Visionary Frederic Vasseur Makes Ferrari Look Beyond Its Italian Heritage for Regaining Its F1 Glory

The seeds for this season’s fruit were already sown by Mattia Binotto last year. Frederic Vasseur’s actual impact will really be seen from next year onwards when Ferrari fully develops a car under him. Jean Todt was the last non-Italian Ferrari team principal and Vasseur will look to walk in his footsteps. Vasseur’s mission is to make Ferrari a better place than what he inherited and he’s ready to look beyond the Italian Heritage to do so.

Frederic Vasseur is only the fourth non-Italian Team Principal for Ferrari in the seventy-plus-year-long history. Ferrari’s last successful Team Principal was Jean Todt, another Frenchman who led Ferrari to five consecutive titles during the Michael Schumacher era. It is worth noting that none of the TP between the tenure of the two Frenchmen were successful and all of them were Italian. Frederic Vasseur already explained how only results matter to him and he will do whatever it takes.

Vasseur already moved Inaki Rueda, Ferrari’s former chief strategist, back to the factory in Maranello. Ravin Jain will be the chief strategist now. Leo Turrini recently suggested that Ferrari is in the market for new engineers and technicians. He explained how Frederic Vasseur has already got the green light from the owners in regard to signing the talent from outside the Italian culture. The Frenchman believes he will be able to integrate foreign professionals into the Ferrari culture and improve it.

According to formulapassion.it, Leo Turrini said “Know that the Red will campaign for purchases on the market of prestigious technicians. In fact, Fred Vasseur, the head of the racing department, the country curator mentioned above, has obtained the ok of the company leaders: he will be able to look abroad for those professionals that will have to integrate and strengthen Ferrari’s structure. Of course the French manager couldn’t talk about it in the meeting he had with us scribblers. But he is already moving: behind that suburban praeon air”

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At the time of joining Vasseur mentioned the fact that he will not perform a reshuffle unless he understands how things go about at Ferrari. Maybe the poor start to the season has forced the Frenchman to look for engineers and integrate a shuffle sooner than he would’ve expected. However, a former F1 driver explained how the Frenchman is not affected by the culture at Ferrari.

David Coulthard believes Frederic Vasseur is not distracted by Ferrari’s culture

Frederic Vasseur is a racer and is focused on the performance of the car. The peripheral matters will not affect him that much. Since he isn’t Italian, the culture really isn’t his priority and he can do whatever it takes to get performance out of the car, even if that means going against the culture. David Coulthard explained that the previous Team Principals belonged to Marketing or Engineering backgrounds, but not Vasseur.

According to Formule1.nl, David Coulthard said “As a foreigner, Fred doesn’t need to be culturally aware. He can say, ‘Guys, this is a race team, I’m the boss and this is how we’re going to do it’. And it will be less about personal interests, reputations or relationships.”

“Vasseur is a racer. That is another important aspect. Binotto was an engineer, Arrivabene a marketing man. Vasseur is not distracted by peripheral matters, he is only focused on the performance of the car.”

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Do you think a reshuffle at Ferrari is on its way?