Binotto took Inaki Rueda, strategy director from his days at Ferrari, to Audi F1

Rueda was one of Mattia Binotto’s trusted managers during his days as second-in-command at Scuderia Ferrari. The Spaniard, as the Italian team’s director of strategy, was the person publicly criticized, to the point of derision, for some serious strategic mistakes by the Scuderia in 2021-22.

With Fred Wasser replacing Binotto as head of the Maranello team in January 2023, the Frenchman replaced Rueda as head of strategy with Rayvin Jahn – and reassigned the Spaniard to the race director position (which he had ‘widowed’ ” with the departure of Loren Mekis for RB).

Binotto was out of F1 from the end of 2022 until this summer, when it was announced that he had taken up the position of Chief Technical and Service Advisor of the Sauber team (officially Stake F1) in order to structure it for its 2026 transformation into the factory team. Audi F1.

As part of this restructuring, Binotto chose Ignacio “Inaki” Rueda for the position of Sauber/Audi F1 race director, thus showing that the Spaniard possesses abilities that were perhaps unfairly criticized for his mistakes. of the strategy group he commanded in Maranello.

Rueda, who had stints at Jordan, Renault and Lotus before moving to Ferrari, will replace long-serving Sauber race director Beat Zender – who has been with the team since its inception in 1993 – at Hineville and he will now take on another role at the plant.

Alongside Rueda, the Sauber team announced that Giambaolo Dall’Ara will take on the role of race engineering director. Dall’Ara is a graduate of the Polytechnic of Milan, and in the exact same position he is currently in he was in the past (until 2016).