Did he jump — or was he pushed?

That’s the remnant question after Stefano Domenicali’s sudden departure, signified by his own letter, from Ferrari on Monday after overseeing the legendary team’s tumble from the top to the lower reaches of the championship chase.

Ferrari, the sport’s most lavish spenders in proud pursuit of success for their legions of faithful fans worldwide, make no allowances for failure. Never have done. And nothing has changed.

Hence, the resignation of Domenicali, one of Formula One’s genuinely pleasantly agreeable personalities, rarely reluctant to talk, but, apparently, not ruthless enough to stir the Prancing Horse into a gallop for top honours.

That is despite their fielding of two of the quickest, cleverest and most experienced drivers on the grid, Spaniard and twice champion, Fernando Alonso, and his returning teammate Kimi Raikkonen, the last crown holder for the Italian outfit in 2007.

Neither has managed to finish on the podium so far this season in three dismal outings in a car looking far from fit for the task of title hunting.

My firm belief is that it is not the fault of either of those two, nor Domenicali’s, that the season looks dead for them even at this early stage.

If the men behind the wheel are not put in cars to match their undoubted ability and will to win, there is no chance at all of them hitting a winning streak when their rivals appear to have woken up to the new season’s demands much more readily and, evidenced by the Mercedes swoop on the crown, successfully.

So, surely, the blame lies not with Domenicali, the team boss, who can only work with what he is given, as with the drivers, but with the faceless engineers and designers back at the Maranello HQ in Italy. And that, increasingly, identifies Domenicali as a scapegoat.

The manner in which a raging Luca di Montezemolo, Ferrari’s principal, stormed away from the Bahrain circuit so angrily as his team flopped yet again, this time ninth and tenth, was the precursor of Domenicali’s egress. Somebody had to be held to account and, clearly, in the light of Montezemolo’s frustration, he was destined to become the victim.

That is what we observers suspected and it came to pass this week when the bespectacled nice guy fell on his sword — and left an opening for a return to the fold of recently-retired Ross Brawn, a hero to all of Italy, who fronted Ferrari during their wondrous spell of six successive world titles from 1999 to 2004.

I would wager anything that his world fishing idyll will have been intruded upon by a certain Ferrari high-flyer offering the earth to a genius of a man already worth £100 million (Dh614 million) for a comeback to Maranello where he still has a house.

I have met him several times and there is never a trace of uncertainty in my mind that the hierarchical and untouchable Di Montezemolo can be a cold-hearted dictator of policy underpinned by the shameless and undivided loyalty of the Ferrari faithful the world over.

And whatever the outpouring of words of thanks, praise, tribute and sympathy for the outgoing Domenicali from Ferrari’s top levels, I firmly believe he was elbowed towards the Formula One exit.

It will be interesting to see if this thoroughly nice guy turns up anywhere else on the grand prix scene. And successfully. I hope so.

 

— The writer is a motorsport expert based in the UK