[Captain Ahab Jr]

Briatore, currently executive advisor at Alpine, agrees.

It's difficult to win in Formula 1, he said. "Ferrari doesn't need new bosses - they've had enough of those. They need to become more international.

They must finally open a technical centre in England. If you want to make champagne, it's smarter to be in France, Briatore added.

However, a powerful figure at the company - founder Enzo Ferrari's son Piero - insists that setting up a Ferrari office in England in the late 80s was a major mistake.

My biggest mistake was John Barnard, he is quoted as saying by Speed Week. "I was the one who persuaded my father to hire the Englishman in 1986. I believed we needed a mastermind from abroad.

But Barnard was never able to fit into our culture. It was an incredible mistake that I regret to this day. We must return to the winning path ourselves, without injecting genes that are incompatible with ours, Ferrari, 80, concluded