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Reports suggest that Ferrari's attempt to poach Red Bull's aerodynamic chief Enrico Balbo has fallen through. The Scuderia is reportedly trying to poach key personnel from rival teams in a bid to rise to the top of the sport.
Balbo has been an essential part of Red Bull's engineering success since January 2018, working closely with Adrian Newey. In July 2021, he was promoted to head of aerodynamics to reduce Newey's workload after an accident. Balbo currently holds the position of the no.3 engineer at Red Bull, behind Newey and Technical Director Pierre Wache.
As per Italian outlet Gazzetta, Ferrari contacted Balbo but were unable to convince the engineer to join the Scuderia. The Maranello-based team is currently going through yet another rough patch, having failed to impress so far in 2023.
However, 2022 title protagonist Charles Leclerc scored the team's first podium of the year at the 2023 Azerbaijan GP.
Given their current form, Ferrari are going to need all the help they can get - and approaching rival team engineers is a good start
Ferrari was under severe pressure heading into 2023 Azerbaijan GP
According to Tom Clarkson, the host of the FIA press conference, Ferrari faced significant pressure leading up to the 2023 F1 Azerbaijan Grand Prix. Despite a lackluster start to the season, the team has recently displayed progress, highlighted by Charles Leclerc's inaugural podium finish of the year.
Leclerc demonstrated his impressive form, particularly in qualifying sessions where he secured pole position for both the sprint shootout and the main GP in Azerbaijan. He then went on to finish in third place in the main race.
Despite the Prancing Horse's lackluster performance in the first three races of the season, Leclerc's podium in Baku provided the team with renewed hope.
Speaking about the situation at the Scuderia team, Tom Clarkson said on the F1 Nation podcast:
"It really has been a horrid start to the season for them. It was tin hats on coming into this weekend for the senior management with all the talk of Laurent Mekies - Racing Director - off to AlphaTauri at the end of the year. Charles Leclerc being talked about going to Mercedes."
It remains to be seen how the Italian team will fare in the upcoming races.
