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Mercedes Formula 1 boss Toto Wolff believes Ferrari is suffering from the actions of “certain members” after the Italian team slumped to its worst qualifying of the season in Belgium.
Ferrari drivers Charles Leclerc and Sebastian Vettel avoided a Q1 elimination at Spa but only made it onto the seventh row of the grid after finding themselves well adrift of the top-10 shootout and left to fight George Russell’s Williams.
After a run of pole positions and three victories in the second half of 2019, Ferrari’s form has nosedived in 2020 as a result of rule clarifications issued last year and over the winter to reinforce F1’s regulations around fuel flow and other potential areas of manipulation.
Ferrari’s 2019 engine was investigated by the FIA but that ended in a confidential settlement as the governing body could not determine whether the team had or had not broken any rules.
The backwards step, which Ferrari has put down to the new engine and a car that produces too much drag because it was conceived with more engine power in mind, has resulted in a miserable 2020 season so far that may reach a new low in Belgium.
After his team secured its seventh pole in a row in its quest to secure a seventh straight F1 title double, Wolff said: “Ferrari’s an iconic brand and they should be racing at the very front.
“It’s not good for Formula 1, it’s not good for the competition at the front and I very much feel with all the Tifosi and employees of Ferrari for this lack of performance.
“And again, one must question the priorities that have been set in recent times, and where the lack of performance comes from.
“But overall nobody from the fans and the Ferrari people deserves such a result.”
When asked what he meant by the “priorities” at Ferrari, Wolff said: “I don’t want to speak – actually it’s wrong to say ‘Ferrari’ priorities because that drags Ferrari and everybody at Ferrari into this.
“It’s maybe the decisions that have been made within the team, from certain members of the team.”
Wolff did not direct any accusations at any Ferrari individual but his relationship with team principal Mattia Binotto has become frosty in the wake of the Ferrari cheating allegations of 2019 and Binotto’s conduct so far this year.
Binotto suggested all the engine manufacturers have been affected by the FIA’s technical directives rather than just Ferrari, but this has been rejected by its rivals.
Concorde Agreement negotiations, the Racing Point brake duct and Mercedes copying sagas, and a push to get qualifying engine modes banned as of the Italian Grand Prix have all added potential sources of conflict between F1’s two biggest teams as well.
Despite Ferrari’s slump and the controversy of 2019, Binotto has retained the full support of the company’s CEO Louis Camilleri and chairman John Elkann. He was appointed team principal before the start of last season, having previously been its technical chief.
Binotto and his chiefs have insisted they will not resort to sacking individuals as a reaction to on-track difficulties.
But Ferrari has implemented a structural change in response to its poor 2020 form, creating the performance development department that effectively creates a group to assume the responsibility of a conventional technical director.
