Gary Anderson on the causes of the Ferrari crisis

      Gary Anderson, a former racing car designer and now an expert at The Race, discusses the causes of the current crisis in the Ferrari team, explaining why it would be wrong to remove Frederick Wasser.

      When Ferrari is in trouble, the whole of Italy is in trouble, and the Italian press will not remain silent if the team does not show normal results. But the attack on Frederic Wasser, the team leader, launched before the Canadian Grand Prix, is probably not just another newspaper column, and it's more serious than that.

      When I was working in Formula 1, there were a couple of journalists in the paddock who everyone knew that as soon as fleeting rumors appeared, they immediately started spreading them everywhere, passing them off as real news…

      But I've always believed that there's no smoke without fire, so I'm sure things aren't going well at Ferrari. This is why there are rumors that Wasser will be ousted. And they are also fueled by stories that Christian Horner's future as head of Red Bull Racing cannot be guaranteed either. However, this begs the question: why would the Ferrari management want such a change?

      I agree that the team's results this year do not meet expectations, although Ferrari signed a contract with Lewis Hamilton, hoping to fight for the championship, but now this very expensive project seems to be a failure. However, this cannot be blamed on Wasser, because John Elkann, the company's president, handled the Hamilton deal. 

      Following this logic, maybe he should be called to account? Of course, this cannot happen, because he is actually one of the shareholders, and not an ordinary, hired employee.

      There are no magic recipes for success in Formula 1. When personnel changes occur, it always takes time for everything to settle down and work. This can be seen, among other things, in the British Premier League, where coaches regularly change in teams that are not performing well.

      But if you look at the essence of the matter more seriously, in the long run, teams usually become stronger if They're going through difficult times with their supervisors.

      My experience at Jaguar has been an example of how senior management can undermine your credibility within the team. It's extremely difficult for everyone to stay focused if the biggest boss finds fault with everything you do, while he slowly leaks information to the media.

      When such leaks occur, regardless of whether there was some truth in them or not, the rumors only grow, and this can very quickly lead the team off course.

      The changes in Formula 1 began in the late 90s and early 2000s. Prior to that, the team leaders were, in fact, their owners, it is enough to mention the names of Eddie Jordan, Frank Williams, Peter Sauber, Ron Dennis and Tom Walkinshaw. All of them left and were replaced by hired corporate managers.

      In my day, if a team performed poorly, it was usually the technical director who handled the situation and provided all the necessary support. It seems that the team leader is responsible for everything right now, and he also has to worry about whether the aerodynamics are working efficiently enough with a certain amount of ground clearance and other parameters.

      At Ferrari, the concept of the 2025 car was being developed when technical director Enrico Cardile went on sabbatical, and Loic Serra joined the Mercedes team, and during this period Vasseur had to deal more with technical issues. But technically, by that time – and it was long before the start of the 2025 season – he had been in charge of the team for only a few months.

      At the same time, I am aware that from the very beginning he tried to achieve all the necessary powers to resolve personnel issues and determine the structure of the entire enterprise. At the time, when Mattia Binotto was combining the positions of team leader and technical director, I said that this was the wrong approach.

      No one can simultaneously perform two such tasks at once. If Ferrari allows a repeat of the old story, then it deserves these problems. 

      If we talk about the SF-25 machine, then it is obvious that it has obvious problems with the stability of the aerodynamic platform. In Monaco, where you need a higher ground clearance than usual, the Ferrari car raced like a rocket. And on most regular tracks, where the chassis works more efficiently, the lower the ground clearance, the difficulties increase. But Charles Leclair is more or less able to handle such a car, but Ferrari needs to find some kind of solution that will allow the chassis to work normally with a wider range of settings. 

      But Lewis Hamilton is in a more difficult situation. He may be doing well in one session, but in the next he fails to reach the top ten, or he may even end up near the end of the second. If that's what you'd expect from a rookie, it's certainly not from a driver with more than 350 starts and seven world championships.

      The team needs someone with similar experience to set its trajectory, but it looks like Lewis has had a few arguments with Riccardo Adami, his race engineer. This only increases the pressure that Vasseur is currently experiencing, and the Italian press is also discussing this.

      Last year, Ferrari fought McLaren for the Constructors' Cup until the end of the season, and eventually took 2nd place, scoring only 14 points less. And now she is on the third line of the team standings, losing to McLaren by 191 points already.

      The level of results is always relative. This year, McLaren and Mercedes are progressing, Red Bull is standing still, and you can even say that they lost ground after replacing Sergio Perez, because now they have to shuffle Max Verstappen's teammates.

      Ferrari is also standing still, and this is the best case scenario. It can even be assumed, although this is a controversial point, that their problems are related to the fact that they replaced Carlos Sainz. After all, he knew the team, he knew how it worked, and he probably would have scored more points than Hamilton, who couldn't adapt in any way.

      If I'm ready to criticize Wasser for something, it's only for the fact that sometimes it's still necessary to find specific culprits of certain problems. This does not mean that public executions should be carried out, but it is important to show your displeasure and make it clear that he understands exactly what the failures are related to.…

      I don't know who exactly is responsible for this, but in reality it should be someone from the top management of Ferrari, who should assure Wasser that his position is solid and the company fully trusts him.

      After that, they should work together to do the same with people who occupy all key positions, primarily in the technical department – that is, we are talking about the technical director, head of the aerodynamics department, chief designer, etc. They all need to be supported and given freedom of action so that they can work normally.

      This is exactly what McLaren did under the leadership of Andrea Stella, assuring everyone that everyone can safely do what they know how to do and not waste time on administrative fuss and political games.

      It cannot be said that Wasser does not work well. By any measure, he was able to set priorities correctly, direct the work of subordinates in the right way, and created conditions in which it is already possible to look for ways to solve problems. All this is reflected in the team's statistics compared to the times when Scuderia was led by his predecessors. For more than a decade and a half, they also tried to win the championship, but failed.

      But I'd still like to see Wasser get more upset with the way the team is doing. The question is, what exactly does he tell the public, especially the Italian fans, who always take the Ferrari situation very seriously.

      It's not worth changing the team leader, even if this is Wasser's third season in office – it still hasn't been that long. But if you always have to work with caution, if you are constantly threatened with dismissal, then you will never be able to work at full strength.…