Rumours of ’conflict’ between Binotto and Resta

Rumours of "conflict" between members of Ferrari’s senior management are emerging.

Amid the Maranello based team’s competitive slump in 2020, the highly respected Italian journalist Alberto Sabbatini has been quoted as saying team boss Mattia Binotto and designer Simone Resta are at odds.

"They say there is friction between Binotto and Resta," he told the Italian podcast Pit Talk.

"We have seen the appearance of such cracks in the team several years ago, but the difference then was that it happened when everything was going well."

Sabbatini, the editor at Autosprint, suggests that the solution to such conflicts should be the appointment of "an authoritative person from the outside".

He believes the current management missed a trick when a secret agreement with the FIA resulted in a huge drop in engine performance for 2020.

"I do not understand why Ferrari did not use its political weight or any other weapon to deal with the situation and have the possibility to develop the engine," said Sabbatini.

"Todt or Montezemolo would never have allowed it, but rather would have used their charisma and political weight to recover part of the penalty they suffered."