Aston Martin has suffered a setback after Ferrari won a court case which will delay the arrival of the Silverstone-based team’s new chief technical officer.
A Modena court ruled Cardile must respect a period of ‘gardening leave’ and join Aston Martin no earlier this July 18th. That will be a year after Aston Martin announced it had hired Cardile to join the team this season.The court’s ruling will delay Cardile’s input into Aston Martin’s new car for next year, when F1 will introduce sweeping changes to its technical regulations. Aston Martin’s star signing, former Red Bull chief technical officer Adrian Newey, began work at the team yesterday.
The court upheld Ferrari’s complaint that Cardile “was already violating the non-compete agreement undertaken in favour of Ferrari, the purpose of which was precisely to prevent other F1 teams, by hiring Cardile earlier than permitted, from gaining an unjustified competitive advantage, causing irreparable damage to Ferrari,” La Repubblica reported.
Aston Martin told RaceFans in a statement: “This is a matter between Enrico and Ferrari and their legal representatives in Italy, and the parties continue to be engaged in the process. As such we won’t be making any further comment.”
“We will make an announcement in due course,” the team added.
Ferrari has been approached for comment.
Cardile is due to form part of Aston Martin’s revamped technical team, following CEO Andy Cowell’s move into the role of team principal. With Newey installed as managing technical partner, former team principal Mike Krack is now the team’s chief trackside officer, and attended last week’s test in Bahrain in that capacity.
When he arrives, Cardile’s responsibilities will include the “architecture, design and build of new race cars.” However the delay to his arrival will compromise the input he can have into next year’s AMR26.
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El Pollo Loco
4th March 2025, 16:45
lol, I’m sure a Modena based judge is super impartial. Anyway, it might not even be a super big blow since it’s not like he’s going to be designing the car. As I understand it, his specialty is something related to production of parts (which I’m sure is super complicated and important too, but not quite as important or time sensitive for next year’s car anyway).
BasCB (@bascb)
4th March 2025, 18:22
It’s rather irrelevant what the judge would think of Ferrari, Aston or whatever. The important point is that they know the law that governs employment contracts.
El Pollo Loco
5th March 2025, 3:08
Naive much? I bet the SCOTUS is totally a-political and just interested in precedence and constitutionality too!
SteveP
5th March 2025, 7:05
The world knows that American justice is the best you can buy.
El Pollo Loco
6th March 2025, 3:28
Since the Citizens United case they don’t even both even trying to hide it anymore.
Greg
4th March 2025, 19:48
Cardile will be CTO, to put in simply, no matter if Newey designs a super car better than anything before, without Cardile Aston Martin will not be able to make it or they will not make it on time or won’t be able to fully integrate the car with the Honda engine. If he begin working for AM in july his participation in the 2026 program will be almost non existing. This is really a big blow for the team.
Tifoso1989 (@tifoso1989)
4th March 2025, 21:13
I was looking for this comment to be honest :)
It seems you may not be aware that the same impartial Modena-based court has previously ruled against Ferrari in a legal dispute. Ferrari lost to one of its former engineers, Steve Clark, with the court ruling in his favor.
You may already know that high-profile F1 engineers are bound by strict contractual clauses, ensuring that their technical expertise doesn’t immediately benefit rival teams. This isn’t the first time a team has exercised its right to enforce an extended gardening leave to delay knowledge transfer. Ferrari has been on the receiving end of such restrictions, having to wait an entire year before key figures like Loic Serra, and before him, Jock Clear were able to officially start working for them.
If anything is apparent here, it’s that Aston Martin has employed the same strategy they used with Dan Fallows to speed up the process of allowing Cardile to start working for them as soon as possible.
El Pollo Poco
5th March 2025, 3:15
A judge has ruled against Ferrari before and therefore all judges and future judgements are automatically impartial? It’s likely there were solid grounds for the judge’s decision just as it’s likely the location of the court aided SF. We don’t know one way or the other, but you can’t tell me the headline “ Modena Court Rules in Ferrari Favor” isn’t amusing. You also can’t tell me that if you had reason to sue Ferrari (let’s say a defective part resulted in a tragic accident) you’d be just as comfortable with the case being determined in Modena as in Munich, Chicago, London or even Rome.
El Pollo Loco
5th March 2025, 3:18
A judge has ruled against Ferrari before and therefore all judges and future judgements there are/will be automatically impartial? It’s likely there were solid grounds for the decision. Just as it’s likely the location of the court made the determination an easier case for SF. We don’t know one way or the other, but you can’t tell me the headline “ Modena Court Rules in Ferrari Favor” isn’t amusing.
You also can’t tell me that if you had reason to bring a lawsuit against Ferrari (e.g., a defective road car resulted in an accident) you’d be just as comfortable with the case being determined in Modena as in Zurich, London or Chicago.
Carsten Nielsen (@carstenb)
5th March 2025, 10:05
I would be exactly as confident of a fair ruling in Modena against Ferrari as I would in a London court against, say, McLaren or any other UK based team.
El Pollo Loco
6th March 2025, 3:31
Yeah, if it went against Ferrari. One cannot also compare the national sentiment of Italians let alone Italians in the actual small village where Ferrari is located to the 8 teams based in the UK.
MichaelN
4th March 2025, 23:37
Or maybe they’re just applying the law, since there’s literally zero evidence of there being any other reason for the ruling.
El Pollo Loco
6th March 2025, 3:44
Never said that Ferrari didn’t have a case. Just noted Modena is hardly the ideal jurisdiction for a case against Ferrari. I doubt you’d as casually assume total impartiality if SF sued Max or RBR and the case was judged in the Netherlands, Hamilton was suing Alonso w/the court in Barcelona, etc. Sure, they might end up being judged purely on merit. But it’d be lunacy to not even question whether jurisdiction played a role in an outcome that webt in favor of the celebrated local.
Tifoso1989 (@tifoso1989)
6th March 2025, 8:29
Hamilton has a fair chance of winning against Alonso in a Barcelona court if you know the history of the Spanish regional identity…