Multiple Ferrari executives are confirmed to leave the Scuderia during the 2023 season, including Chief Engineer of Vehicle Conception David Sanchez.
Ferrari recently underwent a major change in their team leadership after the previous team principal Mattia Binnoto resigned at the end of 2022. Ferrari brought in former Alfa Romeo F1 team boss Fred Vasseur to run the team in the 2023 season starting in January.
The F1 2023 season started last week on March 5 with their first race in Bahrain. Ferrari had an unfortunate result, with Charles Leclerc losing his power supply and a DNF result while Carlos Sainz came in fourth, not on the podium. The car was looking promising, but in order to compete for championships, change needs to happen.
Charles Leclerc, Fred Vasseur and Carlos Sainz. Source.
Vasseur didn’t want to change the team right away, he wanted to see what he could work with. After rumors of internal feuds of Vasseur with other executives and wanting to see more dedication from the team, many executives are leaving or have been fired after the first race.
Ferrari driver Leclerc is also a factor into these executive changes, since he has been promised a championship winning car this year after coming in second place last year. After his first race result in 2023, it doesn’t look too promising. Ferrari wants to win with Leclerc since they have named him ‘il Predestinato’ which is translated to the ‘chosen one’ in Italian to bring glory and victory back to Ferrari. Leclerc has a contract until the end of the 2024 season, and if Ferrari can’t provide a championship winning car, then he will start to look elsewhere to drive.
Ferrari is one of the most historic teams in F1, with a popular saying of ‘F1 needs Ferrari more than Ferrari needs F1’. Ferrari has been unsuccessful in their recent attempts to win both drivers and constructors championships; between struggling with reliability problems, poor strategy and bad car design. Ferrari has not won a constructor’s championship since 2008 and a driver’s championship since 2007.
John Elkann, Ferrari President, has set a goal for the Maranello based team to win both championships by 2026, and for that to be possible major changes needed to be made by Vasseur.
The PR problem for Ferrari is that there are many big changes being made to the team during the season which can strike up worry with both Ferrari fans and sponsorships that things are not going smoothly under new direction. I think the only thing Ferrari can do is to provide good race results to ease worries of fans and sponsors. Putting out a statement would only worry fans that they are cracking under pressure. The way Ferrari can solve this is by putting their head down and getting to work on their car and providing winning results with their car. Another thing Ferrari could do is have both Leclerc and Sainz emphasize their support and commitment to Ferrari to show that they want to have success with Ferrari and not go to other teams.