Ferrari has appointed Frédéric Vasseur as new team principal to replace Mattia Binotto.
Roulette between the F1 team bosses
The experienced Frenchman makes the switch to team Scuderia after five years in charge of Sauber (which has been driving under the Alfa Romeo name since 2019). In a move that led to a series of shifting roles in the top positions of Formula 1 teams, Sauber has appointed McLaren team boss Andreas Seidl as CEO. McLaren in turn announced that race director Andrea Stella will take on the lead role of the team.
On Monday, Williams also confirmed that their director Jost Capito had left his post. The chain of events kicked off when Binotto parted ways with Ferrari this month after a disappointing season marked by the failure to deliver on big promises, undone by team and driver mistakes and poor reliability.
Vasseur’s experience
This role will be the most high-profile job in 54-year-old Vasseur’s career, with great responsibility and enormous pressure. The Scuderia Ferrari team has not won a driver’s title since Kimi Räikkönen did in 2007. Although Vasseur inherits a potentially competitive car, operationally the team has a lot of room for improvement, a daunting task he looked forward to.
Vasseur, who has a technical engineering background, previously led the ART Grand Prix team in several F1 feeder series, including runners such as Lewis Hamilton, Charles Leclerc, George Russell and Nico Rosberg on their way to F1. He co-founded the team with Nicolas Todt, son of former Ferrari director and FIA president Jean Todt.
Vasseur was in charge at Sauber for five years and turned the team around. They finished sixth in the championship this year, their best result in ten years. Current Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc made his F1 debut with Vasseur at Sauber in 2018.
Seidl as Sauber’s new CEO
Seidl has performed just as well at McLaren and is a loss to the team. The 46-year-old German has been chosen to join Sauber pending the team becoming the factory Audi team in 2026. Seidl has had a close relationship with Audi’s parent group Volkswagen since he successfully led their sister brand Porsche’s LMP1 sports car programme. Seidl took three wins at the 24 Hours of Le Mans race. He has also previously worked at Sauber as an engineer and will now select a new team principal for the team.
Do you want more information about the old team boss of Ferrari Mattia Binotto? Read our article about him.
Dorian Schuster (Xavi Yuahanda), CC BY-SA 4.0via Wikimedia Commons