2023 defintely didn’t start in the way Ferrari fans were hoping for. In fact, drivers Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc struggled in Bahrain, achieving respectively only an underwhelming fourth place and suffering already from the first retirement of the season in the same place where last year the Italian squad had achieved a much more impressive 1-2.
The team has undergone a big management change over the last few months, ignited by former Team Principal and Technical Director Mattia Binotto resigning from all his roles and being replaced by Frederic Vasseur.
The new French Team Principal has promoted a quiet but effective team reorganisation, with the younger Ravin Jain promoted to follow on-track race strategies in Inaki Rueda’s place, who has taken up a new sporting role in Maranello.
It comes as a surprise, however, the news of Head of Vehicle Concept David Sanchez’s resignation, a senior figure who had been working with the Italian team for more than ten years.
The French engineer had joined Ferrari in the October of 2012 from McLaren, covering a number of roles in the aerodynamics sector, becoming Head of Aerodynamics and Head of Concept Vehicle in 2019, thus being in charge of the vision behind the SF-23 and last season’s F1-75 challenger.
Sanchez had been extremely close to the former Swiss Team Principal, and it’s being reported by respected Italian website Formu1a.uno that he will be returning to the Aereodynamics department of the Woking-based team at the end of his gardening leave.
The return of the former Ferrari engineer at McLaren will be a strong assist in the English team’s quest to improve the concept of the car, after getting off to an unimpressive start in Bahrain.
The Italian F1 team, second in the constructors’ championship in 2022, has not commented on the departure of their senior partner, and will probably have to find an internal replacement to take over the role for the current season, with a possible contender in actual Head of Aereodynamical Development Diego Tondi.
Photo credits: Scuderia Ferrari
