Hughes: Binotto made extreme instead of helping

On Tuesday, Ferrari officially announced the departure of Mattia Binotto from the position of head of the Formula 1 team. The news was expected, so in general no one was surprised. British expert Mark Hughes, discussing the reasons for the resignation, suggested that the arrival of a new leader would not solve the Scuderia’s fundamental problems.

Mark Hughes: “Before the start of the season, Ferrari’s expectations were enough to reach a competitive level and win several races. In fact, that’s what happened. However, the fact that Ferrari had such a fast car in the early races made it difficult for the team when results started to fall. It’s not that their car has slowed down. The fact is that the Red Bull Racing car became faster and faster.

Then the reliability problems started. And since we are talking about Ferrari, all the attention went to the team, which caused more and more mistakes under pressure.

Building a fast car is by far the hardest part and Mattia Binotto has done it twice, in 2017/18 as technical director and this year as team leader. Moreover, he did so creatively, according to his own technical vision, differently than elsewhere. After the era of Ross Brawn and Jean Todt, it was thought that this approach was no longer possible at Ferrari.

Binotto’s success was a result of his ability to gather people and create an environment where they were not afraid to make mistakes. That was the atmosphere in the technical department and there was still fear in the racing department. Binotto’s appointment to the position of team leader was to eliminate this position.

The race team clearly has fundamental problems with the way decisions are made on the track. And these problems have been going on for years. Remember how Fernando Alonso essentially dictated strategy from the machine. Sebastian Vettel did the same. Some decisions are so simple that you can make a mistake, not because someone has misunderstood the situation on the track, but because the decision-makers are too overworked.

The way to solve this problem is the same as in the technical department: stability over several years, protecting the people who do their job, identifying the root cause of the problem and solving it, instead of criticizing a specific person.

Binotto has captured the creative moments, which is great, but the backbone of Ferrari’s “culture” has not disappeared anywhere. That’s why he was made extreme, instead of helping to correct the situation. Ferrari just said, “OK, next.”

If the new leader turns out to be really good, he will hold his position for a while, but will eventually be fired. And if he turns out not to be too good, he will be fired soon enough. Until the culture of the team changes, this will continue over and over.

The only time Ferrari was different was in the era of Jean Todt and Ross Brown. Remember what this led to – at that time it was the best team in Formula 1 history. Before then the team underestimated its potential and after they left it started to underestimate again. There is a correlation, there is a causal relationship between such results.

Part of the problem is that Binotto was a Ferrari man – he’s been with the team since he graduated from university. It is impossible to lead a team as a hired employee – for this you need to feel in control. That’s who Brown and Todt were.

Together with Michael Schumacher, they created an atmosphere where everyone on the team knew they were the best in their field. And there was another key factor in Todt and Brown’s work – they told top management, “Tell us what budget we have and leave us alone.”

It’s not just about who specifically manages the team, but how much power he has once in this position. I don’t think there is an understanding of this truth in Ferrari’s top management. When they understand this, they admit their guilt. But they won’t.”