Ferrari boss Mattia Binotto has ruled out any firings as a result of the team’s poor performance in 2020.
But for Charles Leclerc’s miraculous second place in the first race in Austria, the Scuderia has had very little to cheer as a loss in engine performance and a lack of downforce has seen them fall down the competitive order.
As a result, speculation is already growing over the future of Binotto, with the head of Ferrari’s GT racing division, Antonello Coletta, named as a possible replacement.
The current Ferrari boss though rejected there was any chance of he or anyone else losing their position because it wouldn’t help the team move forward.
“After three races, it’s clear that we are in worse shape than we expected and we need to react without delay,” said Binotto in his post-Hungarian Grand Prix column.
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“The entire car project has to be revised while taking into consideration the limits currently imposed by the regulations. I am well aware there is no magic wand in Formula 1, but we have to step up a gear to turn things around, both in the short and the long term.
“It might also be necessary to look at our organisation to improve and strengthen our working methods where the need is greatest. But first, as a team, we need to understand the dynamic that led to this situation.
“I have confidence in the people who work in the Gestione Sportiva: we have started out on a long process that should lead to another winning cycle,” the Swiss added. “It will take a while, but the whole company understands and supports this vision.
“That’s why I find it amusing to read some stories that are doing the rounds: it’s not by sacking people that you make a car go faster…”
It has been suggested, however, that Binotto needs more support at the top of the Ferrari hierarchy, having taken on the team principal role alongside his previous position as technical director.
“I like Mattia Binotto, he was on my cars as an engineer. A nice guy, also clever guy, also good guy,” former driver Gerhard Berger told the F1 Nation podcast last week.
“But when you compare Ferrari having one leading person like Binotto on the technical side, on the political side, on the race strategy side and so on, at Red Bull you have a Christian Horner, extremely competitive, you have Adrian Newey, a genius in his area, you have Helmut Marko, a shark having all the motorsport experience.
“If you take Mercedes, the same thing. Andy Cowell, Niki Lauda, Toto Wolff. Everybody at the same time, improving the team. Political, technical, and whatever.
“So I’m wondering if the setup of Ferrari is strong enough?”
The man Binotto replaced as technical director back in 2016 is current Mercedes tech chief James Allison, who has spent two periods of his F1 career at Maranello.
Adding his view on Ferrari’s plight, the Briton believes much of the problem comes from the immense scrutiny places on everyone at the team both from outside and inside the gates.
“So working at Ferrari is in many ways an unalloyed joy, the country is so pro the team, the brand is so strong, the history and heritage of Ferrari are so important that you do feel that you are part of something that is itself important and that is a real strength for that group,” he explained.
“But it’s also probably their biggest burden that they carry, too, because along with that affection and joy that the nation shares in Ferrari’s successes comes a great deal of pressure when things are going poorly.
“That pressure is externally applied from the press in a much more intense way than any other Formula 1 team. It is internally applied from just everyone who feels the duty to be living up to the great performances that the team has shown in the past.
“And it is, I think, most powerfully internally expressed by a top-down leadership style that at Ferrari is probably more exaggerated than in other teams, and that tends to make the team make short-term decisions and can lead it astray instead of building fundamental strengths that will carry it from year to year.
“So it is a real mixture of these heady highs and base lows which have, at their root, the same origin which is the huge desire within the team and out, for the Ferrari brand to be fighting at the front of the field.”
