Nico Rosberg shared rumors he heard about Ferrari following his “clumsy” weekend at the F1 Canada Grand Prix.
According to the 2016 world champion, Ferrari is considering whether to leave the UK from managing its Formula 1 team and leaving Italy’s Maranello headquarters.
Six of F1’s 10 teams are based in the UK, but Alpine owns a factory in Enstone alongside a major French base, and Switzerland-based Sauber Squad has announced plans to set up an engineering hub in the UK.
“So I’ve seen a bit of an inner workings there at Ferrari, but I can see that the level of excellence they’re in is not comparable to people like Mercedes in many regions, whether they go from the UK team, especially marketing to other areas.”
“So you can see there, the whole culture, the fact that they are in Italy. It’s much more difficult for them.
“In Mercedes, for example, whenever Lewis has things, he just goes to Toto, and Toto makes a decision and immediately calls the shot and completes.
“Ferrari has so many different decision makers. Even Lewis said, “Okay. It’s a little difficult there.
“There are a few ideas I’ve heard, and I think Ferrari is probably exploring opening a kind of subsidiary in the UK.
“So I heard rumors that they were thinking of opening a subsidiary there.”
However, Rosberg admitted: “The problem is to make communication right.
“If you have a Ferrari entity in the UK, that’s one thing, but it still needs to communicate with the headquarters, and it may not be possible to get good communication that really makes sense.”
Ferrari’s “clumsy” Canadian Grand Prix weekend was reviewed
It was another disappointing weekend for Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton, who took fifth and sixth place at the Canadian Grand Prix, as Ferrari returned to third place in the Constructors Championship behind Mercedes.
Rosberg believes Ferrari’s “clumsy” weekend in Montreal has put together the season so far.
“You have to remember that Charles Leclerc was sometimes quick in the race,” Rosberg said.
“He was very fast. He was doing very well with McLaren. He stayed quickly in qualifying. Some say he might have been in the top three in qualifying.
“I think they also made the wrong tyre choice in qualifying (by not driving medium tyres in Q3).
“So we stopped Lewis in the race, so a lot of strategies made mistakes and lost the burden of race time.
“They also had the free opportunity to try a one-stop with Charles, which was a free opportunity, but they didn’t try to do it.
“There was Lewis and a lot of space behind me, there was no one there and they shot it and he was getting stronger and they pulled him early so maybe they could have left him first to begin with.
“So it was a slightly clumsy weekend from Ferrari.
“Then I had a bad luck with Groundhog. So it all came together, but that wasn’t good.
“It’s like the story of their years so far. It’s just going to be that way, and it’s tough for them.”
