Former drivers think Binotto's job at risk
Jul.5 - Mattia Binotto's job may be on the line after Ferrari got its 2020 campaign off to a miserable start in Austria.
Sebastian Vettel failed even to make it out of Q2 at the Red Bull Ring, but engine customers Haas and Alfa Romeo also struggled badly.
Indeed, compared to 2019 at the same circuit, Haas' pace has dropped by six tenths, Ferrari's by almost a second, and Alfa Romeo's by 1.1 seconds.
The implication is that the engine legality scandal of 2019, leading onto Ferrari's controversially secret agreement with the FIA, has resulted in a huge performance drop for the Maranello-made power unit.
"It's hard to say why, but both we and Ferrari had major problems today," said Haas driver Kevin Magnussen.
When asked if it might be connected with the engine cheating accusations, the Dane told BT newspaper: "People can think what they want, but it's not something I'm thinking about."
His teammate Romain Grosjean responded simply: "Ask Ferrari."
Having led the cheating queries last year, Red Bull's Dr Helmut Marko could not resist a swipe, insisting: "It's amazing what Ferrari's engine was doing last year."
Ferrari had warned that it may struggle this weekend, but those wearing red on Saturday appeared stunned at the obvious extent of the problem.
"Our deficit is difficult to understand," admitted sporting boss Laurent Mekies.
With that the case, the questions about Binotto's leadership have already begun.
"There would be a lot to be said about putting someone new at the top," former F1 driver Nick Heidfeld told Sky Deutschland. "It hasn't gone smoothly for years now."
Ralf Schumacher agrees: "In football, we would be talking about a change of coach at this point.
"All the internal fighting, the engine issue, and now teams like McLaren and Racing Point in front of them."
He thinks the problem could be that Binotto is overwhelmed with his combined managerial and technical roles.
"That workload cannot be done by one person. It must be a group of people," said Schumacher.
"In Michael (Schumacher)'s time, there were three leading people, and I would say there are five now at Mercedes."
Another former F1 driver, JJ Lehto, told Iltalehti newspaper: "The politics will begin now, and then there will be changes in the management very quickly."
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Italians .. or italian name based italians (even Swuiss) .. are not good chiefs! .. For being chief ... you have to be intelligent and not just 'have the guts' .. like italians usually do. In other words ... you have to be straight minded .. as frenchs, british or german.. people .. Get rid of Binotto.. and get one chief with stright forward personality!
Off topic slightly....but its referenced in the article.
Don't be fooled by the Marko “Dr” title. He is a lawyer, an LLD. It is an undergraduate degree in Law, not a post grad doctorate,as we'd all reasonably assume. Its just a historical juris anomaly in Austria.
In most other countries (and reality) the claim to the title of Doctor is bogus.
It’s also kind of insulting to those of us who actually have sacrificed time in our lives to legitimately achieve a post grad doctorate.
Binotto needs to go. Trustworthiness, honesty and professional skills are needed to win. He has none of this. With him Ferrari will go down the drain. And no serious pilot will join them again, except the ones who only got for money.