'Mattia Binotto paid the price for trying to copy Toto Wolff’s culture at Ferrari'

Scuderia Ferrari focused on its project for the 2022 Formula 1 season already from 2021, with several solutions and updates introduced during the 2021 campaign having the main goal of being used on the new car. And it seemed the Maranello team’s approach had paid off: in the start of this year’s championship, the F1-75 proved to be the fastest car and Charles Leclerc immediately capitalized on its speed to take two amazing race wins in Bahrain and Australia.

It looked like Ferrari would finally be able to mount a serious title challenge against Red Bull, with Mercedes off the pace in the first half of the season. But despite having the fastest car for the most part of the first ten races, Ferrari lost valuable points due to strategy errors and power unit reliability problems, which also meant the team had to limit the engine power as the season progressed, gradually being outdeveloped by Red Bull, who finished the year with a much faster car.

This meant that Max Verstappen and Red Bull were free to easily secure both world championships, being able to limit the damage in the first races and them showing a scary level of consistency to gain a huge gap against the Italian side. Given the fact that power unit reliability problems and poor strategical calls were the key factors that hindered Ferrari’s title challenge, Mattia Binotto took the majority of the blame, but did not want to change any team members or leaders of specific departments, an approach that was questioned by chairman John Elkann

British television broadcaster for Sky Sports, David Croft, believes that Mattia Binotto strong desire to protect his man and to jump in front of bullets for his team members may in fact be one of the key factors which caused him to lose his job as Ferrari Team Principal:

“I was thinking about this, did Mattia Binotto paid the price for a season of over-expectation for Ferrari? But no, is the answer to that, as you say they have engineered the fastest car,” – the Sky Sports commentator replied, when asked about the reasons behind Mattia Binotto’s decision to leave Ferrari.

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“Did he pay the price for trying to protect the staff at Maranello from the intense scrutiny and any public blame? Yes, I think he did. It’s interesting. Toto Wolff creates a culture of no blame at Mercedes. Mattia Binotto tries to do the same thing at Ferrari, one is fêted for that and the other has to resign.” – David Croft added.

Frederic Vasseur will now have the difficult task of trying to get Ferrari back on top, but many feel that if Ferrari are to completely put behind their issues in 2022, the senior management has to find the roots of their problems by changing internal procedures and the organizational structure as to allow all members of the staff to work in the best possible way.