Alonso is out and Vettel is in.
But, more significantly, di Montezemolo is out and Marchionne is in.
Both these changes seem to be F1 related.
Well, obviously the first one is! It is covered in this week's news from many sources including The BBC who also covered the news last month about Sergio Marchionne taking over the chairman's chair from Luca di Montezemolo. As can be seen in that article, there is speculation that Luca's departure is him being pushed out due to disagreements with Marchionne. These will be partly down to the very poor recent performance of the Ferrari F1 team. I don't see swapping Alonso for Vettel altering things there - the problem is the car not the driver - I reckon Alonso is the better of the two albeit not by a lot.
Anyway, as boss of Fiat-Chrysler, the parent company of Ferrari, Marchionne has the power to take over and that is what is happening - on October 13th to be precise.
Which leaves things a little awkward for them at the Paris Motor Show this week. Paris saw the last ever Ferrari press conference for Luca with Sergio there to "support" him. Andrew Frankel of Autocar covered it in two articles first factually, then artistically.
The first article reports the usual corporate press-conferencey stuff - the future direction of the company etc. and does have the little dig where Marchionne claimed his most important priority was to return Scuderia Ferrari to the top of Formula 1, a goal he described as a "non-negotiable objective."
The second article looks at how the two men appeared at the press-conference:
The outgoing boss is enthusiastic and open while his successor looks bored off his trolley and decidely uncomfortable.
It makes an interesting read.
And I know who will be the happier man on October 13th.
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