End of collaboration between Giuliano Alesi and Ferrari?

For Giuliano Alesi, the season started ideally, with an encouraging 6th place in Race 1. But without knowing it at that time, he was in the points for the first and last time of the season. Engaged with HWA Racelab for its second season in F2, the French driver had a complicated year in a team in great difficulty in 2020. So much so that according to the German newspaper Blick which reports comments from Jean Alesi, the Ferrari Driver Academy, of which Giuliano has been a member since 2016, has reportedly decided to let him go. 

“We have no sponsors for 2021, Ferrari kicked him out of the academy, and I can no longer spend my own money”, declared Jean Alesi in the columns of Blick, recalling that he had already sold his Ferrari F40 to finance the son's 2020 season. “With HWA, we bet on the wrong team. We paid over a million euros, no promises were kept. When we moved to MP, HWA wanted another €80”he completes.

Contacted by AUTOhebdo after the announcement in Blick of the dismissal of Giuliano Alesi from the Ferrari Driver Academy, the former Ferrari driver and father of the French hopeful, Jean Alesi, was more moderate. “It seems that Blick went a little too far in its analysis of the situation and misinterpreted some of my comments, especially regarding the Ferrari Academy. Guliano is not “fired” from the Academy as explained in the article, it is simply not intended to support its members throughout their careers. She will have played a big role in the development of Giuliano who is now able, if I may say so, to stand on his own two feet. It’s true that the season has been difficult, but there is no shortage of solutions for the future…” 

Since the last Russian round, Giuliano left HWA Racelab for MP Motorsport, the Dutch team which has achieved a few victories this season with Felipe Drugovich and Nobuharu Matsushita. But he could not do better than 14th and 16th place on the Sochi track last month. He will have the last two rounds of Bahrain remaining to try to pull off some brilliant shots, but the road that leads to the F1 seems increasingly steep for the French driver.