Charles Leclerc says Frederic Vasseur is only at the start of a long process at Ferrari, while Christian Horner rules out senior members leaving.
For Ferrari and Vasseur, it has been a challenging first few races for the Frenchman having joined from Alfa Romeo at the end of the previous season. Like other teams, the Italian manufacturer are playing catch up to Red Bull.
They had a great start to last seasons campaign but ended up petering out massively for the Maranello concern. For Vasseur, it was a massive step up despite being involved in motorsport for 30 years, replacing Mattia Binotto who had been Ferrari for decades.
Having taken charge at Ferrari, he is being the same he was at Sauber in terms of personality. He is bringing those changes and undertaking mass recruitment to bolster the Italian manufacturer’s various departments which needs strengthening.
Questions have been raised but Leclerc – who has been under him at Sauber – feels Vasseur is doing the best for Ferrari and it is only the start of a long process. “I think he’s just starting this process now,” he said to media. “Until now he was basically trying to analyse the situation as quickly as possible in order to do the best changes possible for the future”.
“So yeah, I think the big part of the job will be done from now on so we will see. Obviously I speak a lot with Fred and I know what are his middle and long term plans for the team, and I’m completely behind him and I trust him fully. So I’m sure these are the right choices and it goes in the right direction for the team”.
“So for that, I’m looking forward to it. But yeah, let’s wait and see,” summed up Leclerc, who is also under pressure to get his consistency in check and not make silly mistakes. The changes talked about by the Monegasque also includes the Laurent Mekies situation.
Despite a close relation with Vasseur, the Frenchman will move to AlphaTauri at some stage. His departure from Ferrari depends on the dialogues between Red Bull and the Italian manufacturer. It is still early days, but the team appears to be headed in the right direction even though it may be baby steps.
There have been reports where the Italian giants are suggested to being “interested” in a number of Red Bull technical personnel over the last while. The move of Mekies to AlphaTauri stands at a very interesting corner. Even though deals will be made behind the scenes, Red Bull chief Christian Horner doesn’t think it will involve top end engineers.
“I mean, again, as usual, there’s plenty of speculation,” said Horner. “You know, will there be a hostage exchange for Laurent Mekies? Well, we don’t have any hostages. So in terms of personnel moving to Ferrari, certainly at a senior or medium level, there’s nothing planned”.
“Individuals that have been mentioned in connection with Ferrari came to see me last week and mentioned their disbelief in some of these rumours. But, you know, it’s Formula 1, that will inevitably happen, but there’s no plans for any senior members of our team to be joining Maranello,” summed up Horner.
It would not be the first time, a main member of once team joined another and is of course very commonplace and too many scenarios where it has occurred even to be listed. With Red Bull where they are, it shouldn’t be a huge loss but Mercedes has seen its fair share of people leaving and the team facing difficulties even with replacements in line.
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What is on between Red Bull and Ferrari with regards to Mekies?
