Formula 1: Should Ferrari fire Mattia Binotto after Chinese Grand Prix disaster?

Should Scuderia Ferrari fire team principal Mattia Binotto following a disastrous start to the 2019 Formula 1 season, especially after the Chinese Grand Prix?

The 2019 Formula 1 season could not possibly be going worse for Scuderia Ferrari, sans the fact that they are currently ahead of Aston Martin Red Bull Racing for second place in the constructor standings through the season’s first three races.

The 2019 season is Mattia Binotto’s first season as the Ferrari team principal, as he was promoted to this role as the replacement for Maurizio Arrivabene, who was fired by the team in January of 2019 after serving as the team principal since November of 2014.

But while a lot of the struggles that the Italian team have endured through the first three races of the 21-race 2019 season can be pinned on an overall lack of speed, especially relative to five-time reigning constructor champions Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport, the team have had also endured their fair share of self-inflicted wounds.

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These self-inflicted wounds have almost all stemmed directly from Binotto. Is it time for the Scuderia to fire the 49-year-old Swiss-Italian?

Before the season began, Binotto stated that Ferrari teammates Sebastian Vettel and Charles Leclerc would be free to fight throughout the season, which was particular notable given Ferrari’s lengthy history of team orders, most recently since Vettel arrived at the team ahead of the 2015 season and became the teammate to Kimi Raikkonen for four seasons.

Vettel had always been the prioritized driver while driving for the Prancing Horse as the teammate to the 39-year-old Finn.

But despite their preseason promise and an additional promise of the same ahead of the season’s second race, the Bahrain Grand Prix, Ferrari have issued team orders prioritizing the 31-year-old German over the 21-year-old Monegasque in each of the season’s first three races, and it has yet to benefit literally anybody. Instead, it has harmed the team as a whole, especially Leclerc.

In the Chinese Grand Prix, Ferrari’s team orders to give Vettel third place ahead of Leclerc, who took third from his teammate at the start of the race after starting in fourth, backfired in the form of Leclerc being put on a terrible pit strategy that resulted in him even falling back to fifth behind Aston Martin Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen.

Here is what Binotto had to say about the matter, according to WTF1.

"“I understand the feeling of Charles, it’s a shame for him. But at that stage of the race the Mercedes were slightly faster, I think we simply tried to give Sebastian a go and see if we could’ve kept the pace of the Mercedes, which was key at that stage of the race. It was not to give an advantage to a driver, to the other driver, merely as a team to try whatever we could. Early stage was an important moment of the race.“I think with an undercut [Verstappen would have passed] anyway, one of the two drivers would’ve been undercut, whoever was the driver. As team perspective, I think that wouldn’t have changed, that’s why again I think the choice was simply try everything we could at that stage. I think if Charles is upset, he’s right to be upset, and we should accept it. I think it’s a shame for him, and next time maybe it will be to his advantage.”"

In regard lto erstappen, he had next to no chance of finishing ahead of either Ferrari driver had they been treated equally.

Yes, he challenged Vettel for third place following a pit stop, but once Vettel held him off, he pulled away from him. Leclerc could have done the same, and considering the fact that he was ahead of Vettel before team orders kicked in, he may not have even had to hold him off.

At this point in the season, Vettel leads Leclerc by just one point (37 to 36) for fourth place in the driver standings despite the fact that he has been prioritized by the team in each of the season’s first three races as well as the fact that Leclerc lost what was almost a sure victory in the Bahrain Grand Prix, due to an engine issue.

This highlights the fact that Vettel has simply not been as fast as his teammate this season, yet Ferrari continue to make the mistake of prioritizing him anyway, race after race after race, even after claiming on multiple occasions that they would let their drivers race.

As he did on numerous occasions in the 2018 season to cost himself the chance to compete for the championship, Vettel made an unforced error to cost himself a potential top two finish or even a victory in the Bahrain Grand Prix, as he spun out and damaged his car with 20 of the 57-lap race’s laps remaining. He ended up making an unexpected pit stop before finishing the race in fifth place.

Yes, it’s easy to say that “it’s too early” to talk about Ferrari firing Binotto. But that was the excuse after the season opener, and the two races that have taken place since then have both resulted in useless team orders prioritizing Vettel over Leclerc.

The one thing I will say in Binotto’s favor regarding Leclerc is that the late Sergio Marchionne, the former president of Ferrari, reportedly planned to replace Arrivabene with Binotto ahead of the 2019 season. He was also a huge fan of Leclerc and wanted him promoted as Raikkonen’s replacement as soon as possible.

Despite Marchionne’s death last July, Ferrari went ahead with his plans to replace Raikkonen with Leclerc, and they also went ahead with his supposed plans to replace Arrivabene with Binotto, albeit at a later date.

Whether or not Binotto was a confirmed fan of Leclerc before his promotion to the Prancing Horse is unknown, but it would not be surprising if he was and there was, in fact, a correlation here that led the team to make the decision to replace Raikkonen with the former member of the Ferrari Driver Academy.

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Should Ferrari fire Mattia Binotto after their disastrous start to the 2019 Formula 1 season, or it is too early to make that call with only three of the season’s 21 races having been contested? Will he continue to make calls that simply harm instead of help the team, particularly Charles Leclerc, or will he either let Leclerc and Sebastian Vettel race or begin to prioritize the young gun?

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