Ferrari on Tuesday named Fred Vasseur as the next chief of its Scuderia Ferrari Formula 1 team.
Vasseur will join the squad on Jan. 9 as its new team principal and general manager. He replaces Mattia Binotto, who announced his resignation last month.
Vasseur is currently team principal and CEO of the Sauber F1 team, which races as Alfa Romeo and relies on Ferrari power units. In 2022 he led the team to a respectable sixth-place finish in the Constructors' Championship.
He has more than 25 years of motorsports experience under his belt, having also briefly led the Renault F1 team in 2016. He's also played major roles in Formula E and Formula 2 (previously GP2).
“Throughout his career he has successfully combined his technical strengths as a trained engineer with a consistent ability to bring out the best in his drivers and teams,” Benedetto Vigna, Ferrari's CEO, said in a statement. “This approach and his leadership are what we need to push Ferrari forward with renewed energy.”
Vasseur's predecessor, Binotto, was a Ferrari insider, having joined the company in 1995 as a powertrain engineer and ultimately becoming the head of the F1 team and the Gestione Sportiva motorsports department in 2019. He oversaw Ferrari's cars as they become some of the fastest on the grid in 2022, though a combination of unreliability and some severe strategy mishaps during the season ultimately led to Red Bull Racing winning both the Drivers' and Constructors' titles. Ferrari's Charles Leclerc finished second in the Drivers' points race, while the team also ended up second in the Constructors' race.
Ferrari won't be the only team with a new chief in 2023. Williams is on the hunt for a new team principal following Monday's announcement of the departure of Jost Capito.
