Luciano Burti was a Ferrari test driver (when the title meant something) during the team’s heyday under the leadership of Jean Todt, thus knows a thing or two about what makes the Scuderia tick but clearly disapproves of the Maurizio Arrivabene era.
Speaking on The Autosport Podcast, Burti reflected on a 2018 season that promised so much for Ferrari but ended in defeat, the team wayward on track as they reeled with the punch of Sergio Marchionne’s unexpected passing.
Mistakes happened and the team slipped out of contention long before the season ended.
“It was a really tiny mistake,” explained Burti. “Which happens, and he was unlucky it happened in the wrong time and the wrong place and had a big consequence. From then on, I really think that someone like Jean Todt would give him good feedback” as motorsport.com reports.
“I think Vettel felt maybe on his own to fight back from his mistake. Once you have that pressure, if you say as a racing driver ‘I cannot make a mistake on the next lap or the next corner’, you make a mistake. Once I think about it, that’s it. I think that’s what happened to him. Although he’s a great champion, he’s too human and when you have those feelings it doesn’t do you any good.”
“He was on his own and someone like Jean would have made the difference to put him back on track, because it’s not normal to see a four-times champion to make so many mistakes, and silly mistakes sometimes.”
“Maybe Ferrari lost a little bit the leadership that Jean used to give,” said Burti.
Burti also worked within the team during the era of Stefano Domenicali, and again drew comaprisons, “I worked with Stefano Domenicali he was a really good guy, I don’t know what the team was when he was team principal but after he left Ferrari never got the rhythm that it used to.”
“I know a little bit about Arrivabene when I was there because he was with Philip Morris and he wasn’t, in my view, a good leader because he was not sympathetic, he was always very distant from us and I never got the understanding why,” recalled the Brazilian who competed in 15 grands prix in 2000 and 2001.