Audi has announced a shake-up of the management team in charge of its new Formula 1 project which will see former Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto return to the series.
Andreas Seidl, who joined Audi from McLaren to be CEO of its F1 team, and board representative Oliver Hoffmann will both leave the project. Audi is due to rebrand Sauber’s F1 team at the end of 2025 and has already hired Nico Hulkenberg as one of its drivers.Audi says it is overhauling the management structure of its team in order to ensure the F1 project is an independent entity with the manufacturer.
“Our aim is to bring the entire Formula 1 project up to F1 speed by means of clear management structures, defined responsibilities, reduced interfaces, and efficient decision-making processes,” said Gernot Dollner, the Audi CEO who will now chair the team’s board of directors. “For this purpose, the team must be able to act independently and quickly.”
Binotto will report to the board of directors and take over the roles of chief operating officer and chief technical officer. “With his extensive experience of more than 25 years in Formula 1, he will undoubtedly be able to make a decisive contribution for Audi,” said Dollner.
Having spent his entire F1 career at Ferrari, Binotto will bring valuable experience of running a full manufacturer team which produces both its own chassis and power unit. He rose to the role of team principal of Ferrari in 2019 and guided the team to second in the constructors’ championship. However he left the team after it fell short of championship success in 2022 following a strong start to the season.
Dollner expressed his thanks to Seidl and Hoffmann. Binotto will take over at the beginning of next month.
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stefano (@alfa145)
23rd July 2024, 13:52
sort of unrelated, but will the team keep a Sauber baseline? My understanding is this will be more than Alfa Romeo putting their logo on the car, but less than a complete buyover (with Sauber disappeaing completely)
Jere (@jerejj)
23rd July 2024, 15:17
The team will definitely be a full Audi manufacturer team from 2026 onwards, with Audi already fully-owning the team since January.
Simon
23rd July 2024, 21:43
Thank you, Audi F1 Press Office 9_9
Andy (@andycz)
23rd July 2024, 13:53
OMG! What about Hulk? I tought he is Seidl’s horse mainly.
Patrick (@paeschli)
23rd July 2024, 14:36
He has a contract, has been driving well this year and is German. No reason to change anything.
Nck T.
23rd July 2024, 17:35
That seemed a bizarre move from Sauber. I guess there wasn’t room for both of them. God am I glad AM didn’t hire MB now.
MichaelN
23rd July 2024, 13:55
The man who took Ferrari to 6th in the WCC. Nice.
Todfod (@todfod)
23rd July 2024, 15:16
I’m no fan of Binotto.. his only solid results for Ferrari (2019) were because of the cheat engine he developed. He then slumped Ferrari to the midfield and spent 2 years preparing for 2022, where he created a strong car but adopted a rookie backmarker approach to strategy, operations and driver management.
He’s not going to set the world on fire with Audi, but I still think he’ll be better than Sauber’s current management.
Michael (@freelittlebirds)
23rd July 2024, 15:37
lol – I guess they are aiming for P6!
RBAlonso (@rbalonso)
24th July 2024, 8:20
With McLaren’s fortunes this season I’m a little more generous in my assessment of Binotto. McLaren are clearly struggling from lack of front of the pack experience, one win since 2012 in 11 seasons permits a certain rustiness. But at Ferrari, realistically how many title fights have they been in in those 11 seasons? 2017 maybe, which obviously ended in failure.
The engine issue of 2019 will always plague Binotto, but the team looked as likely as Red Bull to beat Mercedes before the FIA intervention. I’m sure it was illegal, but there are plenty of other Flexi wing style scandals that have happened elsewhere. 2022, a project he ran from the start so to speak, was a car success – how many seasons have Ferrari started the season with the best car since 2008? 3ish? Development and strategy let them down, but given the ease at which McLaren have thrown away wins, it’s harsh to expect perfection from Ferrari just because they’re Ferrari. Most of the time they fail because they’re Ferrari.
Mayrton
25th July 2024, 8:09
What a sad state of affairs F1 is in if we keep recycling these obsolete and proven ineffective characters.
kuvemar
23rd July 2024, 13:55
Wow, massive shake up. Super thrilled for Mattia though. Ferrari being Ferrari should not have ended his long and accomplished career.
MichaelN
23rd July 2024, 14:23
It’s quite telling his new role seems more akin to the one he had prior to his little coup following the death of Marchionne. Being team principal was clearly one or two steps above his pay grade.
Ferrari is yet to get back to the level of its last pre-Binotto year, where despite a mishandled development path that ultimately doomed their chances, the team led by Arrivabene was a serious contender for the 2018 championship. Tellingly, it hasn’t been one since.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
24th July 2024, 6:07
2022 was pretty good, but they lost it in development mid season, worse than 2017.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
24th July 2024, 6:07
2022 was pretty good, but they lost it in development mid season, worse than 2017.
AbeyG (@1abe)
23rd July 2024, 14:19
Don’t be surprised if Guenther Steiner makes a comeback with the Audi team considering Mattia and he are good friends as seen in DtoS.
MichaelN
23rd July 2024, 15:03
Given the steps Haas has made now that it’s free of Steiner’s ‘leadership’, it’d be quite surprising to see him back at a team in any sort of senior role. From Komatsu and others, it seems that the team was trying to do things for a long time but was consistently stifled by Steiner.
Todfod (@todfod)
23rd July 2024, 15:18
Steiner is probably the worst team principal I’ve come across. He might add comic relief on Netflix, but he’s done nothing but underperformed as a team principal in his entire time in F1. The fact that Komatsu has the same resources as Steiner has had.. and has already moved Haas up from last in the WCC to the midfield, shows that no team in their right mind would hire Gunther.
AbeyG (@1abe)
23rd July 2024, 16:10
Who knows, Steiner could most likely be hired as a consultant like Helmut Marko and then used by Audi for its PR purposes. He has made himself as a Netflix superstar and surely Audi would need all the marketing it can.
Tifoso1989 (@tifoso1989)
23rd July 2024, 16:15
I believe the reality is quite the opposite, and this isn’t just my opinion but is based on information from sources very close to Ferrari. In fact, one of the key reasons Elkann decided to dismiss Binotto was his inability to secure drives for Schumacher and Giovinazzi.
Haas didn’t consider any drivers from the FDA largely due to the strained relationship between Binotto and Steiner. I’m not sure about what DTS might have depicted because I don’t follow it, but while Binotto and Steiner might have played up to the cameras, it’s clear they didn’t get along well at all.
StuBen (@stuben)
23rd July 2024, 18:09
@tifoso1989 DTS showed them enjoying each others company away from the track. Mountain walks, drinking copious amounts of wine at Binotto’s vineyard together plus others. Certainly not the behaviour of two people that don’t get along.
anon
23rd July 2024, 23:11
@tifoso1989 a lot of people will find the idea of a “strained relationship” and the claims that Steiner and Binotto “didn’t get along well at all” to be at odds with what Steiner and Binotto have said in public.
If they were really that at odds with each other, it would be rather odd, for example, for Steiner to choose to invite Binotto as a guest to events, even though we know that Steiner has done exactly that (Binotto was recorded as a guest at a rallying event that Steiner also attended last year, where the two were recorded happily chatting away to each other during the event). Indeed, for two people who supposedly “didn’t get along well at all”, they seem to have been pictured quite a few times socialising together outside of the world of Formula 1 over the past couple of decades – to a level that makes the claims of those supposed “sources close to Ferrari” sound suspiciously more like unreliable clickbait.
Also, for a team that apparently “didn’t consider any drivers from the FDA largely due to the strained relationship between Binotto and Steiner”, Gutierrez and Mick Schumacher raced for Haas, whilst Pietro Fittipaldi was their reserve driver and subsequently promoted to race driver when Grosjean was injured. Schwartzman, Bearman, Giovinazzi and Charles Leclerc have also all tested for Haas under Steiner’s rule, and Steiner was also responsible for appointing Giovinazzi and Bearman to reserve roles at Haas over the years.
Equally, if Elkann was supposed to be upset with Binotto for him failing to secure a drive for Giovinazzi, why would he then hire Vasseur – the person responsible for firing Giovinazzi from Sauber in the first place – to replace Binotto? Doesn’t your logic start falling apart when you’re arguing that Elkann would get angry at Binotto for not getting a job for an FDA driver, but be friendly towards Vasser when he was one of the figures that was rejecting those FDA drivers?
eL Provos
23rd July 2024, 14:49
When will we see James Key depart? He hasn’t designed anything that made any difference since he left Torro Rosso. The Mclarens were slugs and the current sauber is a slug. Not so sure Audi would have missed that.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
24th July 2024, 6:09
Would be toro rosso.
SpaFrancorchamps (@spafrancorchamps)
23rd July 2024, 15:06
Ouch. Seidl left the McLaren project for Audi not too long ago. I think it became clear to Audi which mess he had put McLaren in at the start of last season and they didn’t picture themselves in that same position.
BasCB (@bascb)
23rd July 2024, 18:45
No, it’s more that the Audo Board member who was in charge of the F1 project seemed to like the spotlight of F1 a bit too much and went dabbling into the day to day buisiness, unravelling what Seidl was trying to do, leading to delays and issues that eventually came up to the board.
So the chairman decided to get rid of both parts of that rivalry and start with a clean sheet and leadership in one hand with Binotto.
Maybe Seidl just got dumped because giving HIM that role alone, which he might have been pushing for for a while, only to not give the appearance of him “winning” in this internal conflict which might have led to issues within the wider company.
Nick T.
24th July 2024, 3:05
Who was the board member?
Nick T.
24th July 2024, 3:09
Oh, Hoffman.
BasCB (@bascb)
24th July 2024, 8:03
Yeah, sorry, I should have included that for more clarity. That’s why Hoffman was also let go, yeah.
Nick T.
25th July 2024, 20:52
No worries. I should have realize it was Hoffman from simple context.
Jere (@jerejj)
23rd July 2024, 15:18
What a mess with both Seidl & Hoffman leaving, albeit Binotto’s returning to F1 is something I could see coming the whole time.
Nick T.
23rd July 2024, 17:39
He was basically interviewing with everyone. So, yeah. Ironic that it was initially reported that Binotto called Audi “a clown show.” Obviously that was a lying source or he did and then he couldn’t find anything better.
Electroball76
23rd July 2024, 19:34
Binotto wants to build his own new clown show around him. He did not want to work with any clowns already in place.
Simon
23rd July 2024, 21:47
@jerejj
Did you post this anywhere? ‘Cos it’s easy enough to say “something I could see coming the whole time” after it has happened?
Adrian Hancox (@ahxshades)
24th July 2024, 14:36
Oh come on – you have to stop having a go at Jerejj, you post nothing useful but snipe at one user – nothing but a sad little bully. As for Binotto going to Audi – it had been discussed elsewhere and probably in the comments section here on racefans too somewhere.
Vietvet
23rd July 2024, 17:45
So, can Carlos now be persuaded to follow? It’s quite possible that he didn’t know about this.
Mooa42
24th July 2024, 5:46
Or 2 other possibilities
Carlos wanted Binotto before he would sign?
or Siedl and Hoffman are out because they couldn’t secure Sainz?
Kringle
23rd July 2024, 22:00
This has Jaguar F1 written all over it.
Nick T.
24th July 2024, 3:10
If they’re lucky. Maybe they can get Klein and Pizzonia back.
FlyingLap (@flyinglapp)
23rd July 2024, 22:05
Ferrari’s gain is Audi’s loss.
Nick T.
24th July 2024, 3:11
LMAO
Pit stops will go from 8 seconds to 9. Cause, you know, you don’t want to blame anyone.
EffWunFan (@cairnsfella)
23rd July 2024, 22:56
Seidl out! Didn’t see that coming TBH.
Le Jimster (@lejimster82)
24th July 2024, 2:51
I thought they were going to sign Binotto when he first left Ferrari tbh. I’m not really sure how much input Seidl had on the current team as my understanding was he was brought in to focus on the Audi 2026 project. Binotto will be a great asset to that team imho. He brings a lot of technical expertise and has the connections that team need to build something that can fight closer to the front rather than flailing at the back as they have been for the past few seasons.
Jungle
24th July 2024, 10:27
Nothing beats experience…. Of which he has bucket loads
Aquila_GD
25th July 2024, 16:46
So so happy that Mattia is back. He is a great talent.
Bets on for Audi to finish 4th in their first season