It was the summer season of 1996
“After I hear discuss eliminating Todt, it makes me chortle. Solely somebody who doesn’t know find out how to assume may provide you with one thing like that. If you wish to destroy Ferrari, then sure, eliminate Jean Todt. However I’m satisfied that this concept got here solely from somebody within the press. I discover all of the fuss made about what occurred fairly stunning,” thundered Michael Schumacher in July 1996, after the disastrous French Grand Prix the place his Ferrari engine went up in smoke in the course of the formation lap.
Tales of yesterday, tales of at this time, cyclical tales. Ten days later, Jean Todt immediately addressed the criticism: “No matter occurs at Ferrari, it’s my fault. It must be, as a result of my place is that of the pinnacle of sporting administration. It’s my fault and it should be my fault—I’m additionally paid for this. I contemplate myself a supervisor. My want is to remain at Ferrari, but when Ferrari desires to eliminate me, it will possibly accomplish that at any second.”
And the journalists weren’t sort. In these very days, Carlo Marincovich wrote in La Repubblica: “The person is actually disagreeable to many, he’s not charming, not sycophantic, actually he’s all the time distrustful of everybody. Based on many, Maranello underneath his management has turn into a form of reign of terror, with individuals strolling round with their heads down and their tails between their legs. Some even painting him as a sort of Ceausescu, surrounded by a court docket able to convey him his slippers and wag their tails on the slightest snap of his fingers.”
Right here too, recurring conditions, a crossroads that by no means appears definitive: “However other than his temper and that of his enemies, placing Todt on trial or exhibiting him the door can be pointless. Worse: it might be an enormous blow to Ferrari. It will imply changing him with another person, and admittedly, trying round, the panorama is fairly empty. It will imply beginning once more, but once more, with ‘restructuring’—which in Maranello means ‘purges’, eliminations, blacklists, dismissals, punishments involving transfers to the geranium vase warehouse.”
Gianni Agnelli blamed the Italian press: “In Italy it’s all the time somebody’s fault: both Todt’s or Sacchi’s or another person’s.” A month later—in August—Luca Cordero di Montezemolo instructed France Soir to clear the air: “I consider Todt has executed an excellent job, regardless that there’s nonetheless progress to be made. Todt shall be a number one determine in our group for a very long time to return.”
In hindsight, in December 2023, Jean Todt recalled to La Stampa: “In ’96 there was loads of discuss my dismissal. Michael had simply arrived and will see that my plan was strong, that the individuals who had been about to affix and with whom I used to be secretly negotiating aligned with our venture. That’s why he stepped in and stated: ‘If Todt goes, I’m going too.’ He positively stopped those that had been pondering of firing me.”
Phrases we’ve already heard
It’s straightforward now to attract a parallel with the phrases of Italian journalists, of Charles Leclerc, Lewis Hamilton, and Frederic Vasseur in the summertime of 2025—to date and not using a response from Ferrari’s administration.
However tying again to those recurring phrases, to a previous that’s all the time current, right here’s a classic Fred Vasseur: “We have to give attention to this season, to extract the utmost potential from our automotive and our technicians. We’ll determine later when the time is correct to start out engaged on subsequent yr’s automotive.” It was 2016, and he was carrying Renault’s yellow uniform.
And once more: “I believe in the intervening time we’re fairly quick on race tempo, however in qualifying we’re an entire catastrophe! Nonetheless, we have to keep calm, not react impulsively, and attempt to perceive what’s not working. We’ve got to be reasonable—we’ll have this handicap till we handle to get probably the most out of our package deal over a single lap.” Once more, Frederic Vasseur, 2020, Sauber Alfa Romeo.
The potential, the execution, the weak qualifying efficiency: it truly is all the time the identical story…
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