It was the summer season of 1996
“Once I hear speak about eliminating Todt, it makes me snicker. Solely somebody who doesn’t know find out how to assume may give you one thing like that. If you wish to destroy Ferrari, then sure, eliminate Jean Todt. However I’m satisfied that this concept got here solely from somebody within the press. I discover all of the fuss made about what occurred fairly stunning,” thundered Michael Schumacher in July 1996, after the disastrous French Grand Prix the place his Ferrari engine went up in smoke throughout the formation lap.
Tales of yesterday, tales of immediately, cyclical tales. Ten days later, Jean Todt immediately addressed the criticism: “No matter occurs at Ferrari, it’s my fault. It needs to be, as a result of my place is that of the top of sporting administration. It’s my fault and it have to be my fault—I’m additionally paid for this. I think about myself a supervisor. My need is to remain at Ferrari, but when Ferrari desires to eliminate me, it may well achieve this at any second.”
And the journalists weren’t sort. In these very days, Carlo Marincovich wrote in La Repubblica: “The person is definitely disagreeable to many, he’s not charming, not sycophantic, in actual fact he’s all the time distrustful of everybody. Based on many, Maranello underneath his management has turn out to be a form of reign of terror, with folks strolling round with their heads down and their tails between their legs. Some even painting him as a type of Ceausescu, surrounded by a courtroom able to convey him his slippers and wag their tails on the slightest snap of his fingers.”
Right here too, recurring conditions, a crossroads that by no means appears definitive: “However apart from his temper and that of his enemies, placing Todt on trial or exhibiting him the door can be pointless. Worse: it could be an enormous blow to Ferrari. It will imply changing him with another person, and albeit, trying round, the panorama is fairly empty. It will imply beginning yet again, but once more, with ‘restructuring’—which in Maranello means ‘purges’, eliminations, blacklists, dismissals, punishments involving transfers to the geranium vase warehouse.”
Gianni Agnelli blamed the Italian press: “In Italy it’s all the time somebody’s fault: both Todt’s or Sacchi’s or another person’s.” A month later—in August—Luca Cordero di Montezemolo informed France Soir to clear the air: “I consider Todt has accomplished job, despite the fact that there’s nonetheless progress to be made. Todt might be a number one determine in our workforce for a very long time to return.”
In hindsight, in December 2023, Jean Todt recalled to La Stampa: “In ’96 there was a whole lot of speak about my dismissal. Michael had simply arrived and will see that my plan was strong, that the individuals who have been about to hitch and with whom I used to be secretly negotiating aligned with our undertaking. That’s why he stepped in and stated: ‘If Todt goes, I’m going too.’ He positively stopped those that have been considering of firing me.”
Phrases we’ve already heard
It’s simple now to attract a parallel with the phrases of Italian journalists, of Charles Leclerc, Lewis Hamilton, and Frederic Vasseur in the summertime of 2025—to date with out a response from Ferrari’s administration.
However tying again to those recurring phrases, to a previous that’s all the time current, right here’s a classic Fred Vasseur: “We have to deal with this season, to extract the utmost potential from our automobile and our technicians. We’ll resolve later when the time is correct to begin engaged on subsequent yr’s automobile.” It was 2016, and he was carrying Renault’s yellow uniform.
And once more: “I believe in the mean time we’re fairly quick on race tempo, however in qualifying we’re an entire catastrophe! Nonetheless, we have to keep calm, not react impulsively, and attempt to perceive what’s not working. We now have to be practical—we’ll have this handicap till we handle to get essentially the most out of our bundle over a single lap.” Once more, Frederic Vasseur, 2020, Sauber Alfa Romeo.
The potential, the execution, the weak qualifying efficiency: it truly is all the time the identical story…
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