With his shock of dark hair and his round black-framed spectacles, Mattia Binotto looks as though he might have taken his masters degree at the University of Modena in the theories of the Marxist philosopher Antonio Gramsci rather than motor vehicle technology. But it is the 49-year-old engineer whose success or failure in a new role is likely to define Formula One’s short-term bid to preserve its credibility as it begins its 70th season in Melbourne on Sunday.
In a world increasingly aware of climate change, the sport is engaged in a bout of existential introspection. Does an intrinsically frivolous exercise that so flagrantly depends on the products of non‑renewable fossil fuel have the right to a continued existence? Or is the effect of the sporting use of the internal combustion engine so minuscule compared with the damage caused by its other manifestations that to remove a source of pleasure for many people represents a example of pointless gesture politics?
This became part of the deal for Binotto in January, when he accepted promotion from the technical directorship of the Scuderia Ferrari to succeed the sacked team principal, Maurizio Arrivabene. It starts with the responsibility for ensuring that the 2019 season is a properly competitive one in which his team, after a long barren spell, puts an end to the five-year stranglehold enjoyed by Mercedes-Benz.
Pre-season testing went well, as it often does with Ferrari, leading to heightened optimism in Italy. But this is about more than one team’s fortunes. If Binotto succeeds in providing an environment in which Sebastian Vettel and the new boy Charles Leclerc can race their Ferraris on level terms with the Silver Arrows of Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas – and with perhaps the Red Bull of Max Verstappen, too – for the entire duration of the 21-race series, a lot of the doubts surrounding Formula One will be temporarily set aside. A properly competitive series would help to quieten unfavourable comparisons with the excitement and unpredictability of MotoGP, where few questions are ever asked about what contribution Marc Márquez’s Honda engine is making to the rise in sea levels.
The Swiss-born Binotto has spent half his life working for Ferrari, first in the company’s engine department and then, since the beginning of the century, in the racing team. And now, in the 90th year since the Scuderia was founded, he has become the 26th man to take on its leadership. It is not insignificant that more than half of them lasted no more than two years in a job that is a bit like managing Real Madrid under Florentino Pérez, with a similar degree of expectation and scrutiny.
He is also only the fourth engineer to be given the title. Predecessors plucked from other backgrounds included a perfume manufacturer, a couple of journalists and, most recently, a marketing man from the tobacco industry. The best of them simply had a gift for management. Nello Ugolini’s two successful spells in the late 30s and early 50s sandwiched a period spent taking Modena FC to their highest position in Serie A. Luca di Montezemolo, mastermind of Niki Lauda’s first world titles, went on to run the 1990 World Cup and to chair the Fiat group. Jean Todt, who brought Michael Schumacher to Maranello, is now president of world motor sport’s governing body.
Engineers have not been so successful. The three before Binotto were all removed within a year, demonstrating that the task of designing a competitive Formula One car is not necessarily the best training the role of understanding and supervising all aspects of the operation.
The football analogy breaks down when the wider context is taken into account. Real Madrid’s manager does not have to sit down with Fifa to negotiate major changes to the basic rules: the shape of the pitch, for example, or the size of the ball, or whether players should be forced to wear different kinds of boots. They have no say in how many matches should be played per season, or where.
The Formula One equivalent of those matters now becomes Binotto’s concern. Collectively and individually, the principals of the leading teams are lobbyists with a powerful influence on the shape of the sport. And given that F1 is in a period of deciding every aspect of its future, he will have a lot more to think about than just making his own team a more relaxed place to work.
The new owners of the series, Liberty Media, are businessmen who want more races and bigger profits. They would like shorter race meetings – maybe only two days – with new attractions that might include a sprint race as well as the full grand prix. For race promoters, that would mean diminished revenues. For the teams, additional races would add to the already extreme burden on their personnel and stretch their budgets.
Binotto’s calm voice will also be heard in the intense debates over a new set of technical rules, due to come into force in 2021. Given that it takes 18 months to create a new car, time is getting short to settle the argument between those who want simpler technology that promotes closer racing and those invested in the expensive complexity that reflects the sport’s history of innovation and acknowledges environmental concerns.
The debate has so many political and philosophical dimensions that Ferrari’s new boss may find himself wondering if a knowledge of Gramsci would not, after all, be more useful now than an understanding of energy‑recovery systems. And while getting his head around all that, he has to send a couple of cars out to win a grand prix on Sunday. Then repeat at regular intervals until December.