BINOTTO FACES FURTHER PRESSURE AS THE AXE LOOMS

The Italian media has fuelled speculation that Mattia Binotto will resign from his post as F1 team principal at Ferrari and could step down by the end of this week.

There were reports around the Abu Dhabi GP weekend that Binotto was on the verge of the axe but no action has yet been taken. He has overseen an error-strewn season in which Charles Leclerc relinquished an early points lead and only secured second spot in the drivers’ table at the final round. Despite that, Ferrari president John Elkann has given Binotto some tacit backing.

He told the Gazzetta dello Sport newspaper: “We have faith in Mattia Binotto and appreciate everything he and all our engineers have done, but there is no doubt that the work in Maranello, in the garage, on the pitwall and at the wheel needs to improve. We must continue to make progress and that goes for the mechanics, the engineers, the drivers and the entire management team, including the team principal. We have seen that there are still too many mistakes when it comes to reliability, driving and strategy. Putting our trust in Binotto and his team was the right decision. Thanks to them we are competitive gain. But I am not satisfied. We can do better.”

Alfa Romeo team boss Frederic Vasseur has been tipped as a possible replacement for Binotto.