Tavoni: Sebastian Vettel needs to refocus in 2019
- Farhan Khurram
- Jan 19, 2019
- 2 min read
4 times world champion, Sebastian Vettel needs to "regain his head" with the arrival of a new boss, suggests former team manager, Romolo Tavoni.
Tavoni said that, “I sincerely believe that the departure of [former team boss Maurizio] Arrivabene is just the first shock,”
“Let’s not forget that Vettel did a bad championship in 2018. I believe the immediate future of Ferrari rests on the situation with Vettel.
Ferrari eventually managed to match the performance levels of the Mercedes power unit in 2017 and 2108 to a certain degree. This performance gain allowed Vettel to challenge Lewis Hamilton for the world title twice.
But a spree of driver errors and strategic mistakes by the team eventually gifted Hamilton both the 2017 and 2018 championships. The German will now be aiming for a fresh restart to his 2019 campaign and give it another go to equalize his rival's tally of 5 world championships.
But for any kind of success to materialize, Vettel will first have to learn from his mistakes in 2018 and Ferrari will have to be more cautious with its strategies.
Romolo Tavoni further reflected on Vettel's 2018 season by saying that:
We saw some unacceptable mistakes, and now we just have to see what will happen.
The former Ferrari team manager also highlighted the fact that Ferrari recently had a leadership change that saw Mattia Binotto replace Maurizio Arrivabene. He hinted at how Vettel would also need to refocus his efforts with a new boss at the helm.
“In other words, Ferrari has a new boss but it is also necessary that Vettel, the spearhead on the track, regains his head.” said Tavoni.
“He is a very high-level engineer, however, his new role involves maintaining relationships with the other teams, dealing with politics and relating to Liberty Media,"
“Overall it will be a very complex and very burdensome task, so I think that he will be helped by someone and that this appointment will be very important for the success of his term.” Tavoni was quoted as saying by Italy's Autosprint.
A 4 times world champion, Sebastian Vettel joined Scuderia Ferrari in 2015 after a dismal season with Red Bull during which he failed to match his then teammate, Daniel Ricciardo. Vettel won 4 back to back drivers' titles with Red Bull from 2010 to 2013.
But with the dawn of the V6 Turbo Hybrid era at the beginning of 2014, Renault failed to develop an engine competitive enough to challenge the likes of Ferrari and Mercedes. It not only hampered Red Bull's performance over the following years, but also strained the relationship between the two.
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