Did Ferrari do the right thing by parting ways with Mattia Binotto?

Facts : By accepting the resignation of Mattia Binotto, the Team Ferrari has recognized its need for change at the head of Gestione Sportiva and especially its team. Formula 1. The Italian had felt the tide turn and no longer considered himself sufficiently supported to continue his mission. Did Ferrari make the right decision in parting ways with the Italian?

Yes, by Gonzalo Forbes

Double in Bahrain, new victory in Australia… Everything started perfectly for Ferrari in 2022. Under the tutelage of Mattia Binotto who was starting his 4^e season in charge of the house, the Scuderia could allow itself to dream bigger again after two complicated years to say the least.

Ultimately, the dream turned into a nightmare for the Reds. Withdrawals, bad strategies, questionable race choices, the Italians made a series of blunders, which resulted in big losses of points.

Internally, relations have become considerably strained. Mattia Binotto, in his role as team principal, tried to calm things down by looking for excuses whose veracity we still doubt. It would be hard to blame him for all the problems encountered by his men throughout the year.

But from the outside, despite the repeated errors, we didn't feel that things were moving internally. While he could have asked his soldiers for more rigor for the 2^e part of the season, Mattia Binotto seemed to have lost faith, as if it was a given that Ferrari could no longer do anything against Red Bull.

Arriving in 2019 to turn around a Scuderia in search of new life, Mattia Binotto has reached the end of his cycle. The machine seems to be jammed. The confidence that big boss John Elkann had reiterated in him at Monza last September no longer seems to be relevant. And when a team isn't moving forward, or is having a lot of trouble getting there, sometimes it's ideal to make changes.

This is perhaps the best solution in the short term because on the pilots' side Charles Leclerc et Carlos Sainz are linked until 2024 and the Maranello pundits are banking on them. Competitive at the start of the year, disoriented in recent months, Ferrari wants to get back on track.

Nothing better to achieve this than a restructuring of the organization chart starting with a change of captain because the arrival of his replacement could establish a new dynamic in the transalpine ranks in order to move forward.

No, by Jérémy Satis

In my opinion, Ferrari made a mistake by parting ways with Mattia Binotto. Of course, it was the Italian who resigned, but let's not play with words, Ferrari accepted it without complaint and if he himself ended his mission, it was due to the lack of support of his bosses.

Was he the man for the job? Difficult to say when you are not navigating the bays of Maranello. What I observe from the outside is first of all that he was a respected leader, a leader dubbed by his people, and that his propensity to protect the men and women of the stable was essential, especially within a team as media-rich as the Scuderia.

By parting ways with Binotto, the Scuderia is certainly not losing a great team principal, but certainly an exceptional technical director, who arrived at Maranello in 1995 as a simple trainee. It will be necessary to replace one man, but two functions.

What can you ultimately blame him for? First of all, its disastrous communication. By wanting to protect Ferrari's image too much, he ended up damaging it. Then the numerous operational fiascos. Indeed. But Rome was not built in a day, and in modern F1 where the big teams only decide on details, the objective set by the leaders of the Scuderia was to return to the forefront, certainly not to win the title directly after two years of struggle.

From this point of view, nothing to blame Binotto. With 12 pole positions and 4 victories, in addition to the honorary title of vice-champion won by Leclerc, the results are good and the team has shown the expected sporting progress. Binotto is an extremely intelligent man.

Nothing prevented it from changing its communication strategy for 2023, and from making the necessary adjustments on the operational level to reduce the risks of strategic hiccups. The change, if there were to be any at all costs, would undoubtedly concern the very structure of the Scuderia, with a focus to be placed more on sports than on politics.

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