Ferrari reportedly nab top Mercedes target after missing out on Pierre Waché

Ferrari have reportedly signed Mercedes’ performance director Loïc Serra after missing out on Red Bull’s Pierre Waché.

Accepting they need to strengthen the team after the loss of Davide Sanchez and the soon-to-be-departure of Laurent Mekies, who is attending his final race with Ferrari this weekend in Hungary, the Scuderia made a play for key Red Bull personnel with Waché their number one target.

He, however, turned them down with the Red Bull technical director instead putting pen to paper on the new deal with the reigning World Champions.

Ferrari’s ‘top guy’ target

Ferrari,formu1a.unoreports, then turned their attention to Mercedes’ Serra and have been successful in signing him.

The Italian publication claims, that seeking a “profile à la Waché, i.e. an engineer with important knowledge especially in terms of suspensions, vehicle dynamics and the interaction of the latter with the tyres”, Ferrari went knocking on Mercedes’ door.

Signing Serra, the “top guy” that team boss Fred Vasseur had previous spoken of, while there are still legal sides to the deal that need to be ironed out, they “shouldn’t derail the good engineer’s landing in Maranello”.

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Although said not be the “complete profile” that is Waché, Serra brings with him a wealth of knowledge in optimising the aerodynamic platform and will work alongside Enrico Cardile.

Neither Mercedes nor Ferrari have commented on the report.

10 races into this year’s championship and Ferrari have yet to win a grand prix with the team recording just one podium finish with Charles Leclerc P3 at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

That’s left the team lagging in fourth place in the Constructors’ Championship where they are 254 points behind Red Bull.

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