Ferrari will have two new prominent names in its ranks until the end of this season, adding a new deputy team principal.
Ferrari has recruited former Mercedes team members Loic Serra and Jerome d’Ambrosio, who will join the Scuderia until the end of 2024.
On 1 October, Loïc Serra and Jérôme d’Ambrosio will make their first appearance in red when they join the ranks in Maranello.
Serra will lead the chassis progression as Head of Chassis Performance Engineering, reporting to Enrico Cardile, and will also be responsible for areas such as track engineering, progression and aerodynamic operations and vehicle performance.
d’Ambrosio, a former F1 driver who raced in the 2011 and 2012 seasons, joined the team as deputy team principal and will report to Fred Vasseur.
He will also lead Ferrari’s Driver Academy, having in the past led Mercedes’ counterpart programme until this year.
Serra’s move from Mercedes to Ferrari will reunite the engineer with Lewis Hamilton, as Serra held the position of head of vehicles at Mercedes before making the decision to leave Brackley (he did so earlier this year).
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Serra is believed to be of the opinion that the direction taken with the W13 and W14 is not the right one, and Serra agrees with Hamilton’s considerations about the car built for the arrival of the 2022 ground effect regulations.
The change to put James Allison back as technical director was made after Serra had already made the decision to leave, and the replacement came too late for Allison’s desire to keep him on board to materialize.
Serra’s experience also includes stints at Michelin and BMW-Sauber.
As for d’Ambrosio, the Belgian has worked at Mercedes in recent years, having his post-race career with the Venturi team in Formula E. He replaced Susie Wolff as team principal at the Monaco-based team in 2021, before settling the transfer. to Mercedes F1 in 2022.
He had been touted as a conceivable successor to Toto Wolff as team principal, with the Austrian indicating his preference not to take part in every race in the future, but, following his change, the procedure to identify that successor was restarted.
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