Ferrari team boss Mattia Binotto lacks the same support rival team bosses have, according to former driver Gerhard Berger.
Ferrari have failed to take the challenge to Mercedes in recent seasons and looks to have fallen back further in 2020, challenging the midfield pack during last weekend’s Austrian Grand Prix.
Whilst Berger doesn’t doubt Binotto is the right man to lead Ferrari, he suspects too much has been placed on the Italian’s shoulders, whereas Ferrari’s biggest rivals Mercedes and Red Bull all have several figureheads.
“I like Mattia Binotto, he was on my cars as an engineer. A nice guy, also clever guy, also good guy,” Berger told the F1 Nation podcast.
“But when you compare Ferrari having one leading person like Binotto, on the technical side, on the political side, on the race strategy side and so on, at Red Bull you have a Christian Horner, extremely competitive, you have Adrian Newey, a genius in his area, you have Helmut Marko, a shark having all the motorsport experience.
“If you take Mercedes, the same thing. Andy Cowell, Niki Lauda, Toto Wolff. Everybody at the same time, improving the team. Political, technical, and whatever.
“So I’m wondering if the setup of Ferrari is strong enough?”
Berger believes Ferrari has always operated in a similar fashion, even under Jean Todt when they enjoyed great success with Michael Schumacher, but admits even back then Todt had the support of those around him.
“It’s been always like this, even when you go back to Ferrari [under] Jean Todt.
“OK, he was politically very clever. He was at the max all the time, he was doing all the stuff, [but] you had Ross Brawn. Fantastic and knowledgeable guy and you had Rory Byrne, one of the best engineers ever been in Formula 1. And you had Michael Schumacher.
“So you see, it’s this group what it needs to really move a team into a championship team.”
Discussion about this post