Mattia Binotto could end up paying for Ferrari's flagging championship hopes with his job.
That is the view of former Ferrari driver Felipe Massa, who worked with the Italian team's current team boss when he was still in charge of the engine program.
"He's a very good engineer - a very professional guy," the Brazilian said. "He understands a lot about it on the technical side. He's also a good guy, to be honest.
"But in the end, the result is not coming the way it should. So we cannot definitely blame him, but we need to say that he's part of it."
Indeed, although Binotto should be hailed for helping Ferrari field a truly competitive car in 2022, the team's title hopes are fading due to reliability and strategy errors.
Another former Ferrari driver, Jean Alesi, says the critics should hold their tongues.
"We can try to understand the why and how, but now is not the time," the Frenchman told Corriere della Sera newspaper.
"Being negative does nothing good - on the contrary, you have to support Ferrari. I want to help the people at Ferrari because they are the ones who are suffering the most from this situation."
Massa, however, agrees with those who think Binotto's job may be in doubt if the errors do not stop.
"He needs to turn and change things in a quick way, otherwise he can pay for it," he said.
But Binotto thinks the existing structure of the team can handle the situation.
"I am convinced that our team is also strong at a strategic level," he told Tag24. "We often look at mistakes and not at what we do right.
"We should have won five more races, but somehow it didn't happen. We could have been 9-3 (versus Red Bull) in terms of wins, because we always had problems when we were in the lead. Red Bull only had bad luck when they were behind us..
"But looking at the balance of the first half of the season, I see no reason why we should change," Binotto said, rejecting suggestions Ferrari needs a personnel shakeup.
"I just think we need to address the question of what went wrong. Understand the problem and work on it.
"There's no reason why we can't get it back next time." body check tags ::
