Mattia Binotto said he is not worried about his future despite reports from Italy claiming Ferrari may have already signed his replacement.
The team principal has been under intense scrutiny in recent months, especially from the Italian press. Ferrari began the year looking like the team to beat, but then a mixture of reliability problems and strategy blunders took their toll.
As a result, they will finish the season a long way off runaway champions Red Bull, and could even lose second place to Mercedes if they have a bad race in Abu Dhabi on Sunday. These circumstances have led to plenty of speculation that Binotto may lose his job as a result.
Reports emerged last week claiming that Ferrari were "talking about" replacing Binotto, with one journalist going as far as to state they have already signed Alfa Romeo chief Frederic Vasseur as his replacement. Not long after, the team released a statement declaring those rumours were "totally without foundation".
Speaking in the team principals' press office on Saturday morning, Binotto said he had spoken to the Ferrari chairman and had no reason to worry for his job. "I'm pretty relaxed," said the Italian, who returned to the paddock this weekend after being absent for the last few.
"The reason why I’m relaxed is that I always have open, frank and constructive discussions with my bosses, with my chairman, not only on the short-term but on the medium and the long-term. If I look back at the season – yes, we had a few ups and downs, we are not the best yet, the fastest car on track – but I think we achieved our main objective, which was to be back, to be competitive in that new era of the 2022 cars.
"If I look at the way we started the season, I think no-one in the room would ever have imagined Ferrari to be so fast at the start of the season. That is proving the team has worked very well though difficult moments as 2020-21. We remain united. I think it is a team which is not only worked well but proved to be capable.
"Yes, there are still a lot of things we need to progress, weaknesses have been shown, but we will try to address them. Everyone back at the factory is focused on 2023, trying to improve. Furthermore, I think this season has been outstanding in terms of pole positions, or qualifying pace.
"Not as good in terms of race pace, we know we need somehow to improve furthermore the race pace because then strategy or whatever is around it is a lot easier if you have a strong car in the race itself. I'm relaxed. More than that I'm really focused on what we need to do. I'm concentrated with the team."
