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What does Audi have in its new Formula 1 leadership signing Mattia Binotto? What has Binotto taken on?
They have been rather thrown into each others’ arms. On the one hand, the German parent company without any prior F1 experience has decided itself dissatisfied with how preparations are going, the buck has stopped with Andreas Seidl, and Binotto is the most experienced available replacement.
On the other, Binotto has been on the sidelines for a season and a half since being relieved of his position at Ferrari and really needed to get back into F1 soon in a suitably senior position before his currency was spent.
But happy marriages can come out of such circumstances.
Binotto is first and foremost an extremely capable engineer. The value of that background in an F1 managerial position is increasingly recognised. Having a good grasp of the processes and timelines of building up engineering facilities and integrating them with each other, he should be able to identify what needs to be fast-tracked, which are secondary order requirements.
He will be a very safe pair of hands in overseeing the expansion and structuring of the Hinwil Sauber factory. He will recognise where the talent is and he is a skilled communicator.
It’s significant that he has taken on the twin roles of chief operating officer and chief technical officer - a repeat of his then unique position at Ferrari. It sounds a heavy burden being both the Christian Horner and Pierre Wache of the team. How good is he ultimately at each of those roles and can they really be combined? That’s what we’ll find out over the next couple of years.
Critics will say Ferrari has made progress since he left. In some respects it has, yes. It’s more sure-footed in its race operations. But it also made progress in his time as boss there and before that it made a lot of technical progress when he was technical director.
He's also very seasoned in the political games which invariably play out when corporations are involved. There are few more political environments than Ferrari. But his whole F1 career has been with one team, a very singular team with its own culture. Going from Ferrari to Sauber isn’t such a big culture shock - and there are many who have gone back and forwards between the two. But there’s Sauber and there’s Audi. Going from Italian senior management to German is going to be an interesting challenge for him.
There is probably going to be some chafing around the edges as they each get comfortable, but here’s a perfect task to test the resolve and ambition of both parties.
In releasing both Seidl and chairman of the board of directors Oliver Hoffmann, Audi has given Binotto a clear pathway to take charge of the programme. In this corporate age team bosses are not really bosses, but just employees - as Seidl has just found out.
It’s a tough gig, but Binotto has been given a lot of responsibility here and a chance to really build something special. It’s going to stretch him and it’s going to require a steep learning curve from the parent company too. But I wouldn’t write either of them off.
