Mattia Binotto has admitted the basic "concept" of Ferrari's 2020 car may be flawed.
After the opening two races of 2020, the entire world of Formula 1 has apparently concluded that Ferrari is in deep crisis.
"The problem is the team," F1 legend and former Ferrari driver Gerhard Berger told Servus TV.
Tuttosport, one of Italy's top sports newspapers, is scathing.
"The two drivers destroyed all the work of the engineers," read an editorial, referring to the fact that Ferrari had wanted to assess whether new parts rushed to Austria last weekend were in the right direction.
"One thing is certain: since the death of Sergio Marchionne, the Scuderia has seemed disoriented," Tuttosport added.
Berger agrees: "The problem is very deep. I doubt they can find a solution in the short term."
Veteran journalist Roger Benoit wrote in Blick newspaper: "This Ferrari crisis has a name - Mattia Binotto."
Berger thinks Binotto is overloaded with his dual role as team principal and technical director.
"I said at the beginning that this structure can never work. I don't blame Mattia at all, as he is a good engineer and a good guy who worked on my own car," he said.
"But when you look at Red Bull, they have Helmut Marko, Christian Horner, Adrian Newey. The same with Mercedes."
Former F1 driver Ralf Schumacher agrees that Ferrari is facing a structural-level problem, but he doubts that Binotto should be immediately ousted.
"In the middle of a season it makes no sense," he told Sky Deutschland. "But they have to look for the answer. The problem isn't just the engine or the drivers.
"Sergio Marchionne said that more Italians should be running the team, which is a nice, romantic thought. But in reality it doesn't work. F1 is international," Schumacher added.
"The crucial question is whether Mattia Binotto is ready to poach people from the outside to get in control of the situation. If he isn't, he's the wrong one for that position.
"One example of Binotto's poor management is the contract with Sebastian. They still spend a lot of money on him, but then they deal with him so awkwardly. That's just burning potential," said the German.
Ferrari now faces the question of what to do next.
Jean Alesi, another former Ferrari driver, told Radio Anch'io: "More than the pressure on the drivers, the fact is that the car was born badly and the solutions brought by the engineers did not work."
Team boss Binotto is quoted by La Gazzetta dello Sport: "How to get out of this is not trivial. We must understand the origin of the problem in order to progress.
"It could be a (car) concept problem that underlies the project, so the most important thing at the moment is to be open and to analyse everything from every point of view."
