Ferrari wins Cardile legal action to cease early Aston work

Ferrari has secured a legal victory in blocking its former Formula 1 chassis technical director Enrico Cardile from working for his new team Aston Martin before his period of gardening leave ends.

Cardile was announced last July by Aston Martin as its new chief technical officer, and he has been due to join the squad at some point this year – even though no official start date has ever been officially laid down.

The lack of confirmation over when he will arrive, especially because Aston Martin had been so clear that Adrian Newey would begin on March 3, prompted some intrigue about exactly what was going on with the Italian.

Speaking during the Bahrain test last week, Aston Martin team principal Andy Cowell was incredibly coy on offering details about the situation when asked by The Race when he would be joining.

“We're looking forwards to having a...I guess what we're looking forward to is having 1000 people working well together," said Cowell.

"We're looking forward to Adrian joining. We’re looking forward to the dozens of new starters that we have every month. I think it was 248 through the 2024 calendar year.

"So, we're looking forward to having everybody together and working well as a team, each member having clear responsibilities, from Adrian, myself, down to interns working for us for 12 months in their degree."

But, in an intriguing development, the reason why the team has been so cautious about the Cardile news is now clear – because it has been subject to court action in Italy.

It has emerged that Ferrari has been deeply unhappy that Cardile, despite still being under contract that prevents him doing work for any other team, had already begun to collaborate with Aston Martin.

In response, Ferrari recently took matters to the Court of Modena, where it secured a victory in Cardile being ordered to stop anything he was doing for Aston Martin, and have no further ties to the team prior to his contract ending – which has been laid down as July.

A statement from Ferrari issued to The Race said: “With reference to the recent news regarding the timing of Enrico Cardile's arrival at Aston Martin, Ferrari clarifies that a few weeks ago the Court of Modena, upholding the requests of the Company, ordered Enrico Cardile to immediately cease any form of collaboration with Aston Martin Aramco F1 Team until next July 18.

“In this urgent procedural phase, the Court of Modena found that our former employee was already violating the non-compete commitment with Ferrari, whose purpose was precisely to prevent other F1 teams from gaining an unjustified competitive advantage by hiring Cardile earlier than allowed, causing irreparable harm to Ferrari.”

The news of the Cardile intervention comes in the same week that Newey has begun work at Silverstone in an effort to turn the squad’s fortunes around.

Aston Martin had a disappointing test in Bahrain last week as its new AMR25 did not appear to have made the step forward in form that had been hoped for.

“This is a matter between Enrico and Ferrari and their legal representatives in Italy, and the parties continue to be engaged in the process," Aston Martin said when asked for comment by The Race.

"As such we won’t be making any further comment. We will make an announcement in due course.”