Rumor: Ferrari poaches top Mercedes man
The brain drain at Mercedes F1 continues. Ferrari has reportedly poached Mercedes’ performance director Loic Serra (shown above) after missing out on Red Bull’s Pierre Wache.
Following the loss of Davide Sanchez and the soon-to-be-departure of Laurent Mekies, Ferrari made a play for key Red Bull personnel with Pierre Wache their number one target.
Wache turned them down and re-signed with Red Bull.
Ferrari, formu1a.uno reports, then turned their attention to Mercedes’ Serra and have been successful in signing him.
The Italian publication claims, that seeking a “profile à la Wache, i.e. an engineer with important knowledge, especially in terms of suspensions, vehicle dynamics and the interaction of the latter with the tires”, Ferrari went knocking on Mercedes’ door.
Signing Serra, the “top guy” that team boss Fred Vasseur had previously spoken of, while there are still legal sides to the deal that need to be ironed out, they “shouldn’t derail the good engineer’s landing in Maranello”.
Ferrari has already turned its attention to producing a new Formula 1 car for 2024.
Carlos Sainz said at a sponsor event in London on Tuesday that after a “tough start to the season”, Ferrari has succeeded in “improving” the 2023 car.
The Spaniard said Ferrari’s goal is “coming back to fight for podiums and victories”.
However, according to team boss Frederic Vasseur, those ambitions may actually have to wait.
“Certainly the main factor is the budget cap,” the Frenchman told the Italian newspaper Corriere dello Sport.
“It does not allow for the creation of a new project as probably would have happened a couple of years ago. It means that you have to adapt your project to the situation and in these conditions, I think we have made a good step forward.
“We must also consider that the regulations are much more prescriptive than before and it is quite difficult to make a big step forward in the course of a season,” Vasseur added.
“As far as we are concerned, we are already working on next year’s project and trying to correct the direction.”