Written by Hugh Waring, Edited by Vyas Ponnuri
Frenchman David Sanchez has reportedly resigned from his position as Head of Vehicle Concept at Ferrari.
Sanchez, a key member overseeing the concept of Ferrari’s 2022 and 2023 cars, left the role only days after the season opener in Bahrain.
It is understood that the Frenchman, following his decade-long stint at Ferrari, will be placed on gardening leave following his decision, insisted to have been made in recent months.
Sources suggest his departure is due to the failings of improvement between the F1-75 (2022) and the new SF-23 cars, where Charles Leclerc retired and Sainz finished in fourth, behind the Aston Martin driven by Fernando Alonso. Sanchez worked along with former team principal Mattia Binotto, in a vital role to form in 2017.
Although it has not been confirmed, it is likely, following multiple reports, that Sanchez may return back to his former team Mclaren, who host an exciting, new wind tunnel and new infrastructure in the factory, the project expected to be ready towards the end of this year. The former team developed the F-Duct technology under the help of Sanchez, who worked at the Woking factory between 2007 to 2012.
These reports echo the words of new Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur, the Frenchman stating his desire for each department of the Italian team to strive for improvement:
"Every single area of every single team has to improve," he said. "This is important. It's the DNA of my business.
"We need to have the approach to try to do a better job tomorrow than today. And it's not just the race engineer or the chief of aero, it has to come from every person of the company including the production.
"If the guy on the production can produce a bit faster, or a bit lighter or a bit cheaper, it will be a support for the development of the car.
"We have to send this kind of mindset to every single team member."
Interesting times at Ferrari... Binnotto was really ingrained within the technical team as his background was engineering - whilst he might not have been making the improvements at the rate required, he always played the team game well. Vasseur has a mountain to climb and losses like this so early in his tenure and the season won't help. If the car isn't on Red Bull challenging pace within a race or two I would expect Charles and Carlos to be throwing some toys about too.
Ferrari as a winning unit were never better than when Todt was there. Anyone going in should really study Jean, his career and methods. Probably his time at Peugeot building a winning car and team…