Why AlphaTauri F1 shake-up has added to Vasseur’s headaches

But the impact of the changes are being felt much further down the road in Maranello too, as it has provided yet another headache for Ferrari and its new team principal Fred Vasseur. 

With Italy’s most famous squad already facing a challenge in turning around the form of the SF-23 to take the fight to Red Bull, the departure of Mekies is far from ideal.

With Ferrari having already lost the highly-experienced engineer David Sanchez to McLaren earlier this year, the departure of Mekies means Vasseur has lost another high-profile figure. 

To lose one member of senior personnel can, according to the famous saying, be viewed as misfortune. To lose two, looks like a pattern. 

Two high profile exits, even if they are completely unrelated, gives the impression of a team that is on a spiral down – the complete opposite of outfits like Aston Martin that are building momentum and recruiting personnel to build themselves up. 

Only a few weeks ago, as rumours of Mekies’ departure first surfaced, Vasseur was emphatic that he viewed the Frenchman as a key right-hand man for the future. Indeed, he could perhaps be considered as a long-term successor. 

Asked about speculation over Mekies’ future, and potential further departures amid talk of staff being unhappy, Vasseur had replied: “To have people who are unhappy, it’s two different things. I think that it’s quite normal to be unhappy when you don’t get the results that you are expecting, and I’m unhappy.  

“But the most important is to work as a group, to work as a team and to try to get the best out of this and to do improvement. Leaving the company. It’s another story.  

“If you want to speak about Laurent, I don’t know what’s happened in the past with Laurent, but I know Laurent for 25 years, something like this, when he was at school.  

“I trust him, we have a very good collaboration together and he will be one of the pillars of the future of the company.” 

There is no sugar coating then that Mekies’ exit is bad news for Maranello, but equally it would be wrong to view it as a killer blow to the team and a sign that the squad is only heading in one direction now – downwards. 

While nobody at the team would deny that Mekies’ exit isn’t great, to link it too closely to the Sanchez exit is perhaps too much.  Indeed, insiders have suggested that Sanchez’ departure produced hardly any…