Ferrari hero key to Michael Schumacher's success linked with sensational Maranello return

Schumacher France podium 2002 — Photo: © LAT Images

Ferrari

Ferrari hero key to Schumacher's success linked with sensational return

Ferrari is undergoing a swift turnover in personnel and a pivotal figure from the team's most successful era could return

Stuart Hodge

Friday 10 March 2023 15:33 Updated: 21:16

Former Ferrari engineer Alessandro Cinelli has been linked with a sensational return to the Scuderia almost four years after leaving.

Cinelli was a key figure in the garage during the Prancing Horse's most successful era in Formula 1, when Michael Schumacher dominated the sport in the early part of the new millennium as the team won five consecutive titles in both the drivers' and constructors' championships between 2000 and 2004.

The Italian is now being linked with a Maranello return after the resignation of aerodynamics chief David Sanchez.

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Cinelli spent 17 years at Ferrari between 2002 and 2019 before departing for Alfa Romeo where he worked under new Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur.

For Vasseur, who was reportedly blindsided by Sanchez's decision to quit, the attraction of working with someone he knows well, but who also knows the setup at Maranello.

'Vasseur will want to be seen as more of a firefighter than an arsonist'

Italian daily Gazzetta dello Sport reports that Vasseur's vast paddock contacts garnered through his experience as team principal of Alfa, and before that Renault, were pivotal in landing him the top job at Ferrari.

Alex Cinelli, left, with James Allison at Ferrari pre-season testing in 2015

The report also states: "It's rumoured that Vasseur intends to bring 'his own' to Maranello.

"For Sanchez's specific role (Head of Vehicle Concept), what is being talked about – even as temporary solution – is that it could be Alex Cinelli, not surprisingly, from Alfa Romeo, where Vasseur was in charge until December 2022.

"It would be a comeback: Cinelli was a deputy of James Allison in his first Ferrari period, when he was Aerodynamic Manager, in the golden years of Michael Schumacher."

The Italian periodical comments that the decision of Sanchez to depart highlights a major need for Ferrari to address and that Vasseur "will try to look more like a firefighter than arsonist" as the team's major upheaval continues.

The time for Vasseur to demonstrate exactly why he was hired has now come, his skill in the market during this period of flux may well determine the fortunes – at least in the short to medium term – of his tenure in charge of the Scuderia.