okay shit is going down on twitter dot come right now. The girlys are in shambles bc Lapo Elkann decided to spill some fucking TEA this morning (or i suppose afternoon in Italy). So first i’m going to give you some background on him for context
Who is Lapo Elkann?
He has been on the board of Ferrari since 2017. (the company, which then owns the racing division Gestione Sportiva). Sidenote he’s married to Joana Lemos, 48, a former rally driver who seems like a bad bitch & i love her cat shoes.
Lapo is John Elkann’s younger brother, also born in New York & a duel American & Italian citizen. He served in the Alpine Corps as a soldier in the Taurinense Brigade and then began his professional career in 1994 as a metalworker on the assembly line nder the alias Lapo Rossi, which would make for a fanstasic movie premise by the way, it’s like the Italian version of the prince & me (fantastic film).he was also Henry Kissinger’s personal assistant at one point like what? Anyway, eventually he became Fiat’s directer of corporate comms & when John Elkann became VP of the ownership group in 2004 he was appointed to head of promotion for the Fiat, Alfa Romeo, and Lancia brands, and oversaw the worldwide launch of the new Fiat 500. Sadly, later that year, he was hospitalized after an overdose and resigned his position to seek treatment for addiction in the US
“When you’re alone, at a certain point fragility you don’t know how to deal with it. Substances destroy your life, and I had problems. For me, substance use was a way to anesthetize a pain I felt in me. Unfortunately, I paid the consequences several times. I have done enough harm to myself, from now on I want more.”
In 2007, he returned to Italy and founded Italia Independent and the creative agency Independent Ideas to great success. In 2011 launched the Ferrari Tailor Made project and in 2017 he was appointed to Ferrari’s board. Most importantly he has been named best dressed man by Vanity Fair four time & was inducted into their hall of fame.
So What The Fuck is Happening Right Now?
Okay so it all started this morning when Lapo tweeted this:
notice the highlighted Santander logos, he also responded to some replies to that tweet that are very telling about his view of the internal politics at Ferrari.
then he tweeted
this man’s commitment to emojis is iconic but then shit got real. There was alot of speculation about the highlighted Santander logos & he basically confirmed it by replying to this tweet:
okay so now we are going to have to pause & take a trip back in time for some more context
The Saga Of Santander, Kimi, Massa, & Fernando
I got most of this info from an article by F1 Race Reviews called “**THE TRUTH ABOUT KIMI RAIKKONEN, FERRARI AND SANTANDER IN 2008”** which is incredibly well researched & compiles/sites the reporting at the time, i will quickly summarize [omg this no longer exists this is tragic. i will redo this reasearch at some point]
So Kimi wins Ferrari’s only WDC since Michael Schumacher’s departure in 2007, then in January 2008 Michelle Yeoh’s husband was replaced by Stefano Domenicali (this mffff). during THE SIXTH RACE OF THE SEASON (Monaco) Ferrari allegedly signed Fernando for the following year. COINCIDENTLY Kimi had to serve a drive through penalty that race because the team failed to attach his tires prior to the 3 minute warning. This dropped him from 2nd to 4th & removed him from contention in what was actually a wild race.
The Ferrari PR machine had already swung into action as well (like we have seen it do to blame Seb & Charles for the disastrous 2017/18 & 2021 seasons, respectively).
& then an update to Kimi’s front suspension that THEY DIDN’T TELL HIM ABOUT leads to a dip in performance, which had been solid that season up until the change. The full on PR attack is still raging, rumors of his retirement are circulating, people are questioning his motivation.
Here is where things get complicated, Kimi exersizes his automatic contrat renewal in September, extending through 2010. As Massa was already udner contract until 2011 one would expect Fernando to be concerned but he is not.
“I knew already that they will extend the contract, Nothing has changed. Talking about 2010 and 2011 is way too far for me. I want to win before that! Always my plans were more focused on 2009 and in 2009 there was no possibility of Ferrari so it was never in my plans.”
The general conclusion is that negotiations for Ferrari to buy out Kimi for 2009 failed & he was relegated to #2 by corporate decision because they still need to ramp up Massa’s standing in Brasil for Santandar’s upcoming IPO in Brazil & they did not want Kimi to win as it would make it more difficult to force him out.
Fast forwarding to 2009, it was basically an open secret that Ferrari were going to dump Kimi for Fernando but Ferrari denied it to the very end.
Just weeks later, on September 30, 2009, they finally announced that they would buy Kimi out (allegedly $20M, slay) for 2010.
Basically the TLDR is that Santandar exerted MAJOR influence over Ferrari’s on track decisions & the entire creepy organization mobilized to allow them to drop him with minimal PR backlash. (Sounds familiar but I don’t have time to do the Seb thing rn).
Sainztander Confirmed
Essentially Lapo confirmed that Santander, a Spanish bank, has once again put their finger on the scale behind the scenes at Ferrari on behalf of a Spanish driver.
Now, this could have manifested itself in many ways, somehow I personally doubt ferrari was actually sabotaging race results but it does pour fuel onto the fire that is the development discussion. If you’ll remember Ferarri’s car last year was very fast while it was not on fire. This year, while reliability problems persist, the car has nowhere near the pace it did last year. Why? Where did Ferrari go wrong in their development. Well, Carlos Sainz Sr told us himself:
Carlos Sainz Sr.: “The most important thing is that Carlos has gone from less to more. He has had six retirements, which have heavily penalized him in terms of points, but he has ended up going well, fast and comfortable. We saw that with his pole position lap in Austin and in the last two races. Next year’s car has good changes compared to what made him uncomfortable in 2022.” (SoyMotor vis ScuderiaFerrari Fans)
The natural conclusion is that Ferrari attempted to develop their car more in line with Carlos’ suggestions than Charles. This is backed up by the fact that at the beginning of this year the car was reportedly very understeery (which Carlos prefers) despite the fact that adjustments to the technical regulations had made the cars generally more oversteery (which Charles prefers).
Though we may never be able to officially confirm whether this was the case, or whether Santander was involved in this specific decision, Elkanns tweet confirms they have been meddling to the detriment of Ferrari’s performance. & lets be honest, we know they’re not backing Charles. However this manifested itself it paints an even more shocking picture of what was going on for Charles behind the scenes last year. Thinking back to the slander campaign Charles faced from his own team principal, the questions about his mental fortitude raised repeatedly by the Ferrari talking heads, it brings to mind the Kimi situation.
Other Notable Elements To The Story
Santander also sponsors Carlos Sainz Sr’s Extreme E Team.
Some may remember from my last Ferrari palace intrigue story that Corriere had reported that there had been tension between CEO Benedetto Vigna & Vasseur, in part, because Vasseur proposed bringing a new sponsor but was stopped. They went on to say that “his scope in this area is limited and he would like to expand it.” Now the exact role of the TP (& literally everyone) is murkey, we don’t know if Vasseur was granted this power but it’s interesting that the control of sponsors & what sponsors come aboard was causing some issues. It could be unrelated but is Vasseur dosen’t have control over the sponsors that’s not a good sign for Charles
People correctly pointed about that the Sainz-affiliated sponsor commented this on a post about Charles post-silverstone
Carlos himself liked & unliked this insta of Binotto scolding Charles after Silverstone
DeepL Translation: you know the fantozzi rules. you know them how you have to behave in society don’t you?
the post-Silverstone stuff i see as standard #2 driver behavior along the lines of Bottas’ TWIMC Fuck You comment & Mark Webber’s not bad for a #2 driver comment, albeit far less public. But it’s natural to feel vindicated after you finally beat your teammate even if it wasnt on pace (though ofc Carlos gets credit for making the right choice to go against the team).
If we really want to get our tinfoil hats on we could say that Ferrari made the wrong call at Silverstone on purpose while arranging with Carlos for him to ignore the order and gain maximum credit for winning a race bc he made the right choice even if Charles was faster. With what we know went down in 2008/2009 nothing is off the table.
Anyway this shit is WILD & it must be even crazier internally for someone as inner-circle as Lapo to break ranks like this. I’m sure Ferrari will downplay it & Charles will back them, I just hope that Charles can win Ferrari’s version of game of thrones or escape before it’s too late.
& now Santandar has departed Ferrari as soon as Carlos did so basically just bc im crazy dosent mean i’m wrong
i’ll prob update this more later but i have major wec research to do on this flight
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