Vasseur not ruling out top job at Ferrari

Frederic Vasseur is not ruling out a future as Ferrari team boss.

After the 2018 season, the Maranello team ousted Maurizio Arrivabene and promoted new team principal Mattia Binotto.

Binotto has been welcomed as a smart engineer and manager who is much more open with the media. But the effort to catch and beat Mercedes has so far proved a failure.

And so the latest comments made by Frenchman Vasseur, the boss at Alfa Romeo, are very notable.

Alfa Romeo, formerly Sauber, has close links with Ferrari. Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc is managed by Nicolas Todt. And in 2004, Vasseur and Todt co-founded the successful F2 team ART.

So when asked about potentially leading Ferrari one day, Vasseur told the French broadcaster TF1: "Everything is possible.

"I started in Formula Renault by being 15th or 20th on the grid here at Paul Ricard, so yes anything is possible.

"I’m focused on what we’re doing today, because that’s the most important thing. I think Mattia is doing a good job. For the rest, we’ll see later."

Alfa Romeo had a good start to the 2019 season, but recently had a performance slump that improved somewhat in France last weekend.

Vasseur said: "We had two or three races where for various reasons it did not work out.

"But we are improving now and that is satisfying, especially as we have some developments - mainly aero - which are coming up soon," he told Auto Hebdo.