Montezemolo's situation at Rafa was deteriorating by the day. Since taking office in 2009, he had been pushing a so-called "Latinization" within the organization, leading to the marginalization and even resignation of numerous core technical personnel who were not from Italy. In previous years, the Ferrari F1 Team had managed to maintain its competitiveness by relying on the old engines from the V8 era. However, upon entering the 1.6T hybrid era, they struggled massively to adapt. Leading up to the recently concluded Monaco Grand Prix, Rafa's best result had been Brother Tou's third-place finish at the Shanghai Station. Aside from that, they were merely hovering in the points zone—neither improving nor dropping—while being absolutely dominated by Red Bull and Williams.
