F1 News: Johnny Herbert On Mattia Binotto’s Ferrari Departure – “He And Charles Leclerc Weren’t Even Talking”

Former F1 driver, Johnny Herbert, has spoken out on Mattia Binotto’s exit from Ferrari as team principal and he is not happy the decision.

It was announced shortly after the 2022 season that Binotto will be stepping away from the Ferrari team at the end of this year. After a lot of speculation over who will take his place, it was revealed that Frederic Vasseur will be stepping into the position.

Writing in his column for Motorsportmagazine.com, Herbert wrote about Binotto’s departure from the team. He wrote:

“I’m very sad Mattia Binotto has gone; I liked him. He had an understanding of what and how things needed to be done. But as I said in a previous column, the summer break was his opportunity to address the team’s issues – and he chose not to do that.”

Ferrari started the year on a high with Charles Leclerc performing extremely well, many thought that he might be on his way to his first championship win. However, after countless strategical errors and issues with the cars, Leclerc and his teammate Carlos Sainz struggled towards the end of the season. Despite this, they still got second place in the constructor’s championship and Leclerc took second place in the driver’s championship.

Herbert continued in his column:

“It got to a point where it seemed the engineer and driver were making the calls on strategy. I heard by the end that he and Charles Leclerc weren’t even talking,” 

There seem to be high hopes for Vasseur in the role, especially for Leclerc as they worked together when Leclerc made his F1 debut for Sauber in 2018 when Vassuer was the team principal at the time.

The team will be looking to come back in a better position to compete against Red Bull and Mercedes who are also looking to put their problematic 2022 behind them.