Aston Martin are in advanced talks with former Ferrari team principal, Mattia Binotto over a move to the British outfit. Binotto has been absent from F1 since his Ferrari departure on December 31st 2022.
Image: Getty Images
Binotto first joined the F1 scene in 1995 as he joined the Ferrari engine department and was a key figure within the teams early 2000s success with Michael Schumacher, and was promoted to head of the department in 2013.
After James Allison's departure in July 2016, Binotto moved into the chief technical officer role where he became a key figuire in the teams title charge against Mercedes before becoming the team principal in 2019, replacing Maurizio Arrivabene.
After ending his 17 year stay with the Italian team, Binotto could be set to start his new adventure with Aston Martin after positive talks in Imola between Binotto and Lawrence Stroll.
Binotto who was pictured in the Imola paddock over the race weekend, has now been rumoured to replace current team principal Mike Krack. But over the past few days, it appears that he could join the team as chief technical officer, a role he had for just over two years at Ferrari.
Aston Martin have been without a chief technical officer since Andrew Green departed the team in 2023 and Binotto could fill this role after advanced talks have been reported since the teams positive talks.
Image: Getty Images
The team have struggled so far this year but Fernando Alonso, who has committed with the team for the next year at least, says he and the team are aware of the issues the team faces speaking post-race at Imola:
“I think we both have similar feelings on the car and similar comments,”
“There are a couple of set-up tools and directions that could improve that, something that we’ve been testing also in Imola for example on my car on Sunday.
“We added downforce in all the upgrades that we brought to the track, but we still cannot use all that downforce in an efficient way in lap time because the balance maybe is not totally perfect in the corners."
“But I think we understand this. We have a couple of ideas that, you know, in the next development of the cars and upgrades, we’ll try to fix those kind of problems."
“So, yeah, I mean, we are not blind into the dark. You know, we are aware of the situation."
“But at the same time, it’s the nature of these cars as well that, you know, as you add downforce, they become a little more critical and more difficult to drive."
“Yeah, and this is something that we need to fix.”
Binotto has been linked to a few teams since he left Ferrari such as Alpine and Haas but no move has flourished for the experienced Italian but a move seems to be more possible than ever.