It was the summer season of 1996
“Once I hear speak about eliminating Todt, it makes me chortle. Solely somebody who doesn’t know find out how to assume might give you one thing like that. If you wish to destroy Ferrari, then sure, do away with 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 in the course of the formation lap.
Tales of yesterday, tales of at this time, cyclical tales. Ten days later, Jean Todt instantly addressed the criticism: “No matter occurs at Ferrari, it’s my fault. It must be, as a result of my place is that of the pinnacle of sporting administration. It’s my fault and it have to be my fault—I’m additionally paid for this. I take into account myself a supervisor. My want is to remain at Ferrari, but when Ferrari needs to do away with me, it could possibly achieve this at any second.”
And the journalists weren’t variety. In these very days, Carlo Marincovich wrote in La Repubblica: “The person is definitely disagreeable to many, he’s not charming, not sycophantic, actually he’s at all times distrustful of everybody. Based on many, Maranello below his management has turn out to be a type 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 court docket able to carry 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 displaying him the door could be pointless. Worse: it will be an enormous blow to Ferrari. It might imply changing him with another person, and albeit, trying round, the panorama is fairly empty. It might imply beginning over 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 at all times somebody’s fault: both Todt’s or Sacchi’s or another person’s.” A month later—in August—Luca Cordero di Montezemolo instructed France Soir to clear the air: “I imagine Todt has performed an excellent job, although there’s nonetheless progress to be made. Todt shall be a number one determine in our staff 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 had been about to hitch and with whom I used to be secretly negotiating aligned with our undertaking. That’s why he stepped in and mentioned: ‘If Todt goes, I’m going too.’ He undoubtedly stopped those that had been pondering of firing me.”
Phrases we’ve already heard
It’s straightforward now to attract a parallel with the phrases of Italian journalists, of Charles Leclerc, Lewis Hamilton, and Frederic Vasseur in the summertime of 2025—thus far with out a response from Ferrari’s administration.
However tying again to those recurring phrases, to a previous that’s at all times current, right here’s a classic Fred Vasseur: “We have to concentrate on this season, to extract the utmost potential from our automotive and our technicians. We’ll determine later when the time is true to start out engaged on subsequent 12 months’s automotive.” It was 2016, and he was carrying Renault’s yellow uniform.
And once more: “I feel in the meanwhile we’re fairly quick on race tempo, however in qualifying we’re a whole catastrophe! Nonetheless, we have to keep calm, not react impulsively, and attempt to perceive what’s not working. We’ve to be life like—we’ll have this handicap till we handle to get probably the most out of our package deal over a single lap.” Once more, Frederic Vasseur, 2020, Sauber Alfa Romeo.
The potential, the execution, the weak qualifying efficiency: it truly is at all times the identical story…
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