Stefano Domenicali: ‘What Mandela said is understandable but it was a different time’
As Formula One revels in its most enthralling season for years, no one is enjoying it more than Stefano Domenicali. The sport is lucky to have him at the helm. For the Italian, who grew up as a fan and was competing at the heart of the sport for the greater part of his career, this is much more than a business. Domenicali knows that to the drivers, the teams, and most importantly the fans, it is racing that matters.
Born in Imola it is unsurprising that Domenicali, the Formula One Group’s chief executive, took to motor racing and he laughs and launches a fond recollection when asked to recall his youth.
“When you are born in Imola you grow up with the track,’’ he says. “It’s natural for kids growing up in the midst of the sport that you fall in love with it. We were having fun, always at Tosa corner with my friends. I fell in love with cars, with Ferrari, with the bikes.”
Domenicali’s passion is palpable and refreshing but he must navigate a difficult path in considering how F1 acts in its position as an increasingly popular and genuinely global sport, not least in where it goes racing.
With Qatar and Saudi Arabia new additions this season and Bahrain already on the calendar, human rights groups have been vocal in their criticism of F1 enabling sportswashing by visiting these states.
Nelson Mandela noted the part the sporting boycott of South Africa played in ending apartheid. Domenicali questions whether F1 should follow Mandela’s lead.
“What Nelson Mandela said is absolutely understandable but it was at a different time of the world,” he says. “Today the approach is of making sure that through F1 we can be the big lens on the fact that each country really wants to prove to the world they want to change. There will be no excuses, no filter.”
He cites F1’s stated commitment to human rights and that host nations are expected to abide by it but in Bahrain opposition groups insist there has been no change since F1 began racing there and Domenicali concedes the scale of the challenge.
“We cannot pretend to change from day to night a millennial situation,” he says. “We can give an incredible opportunity to them with which they cannot play games. I would say we are going to help the community to change faster rather than slower.”
It is an argument unlikely to go away in the near future.
Beyond these big questions Domenicali is hugely optimistic for that future, even after Lewis Hamilton hangs up his helmet. “The good news is that we have an incredible number of top drivers,” he says. “I see Max Verstappen, George Russell, Lando Norris, Charles Leclerc and all the others. Almost all of them are really top drivers. The next five years the drivers will not be an issue at all for F1.”
The 56-year-old took over as chief executive from previous incumbent Chase Carey at the start of this year. Carey had led F1 since it was bought by Liberty Media in 2017 but was a businessman not a racer and it showed. The contrast between the two could not be more marked. Where Carey was guarded and cautious, Domenicali is open and enthusiastic.
Domenicali was the kid who had posters in his bedroom of Ferraris, of Barry Sheene, of Jarno Saarinen, the hugely talented Finnish motorcyclist killed at Monza in 1973, and has been following his passion ever since. From volunteering at Imola when he was 14 he went on to become qualified as a steward and race director, the youngest in MotoGP.
Having finished his degree Domenicali sent his CV far and wide including to Ferrari. Just as he had not expected the call to take the F1 job, Ferrari’s offer in 1991 came as a surprise. He leapt at it and was there for 23 years, through the glory of Michael Schumacher’s success before becoming team principal in 2008 – the last time the Scuderia won a championship. He stepped down in 2014 after a poor start to the season with Ferrari’s new turbo-hybrid engine proving disappointing. He has since been in senior management at Audi and most recently was CEO of Lamborghini.
He is liked and admired across the paddock. Hamilton immediately welcomed his appointment. “I don’t think they could have really chosen someone better to be honest,” he said. “Stefano, he’s got a great heart, good family and good morals, so the future’s positive.” High praise indeed from a driver unafraid to be critical of F1’s decision-makers and whom Domenicali admitted he wanted to sign to Ferrari.
Domenicali has a genial manner but brings a knowledge and understanding of the sport that is appreciated by all the teams, even given that it is he who must herd these fiercely egotistical and self-interested entities in directions they often oppose. If F1’s sporting director, the former Ferrari technical director Ross Brawn, role was celebrated as poacher-turned gamekeeper, Domenicali was surely to the manor born as Brawn’s boss.
It is inescapable that managing the teams and the business is crucial, so the sport must be sustainable, Domenicali insists. He cites the budget cap which was brought in this year as a fundamental change for the good but also sees a bigger picture beyond balancing the books.
“The sport is what is vital, heroes, drivers, are vital to us,” he says. “We need the technical support of manufacturers, of teams, because our sport is human beings and the technical side of the cars but without great personalities, without the drama of our heroes it’s impossible to think of a great future for our sport.”
Unsurprisingly then he couldn’t be more pleased with the gripping fight between Hamilton and Verstappen this season. The Dutchman is six points ahead with six rounds remaining.
“It is fantastic to have two brilliant drivers battling for the championship,” he says. “One going for an eighth title and to make history and the other going for his first. It is incredible drama and brilliant for F1. Both have a great opportunity. All I hope for the sport and all the fans is it goes down to the last race in Abu Dhabi.”
Their intense rivalry is fuelling a revitalised sport. Interest in F1 is growing globally and Domenicali believes they are now at a pivotal point in engaging with a new, younger audience. The former chief executive Bernie Ecclestone’s ill-informed dismissal of social media and indeed young fans has been abandoned as the anachronism it always was.
There is an undeniable sense Domenicali genuinely wants a new generation of fans to feel the same as he did as the youth who threw himself into the sport all those years ago. It is a passion that echoes across the years in his final remarks, telling of his character and what F1 means to him as he considers racing on during the pandemic.
“It is tough but I compare us being lucky to people who have real tough jobs and some have not even had the chance to work,” he says. “I put it all in perspective, I know it is challenging but we should never forget we have the privilege of being in this sport.”