Serra used to work for Mercedes, where he was in charge of making sure the cars performed well. Now, he’s going to Ferrari to lead the team that works on making the chassis (the main structure of the car) perform better. He’ll start his new job on October 1st and will report to Enrico Cardile, Ferrari’s technical chief. This news was first reported by Motorsport.com last year.
Serra started his career in Formula 1 as an engineer for Michelin, a tire company. Later, he joined BMW Sauber when Michelin stopped supplying tires to F1. After BMW left F1, Serra went to Mercedes, where he worked on different aspects of how the car moves before becoming the performance director.
Another person leaving Mercedes for Ferrari is d’Ambrosio, who used to race in Formula 1. He’ll start working at Ferrari also on October 1st, but in a different role. He’ll be the deputy team principal, which means he’ll assist Fred Vasseur, Ferrari’s team principal. This means d’Ambrosio will leave his job at Mercedes, where he helped develop drivers.
d’Ambrosio raced for Marussia Virgin Racing in 2011 and had a one-time race with Lotus in 2012. After that, he switched to Formula E, a championship for electric cars. He raced for Jay Penske’s Dragon team for four years and then moved to Mahindra when Formula E introduced new rules. He retired from racing after the 2019-20 season.
Later, d’Ambrosio worked with Venturi, another Formula E team, where he became the team principal. He left Venturi when Maserati started working with the team. Then, he joined Mercedes to work with Toto Wolff, who runs the team, and Gwen Lagrue, who helps develop drivers.
Even though it seemed like d’Ambrosio would stay at Mercedes for a while, he decided to leave. It’s interesting because he was seen as part of Wolff’s plan for the future of Mercedes. d’Ambrosio and Serra will both work with Lewis Hamilton when he moves to Ferrari in 2025.
