Everything you need to know about Ferrari’s sporting and strategy director Inaki Rueda
Inaki Rueda is the man behind Ferrari’s strategy every race weekend. However, not even the most ardent fans of the sport know much about the Spanish engineer. Let’s take a look.
Ignacio “Inaki” Rueda is currently Director of Sport and Strategy for the Scuderia Ferrari F1 Team. He joined the Italian team in October 2014, having previously worked as a race strategist with the Lotus F1 Team.
The Spanish engineer came under significant fire during the 2022 F1 season after the Maranello-based squad succumbed to regular strategic errors. Mistakes at Monaco, Silverstone, France and Hungary cost Charles Leclerc the chance of possibly winning his first title in the sport. Rueda soon became one of the senior members of the Scuderia squad blamed for the team’s failures in 2022.
Former Scuderia team boss Mattia Binotto has come under scrutiny for regularly defending Rueda’s strategic decisions even when they didn’t work. After the sad 2022 Hungarian GP, Binotto defended his strategist, saying:
“Sometimes we make mistakes and the others make mistakes, so not only Inaki but the whole team is great and I fully support her.”
The Italian team has since parted ways with Binotto and opted for former Sauber man Fred Vasseur for the new season. It will be interesting to see how Inaki and Vasseur work together in 2023.
The Ferrari director reveals his goals for pre-season testing
Ferrari Racing Director Laurent Mekies has outlined the team’s goals for pre-season testing in Bahrain. The French engineer claims the team hopes to see real-world evidence of the model they used to develop the car throughout the winter.
Mekies hopes the team’s tyre, aerodynamics and reliability models will be mirrored by their 2023 challenger at the track. He also hopes that the new car, the SF23, will live up to development expectations.
The Scuderia team suffered from poor reliability throughout the 2022 season, resulting in frequent DNFs for both drivers – resulting in a huge loss of championship points.
In a Q&A session for Ferrari, Laurent Mekies said of the team’s expectations for pre-season testing:
“The truth is, in the modern world we’re in, it’s all about correlations and making sure the car matches the model we’ve been working with all winter. So that goes for the vehicle model, it goes for the tire model.” That goes for the aerodynamic model, of course, so it’s all about correlations. Does the car behave as we expect it to? This will be the major part of the test focus [on].”
Some reports also suggest that the team has developed a new lightweight chassis ahead of the new season. It remains to be seen how the team will fare in 2023.