The decision Vasseur made to avoid ‘alienating’ Ferrari staff
On Thursday it was confirmed Ferrari had moved their former head of strategy Inaki Rueda out of the line of fire, with Ravin Jain taking on the high-pressure role for the upcoming season.
The significant changes have been made in the wake of the high-profile strategic blunders that were partly to blame for Ferrari’s dramatic championship capitulation last year.
It has been suggested that the decision to move Rueda into a factory-based role was already planned by former Ferrari boss Mattia Binotto, before being carried out by his replacement Vasseur.
Sky Sports F1 pitlane reporter Ted Kravitz believes Vasseur has favoured a more calculated approach in his early decision-making since taking over at the helm of Ferrari.
“Ruthless would have been clearing out the whole strategy department and then hiring in his old friend Ruth Buscombe, the British engineer who is head of strategy at Alfa Romeo Sauber,” Kravitz said.
“He hasn’t done that at Ferrari. He could have done, because Alfa Romeo Sauber is kind of a partner team of Ferrari, so he could have had his pick of the Sauber pit wall if he wanted a new strategy group.
“But that would have alienated a lot of people at Ferrari. So what he’s done is to re-assemble some things. Ravin Jain was the chief strategist, Inaki Rueda was the head of strategy. Rueda has been moved to a different role and Jain has been moved up.
“But it’s symptomatic of the tools they use as well. But Ruth Buscombe knows very well you are only as good as the predictor tools that you have.
“Vasseur will have to make sure that the strategists have the right tools to work with, because it’s not only a strategist pulling an idea out of his or her head, they are only as good as the computer tools that they work with."
