Reports from Italy have confirmed that Stefano Domenicali did not resign from Ferrari as claimed yesterday and was actually used as a swap for a Mercedes engine.
‘The F14 T is not powerful enough,’ an insider confided to Sniff Petrol last night. ‘And the team was sick of Stefano capering about the factory doing impressions of Eric Morecambe rather than concentrating on new wind tunnel data and such like. This secret deal to swap him for a Mercedes engine solves both problems at once.’
Our Ferrari mole confirmed that a Mercedes V6 was covertly handed to the team this morning and will be installed in Fernando Alonso’s car prior to this weekend’s Chinese Grand Prix. ‘Fernando will stop at nothing to win so he gets the Mercedes engine,’ our spy explained. ‘Whereas Kimi doesn’t even know who he’s driving for and will be happy as long as there’s enough Grey Goose in his drinks bottle.’
In return for supplying an engine that isn’t total dog shit, the Mercedes GP team gets full ownership of bespectacled being-on-television enthusiast Stefano Domenicali to do with as they choose. Sources in Brackley recently admitted that the team was worried many of its senior personnel come across as Germanic and sinister during TV interviews and it’s possible they will appoint the affable Domenicali as official spokesman to mitigate those concerns.
However, it seems more like that the ex-team principal will be kept at the Merc factory and used by Toto Wolff for ‘experiments’.
