Ferrari replaces team principal
LONDON: Ferrari appointed Mattia Binotto as its fourth Formula One principal in less than five years yesterday, as previous incumbent Maurizio Arrivabene paid the price for its continuing lack of titles.
The upheaval, little more than two months before the start of the season in Australia on March 17, had been flagged before the official announcement by the Gazzeta dello Sport newspaper.
‘‘After four years of untiring commitment and dedication, Maurizio Arrivabene is leaving the team,’’ Ferrari said in a statement.
‘‘The decision was taken together with the company’s top management after lengthy discussions related to Maurizio’s longterm personal interests as well as those of the team itself.’’
Arrivabene was appointed principal of the sport’s oldest, most successful and glamorous team in November 2014, replacing Marco Mattiacci, who had taken over after Stefano Domenicali resigned in April of that year.
Binotto, a Ferrari stalwart with more than two decades of experience at Maranello, takes over with immediate effect and with all of the team’s technical areas continuing to report directly to him.
Ferrari won six of the 21 races last season but its title challenge evaporated in the second half of the year and Mercedes won both the drivers’ and constructors’ crowns for the fifth year in a row.
The Italian team’s most recent drivers’ title was with Kimi Raikkonen in 2007, a year before it took its last constructors’ championship.
Ferrari has won a record 16 constructors’ titles and is unique in having competed in every season since the first in 1950.
Arrivabene’s tenure had looked uncertain for some time, and reports as far back as October 2017 suggested Binotto could replace the former Philip Morris marketing executive.
Strategic blunders by the team last year only increased the pressure on a principal with little love or time for the media.
The team adopted something of a siege mentality under his leadership.
Former chief engineer Luca Baldisserri spoke in 2016 of a ‘‘climate of fear’’ at Maranello, with staff allegedly reluctant to take risks in case they were fired by bosses with little racing experience.
The death in July last year of combative chairman Sergio Marchionne, who had exercised the real power, triggered a change at the top. Louis Camilleri took over as chief executive and John Elkann, a scion of Italy’s gilded Agnelli family, as chairman.
Media reports last year had indicated Marchionne was already planning, before he died of complications during cancer surgery, to replace Arrivabene with Binotto.
Binotto, who has risen through the ranks to technical director and overseen a big step up in engine performance, had reportedly been a target for rival constructors and Ferrari was determined to retain his services.
How well equipped he is to fight Ferrari’s corner in delicate talks about the sport’s future post2021, with the sport’s owners keen to see a more level playing field, remains an open question.
The team’s drivers for the 2019 season are Germany’s fourtimes world champion Sebastian Vettel, runnerup to Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton last year, and new arrival Charles Leclerc who has replaced Kimi Raikkonen.
Finland’s Raikkonen, world champion in 2007, has moved to Sauber.