VASSEUR RINGS IN THE CHANGES
Vasseur is understood to have been in the frame for the team principal role at Ferrari in 2018, when rumours circulated he was the preferred choice of then-president Sergio Marchionne. But this prospect faded in the flurry of events which surrounded Marchionne’s untimely death that year. Even if in F1 Vasseur hasn’t yet obtained results of tremendous significance, he boasts a vast experience in motorsport. In Maranello a man of the track, an organiser with a profound knowledge of the work carried out in a racing team and with great experience of driver management, was seen as necessary – someone with both the knowledge to identify weaknesses and the clout to rectify them.
“I need a period of learning,” Vasseur insisted in his first press conference, held in Maranello in January – but within weeks he had clearly learned enough to begin reshaping the Scuderia’s operations. The first topic on Vasseur’s agenda was the strategy team, whose head – Inaki Rueda – was banished to a factory role while Ravin Jain was appointed in his place. The team’s pitwall complement was reduced from eight people to six, and head of track operations Claudio Albertini (a senior engineering figure for many years) was transferred to the Ferrari Driver Academy. Sporting director Laurent Mekies also lost some of his previous responsibilities. Activities concerning relations with sponsors and media, as well as driver management, will now fall within Vasseur’s remit, while Mekies focuses solely on team management.
It’s not a massive revolution, but it represents change after a long period of stability in the team guaranteed by Binotto. One of the hallmarks of the Binotto era was the refusal to acknowledge or admit to failures, which the team principal would defend to the hilt or try to explain away even in the face of evidence of critical mistakes. Vasseur has made it clear that everything is up for reassessment during his reign: he wants Ferrari to be more like Red Bull or Mercedes, targeting continuous improvement in all areas. He emphasised that the changes to the strategy setup were “not about the person”, but part of a wider reassessment of process, communication and technology. “If you stay at the same level two weeks in a row you are dead,” he said during the Bahrain test. “Because everybody else is improving.”
The path that awaits Vasseur certainly isn’t as steep as the one taken by Jean Todt in 1993. Ferrari finished 2022 as runner-up, has sound technical know-how and a reasonable organisational structure. The first problem Vasseur will have to familiarise himself with will be the pressure, destined to increase if the results don’t live up to expectations, or if Ferrari doesn’t confirm itself as a title contender by the end of the season. Early in the Todt era, president Luca di Montezemolo intervened in the difficult moments to publicly confirm his faith in the working group,
“IF YOU STAY AT THE SAME LEVEL TWO WEEKS IN A ROW YOU ARE DEAD BECAUSE EVERYBODY ELSE IS IMPROVING” FRÉDÉRIC VASSEUR
taking pressure off the team. Elkann and Vigna are unlikely to do this; so far, their only public interventions have been to heap pressure on the team leaders rather than deflect it.
Another significant challenge for Vasseur will be to manage the relationship between Sainz and Leclerc, a couple who already had critical moments last year. Any further friction here will feed into another situation looming on Vasseur’s radar: Leclerc’s contract renewal.
Although Leclerc’s deal runs until the end of 2024, in reality the decision on whether to extend it or not will be shaped by events this year. If the SF-23 can be made reliable and racewinningly competitive, if Ferrari can develop it effectively through the season, and if the team can operate at a consistently high level, Leclerc will have few reasons to transfer his allegiance elsewhere. That amounts to a lot of ‘ifs’.
Over the past four years, both on the track and in his human and professional relationships with the whole team, Leclerc has added tremendous value to Ferrari. Also, pressingly, there is nobody within Ferrari’s young-driver ladder ready to operate at his level should he choose to depart. For all these reasons he would be massive loss to the Scuderia, and one which would invite the wrath of fans, media, sponsors and senior management.
For Vasseur, then, the race to keep Leclerc in red has already begun.