Juan Pablo Montoya feels Jean Todt would have been best Ferrari team boss choice

Fred Vasseur may have been chosen to succeed Mattia Binotto but Juan Pablo Montoya feels a former Ferrari boss may have been a better choice.

After a season that saw the Scuderia go from championship contenders to near-laughing stock, Binotto was the one to fall on his sword, resigning at the end of 2022.

But his successor was not immediately chosen with Ferrari reportedly asking former employees such as Ross Brawn and Jean Todt if they would be willing to return, but both declined.

Brawn had only recently retired from his F1 role and Todt has not been involved in motorsport since he stepped down as FIA president at the end of 2021.

Instead, Ferrari looked to one of their customer teams, Alfa Romeo, and plucked Vasseur to take over the reins at Maranello.

But former Williams and McLaren driver Montoya believes Todt would have been his first choice for the job.

“I thought they were going to put Jean Todt in this position ,” the Colombian told the French edition of Motorsport.com. “To be honest, that would have been my choice.

“I don’t know if he wanted the job but he was the guy who did the job before and I think everyone respects him enough that nobody pisses him off.

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“He doesn’t need the job so when you don’t need the job and you don’t care [losing it], I think you have more balls to make the right decisions.

“But I hope [Ferrari] will do a good job. It’s quite surprising, their car was so strong in the beginning [of 2022] and they didn’t exploit it well. And to everyone’s surprise…

“You could hear them say, ‘oh, we can still win the next 10 races’. And they haven’t won a single one.”

Montoya also commented on how the boss of Ferrari never seems to be secure in the job, with anything other than a championship win considered a failure.

The former F1 driver, who started 94 races, said that was not the case at Mercedes or Red Bull – and they were a better team for it.

“One of the difficult things with Ferrari is that no-one feels like they have job security, everyone is waiting for you to make a misstep so they can fire you ,” the 47-year-old said.

“That’s how I see it from the outside. Look at Toto, you know Toto’s not going anywhere. Look at Christian or Helmut [Marko], they’re not going anywhere. But look at the head of Ferrari and you’ll always wonder, ‘how long is this one going to stay?’ Because there will always be someone after him.”