Nico Rosberg feels Ferrari need to make ‘fundamental changes’ after latest error

Former world champion Nico Rosberg believes heads must roll at Ferrari and questioned the future of boss Mattia Binotto after the team’s latest set of blunders at Sunday’s Dutch Grand Prix.

Charles Leclerc finished third in Zandvoort but his team-mate Carlos Sainz took the chequered flag down in eighth following two pit-stop howlers.

First, Sainz was stranded for 12.7 seconds when Ferrari farcically brought out only three tyres for his opening pit stop.

The Spaniard was later handed a five-second penalty following an unsafe release when he pitted under the safety car.

Ferrari have produced a competitive car this season, but a catalogue of errors by man and machine have blighted their campaign.

Leclerc is 109 points behind runaway championship leader Max Verstappen with just seven rounds remaining. Ferrari have not won a drivers’ championship since 2007.

And speaking ahead of the Prancing Horse’s home race in Monza this weekend, 2016 world champion and Sky Sports pundit Rosberg has demanded a management reshuffle.

Rosberg said: “Mattia Binotto keeps saying, ‘no, no, we don’t need to make any changes and everything is going well’, but when is that day going to come?

“Even Formula Two or Formula Three teams do a better job with their strategy and pit-stops than Ferrari do.

“Binotto is technician, so it could be suggested that you need a joint leadership team – one being a technician and one being a business manager, a people manager.

“When we are in the commentary box, we are just waiting for a mistake to happen, and that is not good.

“So there needs to be some fundamental changes in their personnel, and how people work together there because it is just going wrong on too many occasions.”

Ferrari are also in danger of conceding second in the constructors’ standings to Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes team. Despite their up-and-down year, the Silver Arrows are just 30 points behind Ferrari.

But responding to Rosberg’s stinging criticism, Binotto, who has been team principal since 2019, said: “My answer to Rosberg is that we will not change people.

“It is so easy to speak and criticise when you are out of the paddock. But we have got great people, and it has been proven that what is more important in sport is stability, and to make sure we are improving day-by-day and race-by-race.

“It takes years of experience for all teams to be at the front, and there is no reason why it should be different for ourselves.”