Ferrari chairman John Elkann makes 'important' demand of F1 team amid Lewis Hamilton woe
Ferrari chief John Elkann wants to channel the spirit of the team's peak success 20 years ago in order to summit the Formula 1 World again. The Scuderia is the most successful outfit in the sport's history but has not won a title since 2008.
It was a decade in which the Prancing Horse was largely dominant, particularly in the first half. Between 2000 and 2004, Michael Schumacher was the king of the grid as all the parts came together to team that had struggled at times in the 1990s into one which blew all its rivals away.
The team was led at the time by Jean Todt, who played a huge role in bringing all those key cogs together. That included not only Schumacher behind the wheel but also the likes of Ross Brawn, who followed the German from Benetton to become Ferrari's technical director, and Rory Byrne who was lured out of his retirement in Thailand to become chief designer.
There are plenty of factors behind Ferrari's struggles in recent years, but their progress has so often been stunted by politics and meddling individuals within the wider company. But now, executive chairman Elkann is preaching an approach of togetherness in the team's quest for more glory.
Ferrari have built their operations around Charles Leclerc, added a seven-time F1 champion into the mix in the form of Lewis Hamilton, and have now tied down team principal Frederic Vasseur to a new multi-year contract amid speculation in Italy over the Frenchman's future.
It has been a tough season so far with Hamilton in particular struggling to adapt, but Elkann hopes they, along with other key individuals, will form the perfect combination needed to get Ferrari back to the top. "Ferrari wants to win, has won, will win, when it is able to get everyone together," he told Formula1.com.
"What is important in Ferrari is not the individual, but it is the individuals. Those individuals, when they work together, they can do incredible things. That has been very much the case in Formula 1.
"We all remember when we were victorious, and we were victorious because there was a very strong sense that incredible individuals – from our engineers, our mechanics, our pilots, our team principal – were really individuals that worked together. So it is not about the individual, but it's about the collective effort of great individuals who can achieve even more together."
Regarding the decision to stick with Vasseur, who joined in early 2023, Elkann added: "We have really worked well with Fred, and when you work well, it is important to continue working well. The reality is that from the basis of these years, we all want to build more and we know that, in Formula 1, times are such that what you really need is engagement, trust, and make sure that the time is there with you.
"The natural evolution of the relationship with Fred, that has been a very strong relationship and one that you can feel, and it is palpable in Ferrari, just the importance of how stability makes a big impact on results. That is really what we all want."
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