After rumours surfaced that Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur is walking a tight rope at the team, Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff has defended Vasseur’s leadership.
According to Wolff, Ferrari “won’t get anyone better” than Vasseur.
Toto Wolff goes to bat for Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur
Additional reporting by Thomas Maher
The past few weeks have been challenging ones for Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur.
At the Canadian Grand Prix, Italian publications began to report that Vasseur was on the cusp of losing his job at the Scuderia. After challenging McLaren for the World Constructors’ Championship all the way down to the last race of 2024, Ferrari has noticeably stagnated while rival McLaren has gone on to dominate the season.
Reports suggested that Ferrari was considering bringing in another person to fill Vasseur’s role — one who could perhaps revitalize the team.
Vasseur adamantly denied that the rumours contained any truth, and Ferrari looked strong in the early stages of the Austrian Grand Prix weekend. But before the race could kick off on Sunday, Vasseur had traveled home, citing a personal concern. That meant he wasn’t on site to celebrate Charles Leclerc’s podium, or Lewis Hamilton’s fourth-place finish.
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Nevertheless, Vasseur’s future in F1 was still a topic of conversation at the Austrian Grand Prix. During a post-race media session, Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff was asked if Ferrari might benefit from some longevity in its leadership.
“Yeah, it seems to be a bit of a revolving door with teams,” Wolff told media, including PlanetF1.com. “Generally Christian [Horner] and I are the only dinosaurs left with many of you in the room.”
At Ferrari specifically, leadership has changed hands five times in 10 years. In 2014, Stefano Domenicali left the team partway through the year, handing the reins to Marco Mattiacci. Mattiacci lasted through the end of the season, but for 2015, Ferrari brought in Maurizio Arrivabene. Arrivabene remained until 2018; then came Mattia Binotto, who lasted until the end of 2022. Vasseur took over at the start of 2023.
Wolff continued, “I think [that] in Formula 1, you can’t buy time, and you need to give senior leadership the time to get on top of things.
“Today we talked about Jean Todt. You know, Jean Todt, if I’m not wrong, joined the team in 1993; they won the first championship in 2000 — eight years. That’s how it goes, and it comes in cycles.
“Look at us: I’m not enjoying, you know, being in a phase that is the third year in a row where we are not fighting for a championship. We have really good weekends, we’re winning races, it’s respectable at times — and when it’s not good, no one is questioning, in a way, whether the top guy is doing a good job or not.
“Leave him the space, let him do, allow him to structure an organization that isn’t going to fall apart on day one.”
The Mercedes boss also noted that Ferrari’s F1 engineer and chassis technical director Loic Serra has only been part of the team for “six or seven months.” For Wolff, that isn’t enough time to adequately craft a championship-winning organization.
“Fred is one of the best racing managers I know,” Wolff continued. “If I wasn’t here, I’d take Fred. I respect him a lot. He’s a great personality, he’s a straightforward guy. He doesn’t do politics and lies, and he knows what he’s talking about. He just needs to be given the trust around this.”
Wolff also took a moment to address the fact that many of these rumours have stemmed from Italian media — which is naturally very passionate and also very critical of public sporting figures.
The Mercedes boss argued that Vasseur is “perfectly aware that in Italy, it’s like managing the football national team. You’re gonna have the scrutiny from the media; maybe that’s something you need to grow a little bit of a thick skin, because if he wins, he is Jesus Christ, and if you lose, you’re a loser.
“That’s how Italy is, and that’s fantastic. That’s the passion that is in there. You gotta embrace that. And maybe that’s something he needs to do.
“But the rest, he should be given the confidence running his team. They won’t get anybody better.”
That’s a strong vote of confidence for Fred Vasseur, though it remains to be seen just what the Frenchman’s future at Ferrari holds.
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