On 14 April 2014, Ferrari made one of the season’s early shock moves when Stefano Domenicali resigned as team principal. The team had started the new turbo-hybrid era badly, and after a flat opening three races Ferrari decided it needed a jolt rather than another polite explanation. Marco Mattiacci was appointed as his replacement with immediate effect.
Domenicali’s resignation came the day after a grim Bahrain Grand Prix, where Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen finished only ninth and 10th. That result underlined what the opening rounds had already suggested: Ferrari were nowhere near Mercedes and not convincingly ahead of the rest either. In a team that measures disappointment in titles rather than points, that was enough to turn an ordinary bad start into a full management crisis.
In Ferrari’s statement, Domenicali said it was time for “a significant change” and accepted responsibility for the team’s situation. It was a typically direct exit from a typically pressurised job. He had led the team since 2008, but by April 2014 Ferrari had gone from expected contender to uneasy bystander, which is not a role Maranello wears well.
Marco Mattiacci, then Ferrari’s North America chief, was put in charge immediately. The appointment was striking because he arrived from Ferrari’s road-car business rather than the F1 pit wall, a sign that Ferrari wanted disruption as much as continuity. It did not fix the season, but it marked the point where Ferrari admitted the old structure was no longer working.
