Toto Wolff will be devastated by yet another significant departure as Ferrari plans to snag another important player from the Mercedes Formula 1 team to join the Scuderia in 2025.
According to reports, Mercedes motorsport executive Jerome d’Ambrosio is nearing an agreement to become a Ferrari employee, following in the footsteps of Loic Serra, the performance engineer, and Lewis Hamilton to Maranello.
Amidst the Covid epidemic, D’Ambrosio declared his retirement from racing in 2020 following his sixth Formula E season. Following that, the Belgian cleared the path for management at Venturi, a team that competes in the electric division.
Before switching from Formula E to Formula One, he served as Susie Wolff’s right-hand man and built a remarkable reputation over his two years with the Monegasque team.
Following the name change to Maserati and the departure of Susie Wolff, her husband, Mercedes chief Toto, saw d’Ambrosio as the perfect replacement for James Vowles, who departed to take up Williams. In addition to serving as the team chief of their Formula E squad in the meantime, the Belgian joined the Brackley organization in March 2023 as director of driver development.
Alongside Gwen Lagrue, he has been assigned the responsibility of overseeing Mercedes’ young driver program, which will see notable drives secured for 2024 by athletes like F2 sensation Andrea Kimi Antonelli and F1 Academy’s Doriane Pin.
However, according to Soy Motor, team manager Federic Vasseur has already “caught” the former Toro Rosso driver before he takes on a new position with the Scuderia in 2025. Overseeing the team’s young driver program will be his primary duty at Prancing Horse.
Significant loss for Toto Wolff
Although Wolff had been laying the groundwork for d’Ambrosio to play a larger role in the future, it appears that Vasseur has surpassed the Austrian. Vasseur has already gained the upper hand over his longtime buddy by attracting Hamilton to the Italian squad for 2025.
In the long run, the 51-year-old leader wants to spend less time at the races, so there were even hopes that he could fill in as his substitute. And Wolff will surely have a significant task ahead of him in trying to replace the loss of a vital component of his team.
Wolff discussed d’Ambrosio’s position on the team, saying: “He oversees the young driver program in close collaboration with Gwen, who has been running it quite successfully for the past few years.
“We are looking into grassroots motorsports with Gwen’s team, starting with go-karts. Gwen is quite active in this area and was the one collaborating with James [Vowles].”
And Jerome has now assumed that role inside the Brackley organization. He is examining matters, and James’s work goes far beyond strategy work. I can therefore see Jerome progressing within the company, but for now, that’s his domain.
