MOTORSPORT: Ferrari team boss falls on sword

Red Bull Racing is still on tenterhooks over Daniel Ricciardo’s fuel in Melbourne, but there has been a bombshell from the world of Formula One overnight – Ferrari team principal Stefano Domenicali has been replaced.

The Federation Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) court of appeal will hand down its decision on the fuel-flow controversy that led to Ricciardo’s disqualification from second place in the Australian Grand Prix a month ago in Paris this evening, Australian time.

News that Domenicali was leaving Ferrari immediately after the failure of F1’s most famous team to score a podium in the three GPs so far this year broke last night. He has been replaced by Marco Mattiacci, 42, who has been the head of Ferrari’s North American road car business and is a golden boy within the company.

UK publication Autosport’s Jonathon Noble was quick to point out that Mattiacci had been appointed to the role without any special knowledge about F1 but because he fully understood the political machinations within Ferrari.

The team has not won a world title since Kimi Raikkonen’s drivers’ title in 2007.

Its Spanish dual world champion Fernando Alonso, who won his titles with Renault, has had two fourth places and a ninth in the three GPs so far this season, while Finn Raikkonen (brought back to the Scuderia this year after having been paid out massively at the end of 2009 to make way for Alonso) has been seventh, 12th and 10th.

The Mercedes factory team has won all three races in the new era of V6 turbo-hybrid cars and finished first and second in the past two.

It is odds-on to win the constructors’ world championship and the drivers’ title (whether it be Lewis Hamilton or Nico Rosberg) after four years of Red Bull dominance during which only the brilliance of Alonso brought Ferrari close to challenging Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel.

Mattiacci will be on the pit wall for Ferrari at this weekend’s Chinese GP in Shanghai.

Domenicali, 48, who had worked for Ferrari for 23 years, said he had gone “with the aim of doing something to shake things up”.

“There are particular moments in all of our professional lives where you need the courage to take difficult and very painful decisions. It is time to make an important change. As boss I take responsibility – as I always have – for the situation we are going through,” he said overnight.

Domenicali may have done the honourable thing, but what Ferrari needs at the minute is engineering brilliance rather than a change of management.

It may be more than coincidence that Mercedes technical director Bob Bell, who worked with Alonso in his title years at Renault, resigned from the German team last night.

While Bell will not leave Mercedes until the end of the season, he could be headed to Ferrari to reunite with Alonso. Bell won’t be replaced as technical director at Mercedes, but rather technical executive director Paddy Lowe will absorb his responsibilities.

Meanwhile, Red Bull argued its case in Paris last night against its 24-year-old Australian driver Ricciardo’s disqualification from the Australian GP for his RB10 car having been found to have pumped its fuel too fast.

Under the new “green” era in F1 fuel flow is not to exceed 100kg/hour and Red Bull claimed its own data indicated it had not gone beyond that. The team has frequently discredited the FIA-mandated sensors on this year’s cars, claiming they are faulty and inaccurate.

However, FIA president Jean Todt and race director Charlie Whiting have said the devices, made by British company Gill Sensors, are the only accepted measure and that Red Bull had been wrong to defy instructions early in the Melbourne race to ensure Ricciardo’s car was within the fuel “speed limit”.

FIA barrister Jonathan Taylor told last night’s hearing the case was straightforward “and an important one because the essence of sport is the contest on a level playing field -- and you can’t have that unless everyone abides by the rules”.

Red Bull’s team principal Christian Horner, technical director Adrian Newey and head of car engineering Paul Monaghan made the case at the appeal at the FIA’s headquarters. Driver  Ricciardo was not there.

Amazingly, other teams were allowed to participate in the hearing.

Mercedes, McLaren, Force India, Williams and Lotus had representatives there, and Mercedes argued that Red Bull should be given a stiffer suspension. It asked for a ban to be imposed on Red Bull for the season but that it be enforced only if it was found to have breached the fuel-flow rule again.

The decision on the appeal should come early tonight, Australian time, but there’s little chance it will contain any joy for Red Bull - even if it is right on the imperfections of the Gill sensors.