JANUARY 22, 2025

Franck Sanchez joins Ferrari

Ferrari continues to strengthen its technical department, as Frédéric Vasseur, now in his third season in Maranello, keeps pushing to put in place what he considers the ideal structure for the Italian team. Last week it was revealed experienced aerodynamicist Franck Sanchez will join the Scuderia, as Chief Aerodynamicist, the Frenchman taking over the responsibility for the work done in the wind tunnel. For now, the experienced engineer is on gardening leave from Sauber, the team he has worked for in the last three and a half years, there too being hired by Vasseur, so it is clear the Ferrari Team Principal has a lot of faith on his countryman’s competence.

Given that until the arrival of Jonathan Wheatley at Sauber, in a few months, it’s Mattia Binotto that is fully in charge of the sporting and technical sides of the Swiss team, it’s unlikely Sanchez will be allowed to leave Hinwill before the end of his contracted gardening leave, as the Italian never digested his departure from Ferrari and won’t certainly make it easier for his former team to get hold of its new hire.

Sanchez will report directly to Diego Tondi, Ferrari’s Head of Aerodynamics, and is likely to start his new job working exclusively on the project of the 2026 chassis, as the development of this year’s car will be limited in time, given the need for as many resources as possible to be invested in the design and development of the completely new cars Formula 1 will have from the start of the 2026 season.

Sanchez has 13 years’ experience in Formula 1, as he first worked for Marussia for nearly one year, until the summer of 2012, joining Scuderia Toro Rosso immediately after, to work on the Italian team’s wind tunnel program, that was based in Bicester, in the United Kingdom. The Frenchman stayed with Red Bull’s junior team for eight seasons, before accepting Vasseur’s first offer and moving to Sauber, where he also was put in charge of the wind tunnel program. When James Key arrived in Hinwill, after being ousted from McLaren, Sanchez resumed a collaboration that had started many years before in Toro Rosso, but now Vasseur came calling again and the Frenchman has accepted to move down to Maranello and is expected to start working for his new team before the start of the summer.