Brundle: With Arrivabene things weren't right at Ferrari

Over the past few months, the Maranello maladies have been exposed, derided as "fake news" by Arrivabene but since proven to be on the money.

Ex-F1 driver turned pundit Brundle, speaking at the Autosport Show, gave his point of view of the disruption that has engulfed the Reds, "You don't know what you don't know if you're not inside an organisation, but I did observe it and [saw] that things weren't right."

"You look at situations like Hockenheim, where Vettel was put under pressure because they didn't do the right things earlier on in the race. Then he fell off the road, and he fell out of the championship from that moment onwards."

"You look at other things like the slipstreaming in Monza... Certain things weren't being done," added Brundle in reference to qualifying for the Italian Grand Prix when the team mysteriously handed Kimi Raikkonen the advantage of a tow when Sebastian Vettel, in an intense title battle with Lewis Hamilton, needed help the most. Not only their home race but for his entire title tilt.

A week earlier Vettel had won at Spa-Francorchamps and during qualifying in Italy, they had the edge over Mercedes, thus keeping the momentum going was what Arrivabene needed to do but the records show that after the Belgian Grand Prix the #5 car never won another race. Things went seriously wrong thereafter.

In contrast, Hamilton's win at Monza was the first of four in a row that helped wrap up the title, and then to add insult to injury he bagged the final two races too. Having started the season strongly, Ferrari's campaign collapsed dramatically in the final half of the contest.

Couple these inexplicable decisions to his attitude with the media where, in the end, he had no friends, Arrivabene painted himself into a corner when he went to war with Binotto and as a result, came of second best.

Of new team chief Binotto, Brundle said, "I do think Mattia Binotto has got a very good reputation in developing the team technically, he's clearly a leader of people. But of course, now he's the lightning conductor. He's got to be up front, he's got to speak to nasty, horrible people like me in the Formula 1 media."

"He's got to be there and explain why things went well, why things didn't go so well. It's a different job and a different challenge."

Binotto takes over at a time when Ferrari have bucked tradition by teaming young Charles Leclerc with four-times World Champion Vettel, managing this dynamic is likely to provide the new team boss with the first big test of post packed with challenges and unrelenting pressure.

But Brundle is giving the Swiss-born engineer the benefit of the doubt for now, "I do know from people like Ross Brawn and others who have worked with him, he is most highly regarded. I think he'll get the car and the engine to where it needs to be and the rest of it should be easy if Vettel and Leclerc are doing their jobs."