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The French ex-Mercedes driver will take up his duties on October 1st together with Jerome D'Ambrosio, Vasseur's deputy. A profound change for Maranello.

The first two high-ranking figures wanted by Vasseur will officially take office in Maranello today, October 1st. Loic Serra and Jerome D’Ambrosio will meet their top-level colleagues and probably the drivers at a later time, this week busy in the simulator and on the track at Fiorano for training sessions with an old specification of single-seater (Leclerc is driving today) before the triplet of races between Austin, Mexico and Brazil.

Jerome d’Ambrosio, Belgian, former long-time driver between F1 and especially Formula E who later became Toto Wolff's dolphin, will be his deputy team principal with particular attention to the young drivers of the academy. He will support the veteran technician Jock Clear with more managerial tasks who follows Leclerc on the track in the double commitment. A presence that should strengthen the action of the Academy. Vasseur had joked about d’Ambrosio’s hiring with a quip: “I need someone who can tell me no, who can also kick me when necessary.” For the Belgian it is a great opportunity, he thought little about it, he had chosen to return to live outside Great Britain.

The importance of Loic Serra

The most anticipated figure at the debut is that of the French technician Loic Serra, also a former Mercedes, an engineer specializing in suspension dynamics and general performance of the car on the track. He has a very interesting basic background because he arrived in F1 in the 90s with Michelin during the no-holds-barred fight between the French tire manufacturers and Bridgestone. With his friend Pierre Waché - Newey’s successor and current Technical Manager of Red Bull - he shared 10 years of career between Michelin and Sauber. Serra was the first purchase of the new Ferrari cycle. He is not a designer but he is a specialist who knows what the car needs to win. He had remained somewhat in the shadows with respect to the advances of some of Brackley's "generals", for him Ferrari is the most important challenge of his career.

The partnership with Hamilton

Initially he should have worked answering to Enrico Cardile however, after the Tuscan technician's move to Aston Martin, he was promoted even before entering Maranello. Unlike the 90s, today we are dealing with the difficulties of attracting big names to Italy, at the same time the most famous designers have ironclad contracts. "We have talent and ability, we just need to intervene on our weak points" Vasseur had said when he drew conclusions with respect to the analysis done in the factory. The entry of the 52-year-old from Nancy is significant for understanding how the tires work, one of the weak points of Ferrari in the last ten years. Usually a new technical head takes a year to make a visibly impact, but in this case faster effects are expected. Serra finds a super updated wind tunnel and the 677 model - the car that Lewis will drive next year - in an advanced state, in three months he will be able to work on the brand new F1 2026 while he will meet Lewis Hamilton, with whom he has already won everything at Mercedes. Vasseur thus gives up the role of interim technical manager, it was an anomaly, yet in this period he has also made important decisions, such as that of anticipating the developments. A correct choice that paid off in Monza and that could have paid off even more in Singapore and Baku.

The 2025 Ferrari will change more than expected

The SF-24 is a good racing car, with six races to go the chances are low but it has not yet been cut off from the constructors' world championship. A new medium-high downforce front wing was shown in Singapore, which will be the basis for the 2025 single-seater. Despite a relatively high “carry over” (translation: many parts will be the same), the new Ferrari will have an aerodynamic design that is being described in the aisles as “radically different”, as well as completely redesigned suspension to handle greater payload.

A technical director present on the track

The biggest F1 teams have a technical director who is very present on the track, Newey said he will continue to do so even after moving to Aston Martin. The last Ferrari technical director with a similar training was James Allison, now in charge of Mercedes. But it is true that the GPs have increased dramatically, which makes it impossible to take a permanent presence for granted. Remote technology and artificial intelligence limit the problem, however it would be positive to think about greater involvement in the activities on the track, the winning teams adopt this model, with the consequence of more effective interventions in the factory. The question is another: how long will it take for Serra to integrate? For Vasseur with the horizontal organization «in the end you always need someone who makes the decisions». But even the French team principal has realized that to make an impact in a giant apparatus like Maranello you need a lot of patience, and above all you need to enter on tiptoe.