Ferrari Team Boss Arrivabene Grilled Over Season’s Mistakes

There was a fairly tense moment between Ferrari team principal Maurizio Arrivabene and BBC’s Andrew Benson. The FIA team’s press conference featured Ferrari, Red Bull, Mercedes, Force India and Renault. BBC journalist Andrew Benson quizzed Arrivabene about Ferrari’s numerous mistakes this season.

When Benson highlighted that Ferrari did not take the championship to the wire due to too many mistakes, Arrivabene got defensive. With a slight edge to his voice, he said, “This is your opinion?.”

Benson simply said that he was stating facts and offered to go through the races. Arrivabene smirked and said, “What do you want me to do? Fire him?”

Benson wanted to know how will Ferrari take the fight to Mercedes. In reply, Arrivabene said, “I’ll give you an answer. What you said was not correct because we started the season in very good shape. Yes, as Sebastian said, he made many mistakes and then for a month, we were not there with the car, and this is a fact, if you are talking about facts. I don’t want to point a finger at the team or on the driver, if we are losing, we lose together, if we are winning, we are winning together and that’s it.”

Benson was right about one thing, Ferrari had dropped the ball somewhere along the way. Even Sebastian Vettel was far from blame-free as he too lost concentration a few times. They were fortunate that Red Bull had issues with at least one of their cars, so the constructor’s position was not under threat.

However, they will surely come back stronger in 2019 and with a fresh face joining Vettel. Charles LeClerc will be raring to go and win races, and hopefully a title.