Amid swirling speculation that his job as Ferrari Formula 1 boss is under threat, Motorsport Week asks whether Fred Vasseur is the next man on the Scuderia’s chopping block.
On Friday afternoon prior to the Canadian Grand Prix the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, Ferrari’s Team Principal Fred Vasseur finally spoke out on the recent speculation about his future, and he did so with fervency, passion and anger.
The team has undeniably struggled so far this season. No, wins, three podiums, and whilst second in the Constructors’ Championship, the team sits there almost 200 points down on McLaren.
It seems like the promise of building on its showing last year has evaporated like the fizz out of an Aperol Spritz. And worse still, the expectation perhaps seems to have fallen from an even greater height given that seven-time World Champion Lewis Hamilton is now in the car.
But there lies its big problem: the car.
The SF-25 seems mediocre at best when set on anything other than a low ride height, and is, in Hamilton’s mind at least, hugely unpredictable.
2025 is Vasseur’s third year in the job, and with success seemingly more far away than it was this time 12 months ago, naturally there will be calls for his head, particularly from sections of the Italian media who demand its team’s success.
This was the crux of Vasseur’s anger in the Team Principals’ press conference, firing off some considerable shade at the partisan press, and described their actions as “hurtful” to the team.
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Like when a football manager is overseeing a series of bad results, the media spotlight shines brighter, and the fans, upon reading their harsh critique, will begin to bay for their blood. Vasseur’s situation is relatively similar.
However, to continue the analogy, Vasseur most certainly hasn’t lost the dressing room. In fact, both Charles Leclerc and Hamilton were quick to defend the Frenchman, but will their influence hold any water with the hierarchy at Maranello?
If not, it wouldn’t be the first occasion Ferrari has acted to move a Team Principal from their position. In the last 40 years, the number of team bosses it has gone through is almost as high as the number of Constructors’ Championships it has won.
After its boss of 10 years, Marco Piccinini, left in 1988, the next five years saw three men take the helm and then go, in what was a period of harsh reality.
Both Alain Prost and Nigel Mansell came and went without a title to their name, and after a particularly low ebb in 1992, the team opted to spring the diminutive Jean Todt from Peugeot.
His first full season saw another winless campaign, with 1994 and ‘95 seeing just one. In 1996, Todt convinced Michael Schumacher to ditch the winning formula of Benetton to take a chance on Ferrari.
What followed was exactly what Vasseur talked about, and what his former driver Carlos Sainz talked about in Canada: a process.
The Schumacher-Ferrari combination took five seasons to bear fruit, in which time it built up a team which eventually was able to produce a car that took Schumacher to five successive championships.
Todt’s reign lasted 14 years, and in came longstanding Sporting Director and current F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali. The Italian lasted just shy of six years, in which time one Constructors’ Championship was won, with three Drivers’ titles agonisingly close in 2008, 2010 and ‘12.
Marco Mattiacci, Maurizio Arrivanbene and current Audi COO Mattia Binotto all came and went, the latter two lasting no more than three years.
Can Hamilton and Leclerc buy Vasseur time?
Vasseur was plucked from Sauber to take the reins, and it might be fair to say comparisons were drawn to Todt. A bubbly Frenchman with charisma, who is very much a driver’s boss. He must have been aware that all eyes were on him to succeed where others did not, but with rumours about his future now simmering away, he appears to have reached boiling point.
The comparisons between Schumacher’s and Hamilton’s arrivals cannot be drawn too much, as Hamilton has been unable to take his trusted backroom team with him in the way that Schumacher could.
But Hamilton is always brushing off any notion of his own future, talking over the Canada weekend about how he is hopeful of a car in 2026 that can help him take the coveted record eighth World Championship, and there is no secret that he would rather do that with Vasseur in charge.
But the ingredients are all the same in many ways, which must be a source of Vasseur’s frustration. Undoing the years of disappointment will take more than three for Vasseur, and the experience of both Leclerc and Hamilton will be a big benefit both on and off the track, particularly as F1 is about to enter a new phase, with 2026 being the first year of the new regulations.
That is a blank canvas for every team, and perhaps a removal of Vasseur from his post now would be even more harsh given this. It is not yet known what Ferrari’s interpretation of the regulations will be, nor any other outfit for that matter. The risk of going back to square one when F1 is effectively at a square one of its own could be hugely risky, particularly with Christian Horner affirming his commitment to Red Bull amid speculation he would be in line to join.
If Vasseur is on the chopping block, and Ferrari has the proverbial meat cleaver in its hand, it appears that it is the media that is sharpening it for them.
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So, I don’t get the bias. When it was Binotto supposedly doing badly, many in the media did not come to his support, and there was a sense of “he’s not the right man for the job”. Yet, the media seems to be supporting Vasseur, who’s having a worse record than Binnotto in his 3 year stint. I was in favour of stability then and in keeping Binnotto. Yet, I don’t think many fans or the media were. Now, I see fans and the media writing pieces that seem to criticize the Ferrari brass for the “rumours” they have heard about chopping Vasseur. I’m in favour of stability, but why is there the bias now? I would like someone to give me an explanation. And if someone says because it was too Italian, please do your homework before replying. The team was very international and Binotto himself was very international, born in Switzerland and speaking many languages. Under Binnotto, the team was very international, employing engineers from around the world.