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What it says in the title, basically.

Maurizio Arrivabene was let go (read: fired) from the leadership of the Ferrari team after a 2018 season in which the common perception is that Ferrari choked on winning the title with the best car. He was blamed for weak decision making and botched strategy calls. He was replaced by Mario Binotto, technical head of the team during that season.

Six races into the 2019 season, however, the Ferrari operation is in shambles. Strategy calls are worse than ever, decision making is weak at times and shocking at other times, and the car has completely fallen away from Mercedes (and possibly even Red Bull). Far from fixing the flaws inherent in the 2018 team, Arrivabene's firing seems to have actually made them worse.

So, was Ferrari wrong to ever let him go? Is he being vindicated by history, or would all of this happened anyway, and the team principal is just a scapegoat?

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PICK 10 COMPETITION (4 wins, 15 podiums): 3rd in 2016
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I think letting him go was not necessarily the main problem (though I would have kept him as they were on an obvious upward trajectory with him). The problem was hiring someone with even less experience in that role and who does not improve upon any of Arrivabene's weaknesses. That was a hit-or-miss decision and it's looking like a complete miss. I think they need to get a big name in to run the team. They need someone who is battle-tested and proven in that role. Someone like Horner.

How many millions of euros would it take to rehire Jean Todt??

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Mission WinLater

At the middle of the season 2019, Ferrari went the wrong way with development and they lost the championship. Sacking Arrivabene was a knee jerk reaction. Now, that Ferrari became a circus maximus, it pays even bigger price for that mistake. It needs to reset and start from scratch.

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The end is near

Ferrari didn't do one thing right this year, everything is wrong, when you think they can't fail even more they say "hold my beer"... just disgrace. I can't remember that bad season from Ferrari in last 20 years... they have a fast car but honestly as a team they are worse than Williams...

I think you mean the 2018 season. Even so, that's not a very accurate characterization. They lost the title last year because they made too many mistakes all year long; not because they took a wrong turn in development and it hurt them for 2 races. They were sloppy last year and they are even more sloppy this year.

Binotto is such a clueless person. The guy is just non-existent on the pit wall. Completely out of his depth.

I don't know if MA's firing was right or wrong, but he got replaced by a person who's worse than him in every possible way.

My concern with Binotto is he just does not seem to have the right attributes for a managerial position. No natural charisma or air of authority, and seems to lack the ability for quick decision-making that is so important during a race weekend. Arrivabene on the other hand looked a little out of his depth and inexperienced in a race environment, but he at least knew how to organise and manage a team of people. Binotto is undoubtedly very good on the technical side of things but that does not necessarily make him a good candidate for team principal; the likes of Christian Horner and Toto Wolff have no engineering background that I am aware of. So yes, they should have kept Arrivabene and left Binotto in charge of the technical department where he excelled.

It is the people at the very top of Ferrari that seem to have absolutely no clue. They just seem to follow the Italian football mentality where if something isn't working you immediately fire the head coach and hope that his successor will turn things around, and it's a toxic way to run an engineering organisation which should thrive on stability, as Mercedes and Red Bull have done.

The problem I see with Ferrari, is they don't have enough top players in Management. Mercedes have loads, as with Red Bull. You need one guy to have one job, not 2 or 3!..

Ferrari were desperate to keep Binotto who they rated very highly. Now they have lost both a decent TP (Arrivabene) and a quality technical lead while downgrading the quality of both position significantly. Great stuff.

To be honest, the talk was that Binotto was going to walk if we wasn't promoted so they didn't have the option to keep him in his previous position either way.

Embarrassing is the word I would use to describe Ferrari in 2019. But then again, even when (at the off chance) they manage to get everything right and have the fastest car in a season, they find new ways to throw away the championship, be it the team or the drivers. Arrivabene or Binotto don't matter, they always screw up somewhere.

Yes they were.

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I think Ferrari has certainly worsened under Binotto (notwithstanding the fact that they weren't exactly perfect under Arrivabene) and he seems somewhat out of his depth as a TP. But as someone alluded to earlier it seems Binotto was forcing a choice between him and Arrivabene so Ferrari were between a rock and a hard place.

For all Arrivabene's faults, his tenure did coincide with a rise in fortunes for the Reds, so I don't think he was that terrible. Binotto's a good tech guy but so far I've not been impressed with him as a TP

If I was Ferrari I would try and hire Livio Suppo. Great team manager. https://www.autosport.com/motogp/news/1 ... togp-squad

Flavio Briatore. Horner isn't Italian

When you watched the interviews of the various team principles last year, Arrivabene never came across on the same caliber as other team principles like Christian Horner, Toto Wolf, even Gunther Steiner. Those team principles seem to have a clear vision for their team, they understand exactly what their strengths were and how they were going to improve after each race, and they had a very intelligent perspective of what their drivers and cars were doing. Listen to an interview of Toto and you can see his intelligence and strong leadership, everything he says and does seems measured. I don't see that with the Ferrari team under the current leadership, so I suspect that they will continue to flounder. Its surprising that a team with the legacy and reputation of Ferrari can't find someone from their glory days to provide some mentorship or senior leadership like Nikki Lauda did for Mercedes. Binotto seems to have the technical prowess, I suspect that the cars performance improvements from 2017 to now are linked to him, but there is a lot more that you need to have a winning F1 team than just technical experience. Binotto may have the potential to leverage his technical experience to become a strong leader, but he needs a strong mentor...

I agree but you presume that Binotto wants all that. There is speculation that he either wanted to be TP or walk away from the team.

I dunno. On the car side I doubt it would make a difference, these designs and faults within were done already under MA.

On the team side it may have done but I think promoting Leclerc was the problem, however daft that might sound as he clearly is very talented. The problem is he's too close to Seb and it caused some uncomfortable situations very early on which rarely helps a team dynamic.

Without Leclerc being clearly faster or slower than Seb this would've been an issue for whoever had the top job imo.

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"Clark came through at the end of the first lap so far ahead that we in the pits were convinced that the rest of the field must have been wiped out in an accident."
-Eddie Dennis, describing the dominance of Jim Clark in the Lotus 49 at Spa 1967

And? Were Todt or Brawn?

You do realise Binotto was the one who sorted the engine for '15 and also the chassis after they let James Allison go.

If MA is still there Ferrari will still be going through same problem as they have basically divided the team basically to Team Vettel vs Team Leclerc, if you have a championship winning car that is all good, but when you need to get your car working you need to work as a team.

yes, that's why I wrote he was a good tech guy. And do you realise that all occurred under MA's watch, too?

I'm not disputing Binotto is a capable tech guy. But that doesn't make him a capable TP and so far I don't think he's covered himself in glory, which is the only point I'm making really. MA wasn't perfect either but to his credit the team certainly improved under his watch and went from being nowhere to a serious challenger, so it's not like he was disastrous. He did make mistakes too for sure but so far under Binotto I don't think Ferrari have had a trouble-free weekend some six races in which is not a hugely impressive scenario for a team with Ferrari's pedigree. I'm not saying Binotto is definitely not up to the task but so far I haven't seen much to suggest he is, either.

MA had no say in the technical aspect, so saying Ferrari improved under him that was all down to Binotto which the late Sergio Marchionne duly acknowledged, and also in the strategy dept was MA not there when the Germany fiasco happened or qualy in Italy where Vettel was giving Kimi a tow?

The only difference now is Charles is closer than Kimi ever was hence the strategy problems as it has always been one of Ferrari's weak link.

Ferrari have released a new training video which should fix most problems.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUmU5amLy9Y
{btw, yes its a parody}

I'm of the opinion that you can't blame a TP for what goes wrong and not credit him for what works. If the Ferrari PU had been a dog then MA would have taken a large chunk of the blame for that, so if it's going as planned then he should also get the credit, or at least some of it. The TP{ creates the conditions under which everybody works.

Picking examples of issues isn't really relevant. I've already said that MA made mistakes too, but it's my opinion these have increased under Binotto. So far, Binotto has not shown he's up to the job and appears to be a step down from his predecessor. Can't say if that's luck or judgement but I don't see anything that tells me that Ferrari are better now MA is no longer in the picture?

And, btw, I'm not saying this as some kind of plea to bring MA back, just saying that Ferrari don't appear to have taken any steps forward and have arguably done the reverse

The issue with Arrivabene was that he entertained the FIA probe into the PU a bit too much.
The first time they did not find anything he should have told them to take a hike.
Second, was afraid of making a call on team orders, but Binnito is worse.
I think if he stayed he would have not made the same mistakes.

That said i wish they brought back Domenicali. With him they were super slick trackside despite not having the best car

Are you joking? SD was worse than Binotto. He was a feckless guy with no redeeming quality. And he presided over 2010 Abu Dhabi debacle, where the company threw away a championship due to bad strategy. That guy literally didn't do anything.