Frederic Vasseur has expressed he’s “not interested” in bringing a 15-time F1 champion to join Ferrari’s backroom staff. Instead, for Loic Serra from Mercedes will be joining Ferrari as the team’s technical director.
Ferrari started the 2024 Formula 1 season strong, looking like the main competition for Red Bull. But in recent months, they’ve been overtaken by McLaren and Mercedes. A car update introduced during the Spanish Grand Prix has caused setbacks, leading to bouncing issues that Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz have struggled with. This problem has forced Ferrari to dedicate multiple practice sessions to identifying the cause, which has unfortunately put them behind in both the Drivers’ and Constructors’ Championships.
However, there are still reasons to be optimistic. Seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton is set to join Ferrari at the beginning of next season. He and Leclerc aim to be in the running for the title again, if not in 2025, then certainly when the new regulations come into play in 2026.
A report from Formu1a.uno gives a closer look at the team Vasseur is assembling at Maranello. While it’s confirmed that Adrian Newey won’t be joining Ferrari after leaving Red Bull earlier this year, the team has also lost Enrico Cardile to Aston Martin. For now, Vasseur is covering Cardile’s role.
Recently, Vasseur made it clear that he’s not interested in hiring aerodynamicist Mike Elliott, despite Elliott’s impressive track record of 15 combined Drivers’ and Constructors’ Championships in F1. Elliott began his career in Formula 1 with McLaren in 2000, later moving on to Renault, and eventually joining Mercedes, where he had an extremely successful tenure, advancing from head of aerodynamics in 2012 to chief technical officer before leaving in 2023
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While Elliott is currently a free agent, Vasseur has decided not to bring him on board. Instead, Loic Serra will be joining Ferrari as the team’s technical director, coming over from Mercedes. Diego Tondi, who has been handling chassis development, has also been covering the head of aerodynamics role after he chose not to follow Cardile to Aston Martin. As a result, there’s simply no room for Elliott within Ferrari’s technical team.
Interestingly, this decision comes after Lewis Hamilton denied having any role in Elliott’s departure from Mercedes last year.
Switching gears, Hamilton is facing another challenge as he transitions to Ferrari. Unlike his move from McLaren to Mercedes, which turned out to be a brilliant decision, this new chapter in his career involves adjusting to a new country and a completely different team culture. To make matters more complicated, Hamilton’s trusted race engineer, Pete Bonnington, won’t be joining him at Ferrari. Bonnington has been promoted at Mercedes, and due to a clause in Hamilton’s contract, it was difficult to secure Bonnington’s move. Rumor has it that Bonnington might work with Kimi Antonelli as he embarks on his Formula 1 journey next year. While Hamilton is happy for Bonnington, this means he’ll be paired with a current Ferrari race engineer in 2025, which could be a concern given the challenges Leclerc has faced with his engineer this year.
