Everything you need to know about Ferrari's sporting and strategy director Inaki Rueda

Inaki Rueda is the man behind Ferrari's strategy at every race weekend. However, not even the most ardent fans of the sport know much about the Spanish engineer. Let's take a look.

Ignacio 'Inaki' Rueda is currently the Sporting and Strategy Director for the Scuderia Ferrari F1 team. He joined the Italian team in October 2014, having previously worked as a Race Strategist at the Lotus F1 Team.

The Spanish engineer came under considerable fire during the 2022 F1 season after the Maranello-based squad succumbed to regular strategic blunders. Mistakes in Monaco, Silverstone, France, and Hungary cost Charles Leclerc the chance of potentially winning his first title in the sport. Rueda soon became one of the senior members of the Scuderia team who was held responsible for the team's failures throughout 2022.

Former Scuderia team principal Mattia Binotto was scrutinized for regularly defending Rueda's strategic choices, even when they failed to work. After the woeful 2022 Hungarian GP, Binotto defended his strategist, saying:

“Sometimes we make mistakes, and the others are making mistakes, so not only Inaki but the entire team is great and I’m fully supporting them.”

The Italian team have since parted ways with Binotto and have chosen to go with former Sauber man Fred Vasseur for the new season. It will be interesting to see how Inaki and Vasseur work together in 2023.

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Ferrari director reveals their goals for pre-season testing

Ferrari race director Laurent Mekies has outlined the team's targets for pre-season testing in Bahrain. The French engineer claims the team hopes to see real-life proof of the model they have developed the car with all winter.

Mekies hopes that the team's tire, aerodynamic, and reliability models will be reflected by their 2023 challenger on track. He also hopes the new car, the SF23, performs as per their expectations from development.

The Scuderia team suffered from poor reliability in the 2022 season, leading to frequent DNFs for both its drivers - resulting in a huge loss of championship points.

Speaking in a Q&A round for Ferrari, Laurent Mekies said of the team's expectations for pre-season testing:

"The truth is in the modern world in which we are, it's all about correlations and making sure the car is matching the model with which we have been working all winter. So it's true for the vehicle model, it's true for the tyre model. It's true, of course, for the aerodynamic model, so it's all about correlations. Does the car perform as we are expecting? This is very much the big part of the testing focus will be [on]."

Some reports also indicate that the team has developed a new lightweight chassis ahead of the new season. It remains to be seen how the team will fare in 2023.