Ferrari Chief issues ultimatum to Vasseur – The head of Ferrari, Benedetto Vigna, has confirmed that the company is still set on making its home town of Maranello great again in Formula 1. Speaking at Ferrari’s Capital Markets Day, Vigna said that the team’s success in endurance racing must now be copied in grand prix racing. A thinly veiled ultimatum to the current Formula 1 boss, Fred Vasseur, who is set to be sacked if results don’t come quickly.
Ferrari is still one of the sport’s most famous names, but it hasn’t won the constructors’ championship since 2008, and the last drivers’ championship was in 2007 with Kimi Räikkönen. The team is known for being one of the best in motorsport, but it has not been able to come back to the top in F1 for more than 15 years.
Success outside Formula 1
Although Ferrari still wants to compete in Formula 1, it has been successful in other areas of motorsport. The factory team is currently leading the 2025 World Endurance Championship and has won the last three editions of the 24 Hours of Le Mans. These successes show how good Ferrari’s engineering is and how well they do in global races.
At the Capital Markets Day event, Vigna reminded investors and fans alike that racing success is at the heart of Ferrari’s identity.
“Last time, we promised to win the races,” he said. “We did well with the 499P in endurance racing, but in Formula 1, we have to get better. We have to win. We owe that to our loyal fans around the world.”
Vigna’s words show how frustrated the company is with the difference between its racing history and its current Formula 1 results. The need to turn technological progress and financial strength into successful results is becoming more and more important.
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Racing is a big part of what makes Ferrari who it is
At the Capital Markets Day, Ferrari also talked about what it wants to do in the future. The company said it expects to make €7.1 billion this year and €9 billion by 2030. Adjusted profits are projected to exceed €3.6 billion by the end of the decade.
Chairman John Elkann said that Ferrari’s history of racing is a key part of what makes the company special.
“There are three things that make Ferrari special: its history, its technology, and its racing. The perfect combination of these three souls defines Ferrari,” he said. “Racing, a history that began on the track almost 100 years ago, is who we are.”
Elkann also said that Ferrari’s Formula 1 ambitions are very important to him personally.
“This is a personal matter for me,” he said. “I am fully committed to Ferrari as president, as the main shareholder, and as someone who has always been a big fan of the brand.”
He said that every decision made by the company must make people think of Ferrari as a company that is excellent.
“I support our employees. Their talent and hard work will make sure our company has a successful future. I support our amazing Ferrari drivers who trust us with their dreams. And I stand with our loyal fans who can’t wait to see us win in Formula 1, just as we do in endurance racing.”
Ferrari has won Le Mans several times in a row. This has made the company more well-known for racing outside of Formula 1. But Elkann said that these wins cannot replace the importance of a Formula 1 world championship.
The financial markets are not happy
Even though people were feeling hopeful during the event, Ferrari’s financial update made investors worried. The company was expected to grow and make a profit, but it didn’t, which led to a big drop in the value of its shares on the stock markets around the world.
Ferrari shares went down by 15 percent on the New York Stock Exchange. This is the company’s worst performance since its 2015 IPO. In Milan, shares went down by more than 14 percent. This is the biggest drop since Ferrari went public in early 2016.
The timing was ironic because Ferrari revealed details about its first fully electric vehicle on the same day that the stock market slumped. This is set to debut next year.
“People were expecting higher sales, that’s clear,” Vigna said in a later press conference. “But I think it’s important that we do what we say we will. We can’t make promises we can’t keep.”
Vigna said that it is more important to be reliable and consistent than to make promises that you cannot keep. “I think the market has understood that,” he said. “I think people also see the opportunities. But we also have to be careful when we take advantage of them.”
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Ultimatum: A message with hidden weight
Vigna’s declaration that ‘we have to win’ might as well have been delivered in a Maranello-red envelope addressed directly to Fred Vasseur’s office. It carried the unmistakable tone of a polite Italian ultimatum, the kind that sounds motivational until you notice the slight tremor in the CEO’s hand as he holds his espresso cup.
Beneath the corporate optimism and investor-friendly phrasing, the message to the Formula 1 team was clear: trophies for endurance races look good in the lobby, but unless Vasseur delivers some of the silver Formula 1 cars, there may soon be more vacancies on the upper floors of the Scuderia than there are podium finishes on Sundays.
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The Grove based team have collected 102 points this year and with a quarter of the racing calendar remaining in 2025 this tally astonishingly represents more than the cumulative points scored over the last four F1 seasons.
Yet Williams F1 remain in a rebuild mode after years of under investment in their production facility which is using some 20 year old technology. Whilst the likes of Mercedes and Red Bull use complies databases to track the 20,000 components required to build an F1 car, Vowles reveals his team were using spreadsheets when he joined in 2023…READ MORE ON THIS STORY
A senior writer at TJ13, C.J. Alderson serves as Senior Editor and newsroom coordinator, with a background in online sports reporting and motorsport magazine editing. Alderson’s professional training in media studies and experience managing content teams ensures TJ13 maintains consistency of voice and credibility. During race weekends, Alderson acts as desk lead, directing contributors and smoothing breaking stories for publication.
