‘Motorsport.com’ revealed that a vital employee of the team has presented his resignation after the first race of the season of the F1 2023 season, the Bahrain GP, and on the same day that Ferrari’s Team Principal, Fréderic Vasseur, held a meeting with all the employees at Ferrar’s Gestione Sportiva in Maranello. The person leaving the team in question is none other than Ferrari’s chief of design, David Sanchez.
According to the outlet, this is a personal decision by Sanchez, and not a dismissal, to join “a British team” that could be McLaren. The French engineer will now enter a period of ‘gardening’ (the period of time that an engineer has to wait before joining a new team to keep them from using confidential information from the team that they’re leaving).
Not an impulsive decision
Whether it’s a coincidence or not, the news comes after Ferrari started the 2023 F1 season with very low expectations, far below Red Bull’s pace in the race and without solving one of the main issues the car had last year, which is directly linked to the design of the car: The car’s elevated degradation that hindered its performance during the first race of the year.
However, according to the report, Sanchez’s decision wasn’t made because of the car’s performance in the first race, but it was in fact a meditated choice that he’s been going over for months to join the British team.
The chief of design is a key figure to fix the issues with the car for 2023
Ferrari’s To-Do list for 2023
Ferrari went into 2022 with a car that seemed better than Red Bull’s. The Italian team appeared to have everything to compete for a title. But Milton Keynes’ team pushed through the issues and the engine’s unreliability and deterioration, so Red Bull ended up crushing the second half of the season with better tire management and a better pace in every race.
Besides, Ferrari’s rear wing failed in the preseason tests and failed again during the Bahrain GP. The team had clear goals for this year: Improve the engine’s reliability, the deterioration of the tires, and their resistance on long stretches of the track. But in Bahrain, the team’s tire management wasn’t as good as Red Bulls, and that kept them from competing with their rivals, who got their two pilots on the podium in an even more dominating fashion than last year.
The second major change in the Vasseur era
This is the second major move in the team since Fréderic Vasseur took charge of Ferrari. A few weeks ago, it was revealed that Iñaki Rueda would take a different role within the team, and Ferrari decided to use Ravid Jain as his replacement to work on the strategy coming into this year.
Sanchez was responsible for the design of the F1-75 and the SF-23
What will happen now?
Ferrari will have to keep developing the car throughout the year to diminish its weaknesses and get closer to Red Bull and get the lead over Aston Martin and Mercedes. For this, the chief of design is a key component with an incredible responsibility in achieving this improvement.
The person tasked with substituting Sanchez would have to come from within the same team of engineers currently working at Ferrari.
Sanchez had been with Ferrari since 2012. After four years in Maranello, he replaced Dirk de Beer and went to the department of aerodynamics in 2019. In 2021, then Team Principal Mattia Binotto promoted him to chief engineer, as the main responsible for the design of the car that allowed Ferrari to win after several stumbles along the way. He was also the chief of design on the current car, the SF-23. This is another blow to Ferrari at a time when nobody knows what the team will look like as the season progresses.