Departing Ferrari Formula One group supervisor Mattia Binotto has had a horrible season, and on Wednesday, Mercedes rival Toto Wolff claimed the previous held the place longer than anticipated.
The Austrian additionally made clear in Formula One’s newest “Beyond The Grid” podcast that he wouldn’t be opening any doorways to the Italian.
Binotto leaves Maranello on the finish of the month after handing in his resignation in November.
“It was always clear that he was under tremendous pressure. Being a team principal at Ferrari, you’d better have a good contract for your exit,” mentioned Wolff.
“Now probably the unavoidable happened, but he held on to it longer than I thought.”
Binotto, a career-long Ferrari man, was appointed group principal in January 2019 however leaves with Ferrari nonetheless chasing a primary title since 2008 after ending runners-up to Red Bull this 12 months.
Mercedes have taken high folks from Ferrari earlier than, with former technical director Aldo Costa becoming a member of in 2014 and serving to design a string of successful automobiles earlier than leaving on the finish of 2019.
James Allison went from Ferrari technical director in 2016 to the identical function at Mercedes in 2017.
Wolff dominated out a gap for Binotto, whose background is in engineering, nevertheless.
“No, I think there was too much porcelain broken between us over the last two years that this would be possible,” mentioned the Mercedes boss.
“With the other teams, I can’t say. But certainly, Mattia understands Formula One inside out and maybe he finds a role in another team.”
Alfa Romeo group boss Frederic Vasseur is the favourite to exchange Binotto.
Wolff, who acknowledged he would have discovered the job tempting had he been approached by Ferrari earlier than he joined Mercedes, mentioned the function was about rather more than simply Formula One.
“It’s such a niche where the sport, the regulations, the governing body, the commercial rights holder, the competitors, all of us are basically locked in in this paddock cage. You need to be politically astute,” he mentioned.
“You can be a good racing manager, and not understand anything that’s going on commercially or outside in the world.”
