber when Leclerc arrived in F1 in 2018.
Vasseur does have the tools to succeed at Ferrari: 2022’s car is a great base to move forward on in 2023, and with a fresh pair of eyes that are unclouded by Ferrari’s internal issues and pressure, Vasseur could inspire and push where Binotto could not. Or Vasseur could be another victim in Ferrari’s status quo and suffer from the pressure of the Ferrari board and be another of the short-lived Team Principals until the next engine era.
Binotto’s resignation was the tip of the iceberg to this year’s holiday shuffle. Jost Capito, now former Team Principal at Williams, left after two years with the team. At this moment, there has been no news about Williams’ replacement, with limited options if they hope to improve from dead last in 2022.
McLaren’s former Team Principal Andreas Seidl joined Sauber as their Chief Executive Officer to replace Vasseur. McLaren promoted their executive director Andrea Stella to Team Principal after Seidl’s exit. Stella is a relative unknown but has been with McLaren since 2015, serving multiple key roles within the team. Stella also comes with a long history of working alongside some greats in F1. While he was a performance engineer for Ferrari, Stella worked alongside Michael Schumacher in 2002, and again with Kimi Raikkonen in 2007, during the last of Ferrari’s last constructor’s championships.
Seidl’s move to Sauber will be one to watch throughout the next few seasons. Sauber is currently partnered with Alfa Romeo for this last season before beginning their new partnership with Audi in 2026. Seidl will have a small number of years to work on the restructuring of Sauber in preparation for Audi’s entrance in a few years’ time.
The next stage in this long wait until the 2023 season is the team launches in February. Only Aston Martin, Ferrari, and AlphaTauri have announced launch dates in mid-February, before testing in Barcelona.
Teryn Midzain is an English Major with ambitious goals to write movies and a full-time nerd, whose personality and eccentrics run on high-octane like the cars he loves. More importantly, Teryn loves sports [Formula One], and doesn’t care who knows. When not creating and running deadly schemes in his D&D sessions, Teryn tries to reach the core of what makes the romantic and dramatic World of Sports, the characters and people that make the events so spectacular.