Binotto hits back at Mercedes over Vettel news
Jun.19 - Mattia Binotto has hit back at fellow F1 team boss Toto Wolff after the Mercedes chief expressed surprise about recent driver signings.
Wolff said he was surprised that Ferrari announced so early that Sebastian Vettel will leave at the end of 2021 and be replaced by Carlos Sainz.
"I'm glad that Mercedes always has an opinion about us," La Stampa quotes Binotto as sarcastically replying.
The Italian said Ferrari announced the news so early for reasons of transparency.
"Seb had to think about his future, so we couldn't delay our decision," said Binotto.
"He is a four-time world champion and deserves to drive in a top team. If we went to Mercedes, I would be happy for him."
As for Mercedes weighing into Ferrari's decision-making, Binotto responded: "I'm surprised that they haven't signed Hamilton yet. We would have done it much sooner in their place.
"That is what we did with Sebastian, and now we can act openly and honestly."
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Perhaps Binotto is implying that Toto should take Vettel as Ferrari has obviously failed to meet Seb's expectations and the only chance for Seb to claim another title would be to go to the best team ie Mercedes even though they have a champion driver Lewis, who is going to stay with them.
Ferrari is fickle as always Seb had outlived his usefulness so it was made impossible by them for him to stay typical Ferrari!
I think that the separation of Vettel and Ferrari had little to do with money and primarily came down to an introspection by Vettel as to his part of the team and the part the team allowed him to fill. Sebastian, much like Michael Schumacher, was in integral part of the Red Bull organization far beyond just the lead pilot. His skills at analysis and motivation equaled his performance capabilities and allowed for Red Bull with a platform that was not the best in the field at any time, to win 4 consecutive Driver / manufacturers championships. For Vettel to feel that the huge personal commitment required for F1 is worthwhile, i think that he knows that he needs to be an integral part of the organization. This requires a different organizational culture than Ferrari currently has. In the past 30 years there have only been three instances of this organizational culture in F1, Benneton during the Ross Brawn / Michael Schumacher tenure, Ferrari during the Ross Brawn / Michael Schumacher tenure and Red Bull during the Christian Horner / Sebastian Vettel tenure. Few individuals have the ability to understand the myriad of complex systems in F1 and F1 cars and indeed even transcending technology eras. A.J. Foyt was a driver that did this emphatically in Indy Car racing. Vettel and Schumacher have this rare ability as did Bruce MaClaren and Mark Donahue as well as Fangio but it is a rare ability.
Vettel would have to play second fiddle. Eventually every top driver will go past his prime and be overtaken by his stablemate when mated with the right one. If Hamilton would have Verstappen in stead of Bottas in the other side of the silver Arrow garage, he too would have to up his performance. F1 weeds out the less than stellar pretty quickly unless your dad buys you a team. That's what happens at the pinnacle.
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