Sainz not worried by latest Ferrari management shake-up

Carlos Sainz insists that he's not worried by the latest shake-up of the senior management and technical team at Ferrari.

Mattia Binotto - a former head of the power unit operation at Maranello - left his role as team principal over the winter and was replaced by Frederic Vasseur.

Then just one race into the new season, Ferrari announced that its former head of vehicle performance David Sanchez was leaving with immediate effect ahead of taking a role at McLaren next year.

Since then it has been confirmed that the team's sporting director Laurent Mekies was heading to AlphaTauri to take over from Franz Tost as team principal. He was absent from Spa and is now on 'gardening leave'.

“Obviously he was a very important figure at Ferrari the last few years, and he’s been a huge contributor to the team,” Sainz said last week when asked about the impact of Mekies' departure.

"Honestly I had a really good relationship with him, and he was very proactive and very good to the team in general," sainz added.

• Read also: Ferrari names new sporting director as Mekies leaves team

“I think we were all very appreciative and that’s probably why he’s going to a team principal role in another team, because he was doing a good job for us," he added. “But the transition has been done already."

Ferrari has already announced that Diego Ioverno will take over as sporting director. "[Laurent] has been very helpful also in helping Diego to learn. He’s relearned the job that he was doing.

"I’m not concerned at all with the transition period, because it’s already been smoothened out," he insisted.

However Ferrari is yet to announce a new technical director, and former Mercedes performance director Loic Serra is not expected to begin work at Maranello until at least 2025 leaving some significant gaps in the technical department.

“I don’t feel like it’s light at all," insisted Sainz. "I’m 100 per cent sure that the structure we have now is also working well for the development of next year’s car.

"Fred is doing the best he can do to reinforce the team, and the people we have have very clear targets in mind," he said. “The car is being developed nicely in the wind tunnel and I don’t feel light at all.

"If anything, I’d rather have a lighter a year now when we know that we are not really fighting for a world championship and make sure we are restructuring, we are recruiting and we are strong for when the tougher challenges come - hopefully in the near future.”

After finishing last season in second place in the constructors standings, albeit over two hundred points behind the dominant Red Bull squad, Ferrari came into 2023 optimistic of competing for wins and titles under Vasseur.

However that's not proved the case, and Ferrari head into the summer break in fourth place behind not just Red Bull but also Mercedes and Aston Martin.

Sainz' best result so far this year was fourth place in the season opener at Bahrain. Unlike his team mate Charles Leclerc, he's not managed to make it onto the podium so far in 2023.

However he's been in the points in all but one of the 12 races so far, until his retirement in last week's Belgian Grand Prix after colliding with McLaren's Oscar Piastri at the first corner.

He's currently in seventh place in the drivers championship, just seven points behind Leclerc and George Russell.

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