Why F1 team boss Mattia Binotto is under the microscope at Ferrari

The 2022 Formula One season is winding down, as the circuit heads to Yas Marina for the Abu Dhabi, the final race of the campaign.

While there are still some matters to settle on the track, such as who will finish second in the Driver’s Championship behind Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, there are matters yet to be determined for the 2023 campaign. And if recent reports out of Italy are true, then a shocking move could be at the works at the top of one of the biggest F1 teams on the planet.

According to a report from Italian outlet Gazzetta dello Sport, Scuderia Ferrari is set to move on from Team Principal Mattia Binotto, replacing him with Frederic Vasseur, who currently holds that position for Alfa Romeo.

Binotto has been with Ferrari since 1995, and served as the team’s Technical Director before moving into his current role as Team Principal in 2019. Ferrari notched a trio of victories that season, in three-straight races. Charles Leclerc won the Belgium Grand Prix at the start of September, and then delivered Ferrari’s home race, the Italian Grand Prix, to Scuderia the following week. Then it was Sebastian Vettel’s turn, as the veteran took the Singapore Grand Prix two weeks later.

However, those victories were not without controversy. An FIA investigation into Ferrari’s power unit resulted in a “settlement” between FIA and Ferrari, and the findings from the investigation remain unknown. FIA released a statement that stated in part: “The FIA announces that, after thorough technical investigations, it has concluded its analysis of the operation of the Scuderia Ferrari Formula 1 power unit and reached a settlement with the team. The specifics of the agreement will remain between the parties.”

Adding to the intrigue was Ferrari’s performance during the shortened 2020 season. Ferrari did not manage a single victory, and the team finished sixth in the Constructor’s Championship, their worst performance since placing tenth in 1980.

Last season did offer some redemption for Binotto, and Ferrari, as they climbed back to third in the Constructor’s Championship, finishing behind Mercedes and Red Bull. While they did not win any races, they managed a handful of podium finishes, with Leclerc finishing second in the British Grand Prix — in addition to a number of fourth-place finishes — and teammate Carlos Sainz placing second in Monaco, and third in Hungary, Russia, and Abu Dhabi.

Sainz finished the season fifth in the standings, with Leclerc two spots behind in seventh.

With one race remaining, things look even better for Ferrari this season, but there is a catch. Sainz is assured of no worse than a sixth-place finish, and could still catch Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton for fifth place. Leclerc is locked in a duel with Red Bulls Sergio Pérez for second.

Ferrari also enters the final weekend of the season in second place in the Constructor’s standings, which would be their best finish since Binotto’s debut season as Team Principal, back in 2019.

With this kind of rebound from a disastrous 2020 season, why might Binotto be on the hot seat? Because instead of pushing for the Constructor’s Championship, as it looked like Ferrari might do at the start of the season, the team is holding on to second for dear life, and facing a charge from Mercedes as the year winds down.

Consider this. After the first four races of the season, Ferrari sat atop the Constructor’s standings, with 124 points on the young season. Red Bull was in second, with 113 points, while Mercedes was far behind the two, sitting at 77 points on the year.

After the fifth race of the season, the Miami Grand Prix, Ferrari was still at the top, sitting on 157 points, with Red Bull starting to close the gap, with 151 points.

Mercedes was still in third, with just 95 points on the year.

But a host of technical failures, and strategic miscues, starting the at the next Grand Prix saw Ferrari falter during the middle stretch of the season. These miscues allowed Mercedes to continually close the gap, while Red Bull pulled into first, and away from Ferrari. Engine failures at the Spanish Grand Prix, and the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, knocked Leclerc out of each event despite sitting on the pole.

At the Monaco Grand Prix, Leclerc’s home event, he and Sainz were running in first and second. But indecisiveness regarding tyre and pit strategy cost the team a shot at finishing atop the grid. Perhaps the best way to summarize the events of that day — where Ferrari could not decide between staying on the track on their wet, grooved tyres or switching quickly to the intermediates — comes through this moment. The team radioed to Leclerc to box, but as he was turning down pit lane, they told him to stay out.

Leclerc, understandably, lost his mind. (You might want to wait to watch this if kids are in the room or you are at work):

“When you start with your two cars on the front row and you don’t win, it means something went wrong from our side,” Binotto admitted after the race. “I think we made a few poor decisions and we paid the price.”

Then there was the Hungarian Grand Prix, where again Leclerc was leading the field. But Red Bull might have spooked Ferrari into another blunder. With 32 laps remaining, Red Bull brought Max Verstappen into the pits, to change into another set of medium tyres. Rather than bring in Sainz — who was running on older tyres than Leclerc — Ferrari gave Leclerc the order to box.

Rather than put Leclerc back on the track with medium tyres, perhaps because Ferrari brought him in after just 17 laps on the mediums, and knowing that there was no way Leclerc would get to the finish on just one set of soft tyres, Ferrari decided to put the hard tyres on Leclerc’s car.

The problem? Ferrari had not even tried them in the Friday practice session. There were expectations that over time, as the track warmed up, hard tyres would find their grip. Yet there was even evidence from the Grand Prix itself that those expectations might not come to fruition, as both Esteban Ocon and Fernando Alonso of Alpine struggled on the hard compound.

Still, Leclerc rolled out of the box on the hard tyres ... and immediately began losing position on the track. He would come in later and change to soft tyres, but the damage was done, and he finished sixth.

Leclerc questioned the decision after the race. “I made it clear that the medium I wanted to keep it as long as possible, but we pitted very early for the hard, which we need to understand why.”

As a result of these failures and miscues, instead of fighting with Red Bull at the top of the standings, Ferrari enters the final race of the season trying desperately to hold off a charging Mercedes team.

The potential of Ferrari slipping to third in the final weekend of the year has many around the sport questioning what is happening with the team, and the decisions that have been made. Jacques Villeneuve, who won the F1 title in 1997 when driving for Williams, said in his post-race column after the Brazilian Grand Prix that if Ferrari slid to third in the standings, it would be “embarrassing.”

Wrote Villeneuve: “Should Ferrari lose second spot in the Constructors’ Championship, it would be embarrassing. They should have fought Red Bull – there is something there that is not working.”

All of this has left Binotto under a microscope heading into Yas Marina, and rumors continue to swirl about his future with Ferrari. The team released a statement denying the reporting out of Italy that read “[i]n relation to speculation in certain media regarding Scuderia Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto’s position, Ferrari states that these rumours are totally without foundation.”

But it certainly seems that at a minimum, Ferrari needs to hold Mercedes off for second in the Constructor’s Championship this weekend. If not, perhaps the door truly is open for a change, which leads us to Vasseur. Why might he be the new man in charge?

Because of his previous relationship with Leclerc.

Vasseur and Leclerc worked together in 2016, winning a GP3 title. Two years later, in his first F1 season, Leclerc raced for the Alfa Romeo Sauber F1 Team, where Vasseur was the Team Principal. Leclerc, finished 13th in the Driver’s Championship that year, with 39 points.

Vasseur developed a strong working relationship with the young driver, and Vasseur continues to praise Leclerc, even to this season as he races for a rival team. After some of Ferrari’s mid-season struggles, Vasseur had this to say about his former driver:

Apart from his unrivalled talent? I have only seen one other driver be so ruthless in criticising himself when his performance was below par and that was Lewis Hamilton. Hamilton and Leclerc are the only drivers I have seen in my F1 career with self-criticism, even after a win. All the other drivers would have patted themselves on the shoulder, but these two know they should have driven better. They approach that relentlessly.

With tension reportedly growing between Leclerc and Binotto, a move to a new Team Principal with a better relationship between Ferrari’s top driver might be the approach.

Whether such a move comes to fruition remains to be seen, and Vasseur is not the only name that has been linked to Ferrari in recent weeks, as other reports have linked McLaren Team Principal Andreas Seidl with Ferrari. They could also look to promote from within, as Scuderia’s current sporting director Laurent Mekies has also been mentioned as a potential replacement.

Ferrari enters the final weekend of the season with perhaps more questions than answers. Can Leclerc emerge victorious in his battle with Pérez for second? Can Scuderia hold off Mercedes for second in the Constructor’s Championship?

And will Binotto be around the team when 2023 begins?