Ferrari make changes to strategy team ahead of 2023 - Binotto’s final act?

Strategy was a key weakness of Ferrari in 2022, costing Charles Leclerc at least three race victories in Monaco, Azerbaijan and Britain.

Initially reported by a number of Italian media outlets, former head of strategy Inaki Rueda has been moved to a factory role, having led Ferrari’s strategy team for a number of years.

While new team boss Frederic Vassuer has ultimately had the final say, it has been suggested that this change was already planned by Mattia Binotto, who left the team at the end of December.

Rueda’s replacement will be Ravin Jain, who has previously been a race strategy engineer at the team.

Ferrari have further clarified the roles their key management will play this season.

Racing director Laurent Mekies will be focused on “team operations”, while Vasseur as team principal will be responsible for drivers, sponsors and the media. 

Speaking after the launch of their 2023 challenger, Vasseur confirmed that there would be only “marginal changes”.

“As we said before, it’s a very short notice and it’s very difficult to make big changes in an organisation,” he explained. 

“We will do some marginal changes in the organisation on the race team operation and let’s see after Bahrain and the first couple of races what we will do.”