Ex Ferrari Team boss is Back in Formula One

Audi, Just a few months on from appointing Olliver Hoffman and Andre Seidl to lead their F1 efforts in 2026 has relieved them from their positions – Olliver Hoffman as the chairman of the Audi F1 Team and Andre Seidl as the CEO of Sauber Motorsports AG which eventually will take the Audi colours as Audi Takeover plan of the Team.

The Higher-ups at the German company felt that the transitioning activities and preparation for their eventual debut in 2026 were not moving as expected by their standards – so, to rectify this they hired Ex Ferrari Team boss Mattia Binotto as the newly appointed Chief operating officer and Chief Technical Officer alongside the leadership of Sauber Motorsports AG.

The decision for Mattia Binotto is part of the realignment of the control structure for the future Audi factory team. This realignment ensures the autonomy and independence of the Audi F1 project. In this context, Audi is reorganizing the management team for its F1 activities. “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. For this purpose, the team must be able to act independently and quickly,” says Gernot Döllner, who will take the position of chairman of the Board of Directors of Sauber Motorsport AG in future.

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Previously Mattia Binotto held the position of team Principal and Technical Director at Scuderia Ferrari a very similar joint role he’s been dropped into again at Audi. During his time at Ferrari, he has seen both extreme highs and lows in f1 – he was part of The team that was involved in the dominant years of Schumacher between 2000 – 2004 and the very depths of lows during the early years of the hybrid era.

Mattia Binotto is widely credited for reviving Ferrari’s Lacklustre performance during the Hybrid era when he was appointed as the Technical Director for the Team – a very reputable engineer and manager in the f1 circle.

The same could not be said for the years when he was the Team Boss for the Italian Marquee which was plagued with typical Italian politics and a series of bad results owing to bad decisions from the strategist and overall direction of the team – someone had to take the blame and it was Mattia who Was taken to the chopping block and was ousted from the team.

After a brief sabbatical of one and a half years Mattia is back into Formula One’s fold and this time in a much different environment than he was previously in – one must assume the culture at the German brand will be considerably better than the infamous Italian culture of the Ferrari – And he’s shifting into a role he is more comfortable with engineering and development department, perhaps he’ll have a better hand at it than his previous gig.

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