F1 News: Ferrari Chief Hints At Huge New Recruitment In Team Reshuffle
Scuderia Ferrari has been involved with a lot of reshuffling within the team, especially after the exit of former race director Laurent Mekies. However, team principal Fred Vasseur assured fans that work is being done behind the scenes to fill the position.
After Mekies' exit from Ferrari, the team swung into action to fill his position from within by promoting Diego Ioverno to take up race director duties. In addition, Vasseur revealed that the team was hiring staff from another constructor whose announcement would be made soon. He told Planet F1 about the recruitment drive and the frustration that comes with it.
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“We have already had the discussion, it’s a very long process. The consequence of this is that the people will join sometimes in a couple of months.
"But we have people starting in the company on the 1st of January ’24 and some others in July ’24. Some will start beginning of ’25.
"It’s a very long term process and it’s a bit frustrating also because you have the feeling that you are working for two or three years from today.
"But if you don’t start to do it, you will never get it. That means that we have to push on it and I think we made a good step forward.
"We have had good recruitment but I will never give you a name before we finalise everything including the deal with the current team of the guys.
"It’s important to keep it confidential and to work in a good mood and in a good approach and I don’t want to jeopardise that, but soon you will have some announcement.”
It also turns out that the wind tunnel time isn't the only cost cap challenge being faced by the team as Vasseur reveals its impact on recruitment, exempting the three highest-paid staff and the drivers. He said:
“It is like it is that we are all on the same type of contract.
We know that we have a lot of inertia on the recruitment and also that you have the cost cap.
It means that you can’t recruit only based on the salary and that will increase the salary and so because with the cost cap, it will be a nightmare.
That means that we need to be efficient with the requirement to choose the right people to take time to understand where we are weak, where we have to improve and to pick the good ones with a good project because the main topic is to build up the right project with the people that you are recruiting."
