Did Mattia Binotto’s Mercedes-style ‘no blame’ philosophy cost him his job?
Binott💜o will leave his role as Ferrari team boss 𝕴at the end of the month, bringing an end to his four-year stint at the helm of the team.
Ferrari managed just four wins in 2022, compared🉐 to Red Bull’s ♔17.
The Italian giant did have the fastest car over one lap for much o♏f the season but a combination of poor strategy and operations errors cost the🌠m.
S🗹ky Sports F1 com♔mentator David Croft believes Binotto’s attempts to implement a no blame culture at Ferrari - like Toto Wolff has at Mercedes - may have cost him his job.
“Did Mattia Binotto pay the price for a season of over expec🅘tation?” Croft said. “No is the answer to that. As you say, they’ve engineered the fastest car. Did he pay the price for try🤡ing to protect the staff at Maranello for the intense scrutiny and any public blame?
“Yes I think he did. Toto Wolff creates a culture of no blame at Mercedes. Mattia tries to do the same atꩵ Ferrari. One is feted for that but the other has to resign for that.”
Chandhok - who is a pundit for Sky - was quick to poinꦇt out the key ܫdifference between Binotto and Wolff’s management style.
“There’s a difference because🅰 there’s one thing about creating a no blame culture, however, if someone is not performing - in their case the strategy wasn’t - you have to make changes,” he added. “Mattia perhaps leaned towards protecting the people and not sacking people mid-season, and maybe hesitated from making the changes required.”
The former HRT and Lotus F1 driver doesn’t believe swapping Binotto for Frederic Vasseur will cu🐼re Ferr𝓀ari’s plethora of problems.
“I don’t necessarily think that’s the answer,” Chandhok explained. “It feels a bit football man🍷ager-esque. There were issues on the operational side. If you look at it from a technical standpoint, in terms of R&D and design, they produced a very fast car.
“They had the fastest car over one lap this year but operationally, reliability-wiꦜse they had issues. I don’t think ౠjust changing the person at the top is the answer.”
With a sharp eye foღr F1’s controversies and storylines, Connor is the heartbeat o🌊f our unbiased reporting.
