Diego Ioverno is an Italian Formula 1 engineer who serves as Sporting Director of Scuderia Ferrari, a role he has held since 2023. He was born on 31 May 1974, and has spent his entire career with the Scuderia. ¹

Joining Ferrari

Ioverno is a mechanical engineer who joined Scuderia Ferrari in 2000, beginning a career spent entirely with the team across the operations and sporting side of the organisation. ¹

“From the end of 2015 he was Ferrari's Sporting Manager, taking over sporting matters and FIA representation at the track.”

Rise through the operations side

Ioverno started in the operations department as a gearbox assembly technician, leading the gearbox assembly area during Ferrari's dominant early-2000s championship era. He became head of car assembly in 2008, responsible for car build through all of the team's tests and sessions, and from 2010 led race operations, overseeing the garage and pit stops. ¹

Sporting Manager and factory roles

From the end of 2015 he was Ferrari's Sporting Manager, taking over sporting matters and FIA representation at the track. He later moved to a factory-based role and, from 2021, served as Chief Engineer, Vehicle Operations, before returning to the front line of the sporting organisation. ¹

Sporting Director

When Laurent Mekies left Ferrari to become team principal at AlphaTauri (Racing Bulls), Ioverno was announced on 27 July 2023 as Sporting Director from the Belgian Grand Prix onwards. He reports directly to Team Principal Fred Vasseur and is responsible for all sporting matters, including race strategy, pit-wall operations and the team's liaison with the FIA; in Ferrari's 2024 reorganisation he also retained the chassis operations line under the technical structure. ^{1 2 3}

On the pit wall

As the team's public face on sporting and compliance matters, Ioverno has often had to front Ferrari's regulatory setbacks. The most painful came at the 2025 Chinese Grand Prix, where both Ferraris were disqualified after the race, Leclerc for being marginally underweight and Hamilton for excessive skid-plank wear, a double exclusion that underlined the fine margins of the sporting brief he oversees. Under the new 2026 regulations, with energy management and revised operations adding complexity, his role coordinating strategy and execution on the pit wall has only grown in importance. ²

Bottom line

Ioverno is a quarter-century Ferrari insider who has progressed from the factory floor to the top of the team's sporting structure. Why he matters: as Sporting Director he is Ferrari's key operational and regulatory figure on the pit wall, managing race-weekend governance and the relationship with the sport's governing body at a moment when the 2026 rules have made operational execution more decisive than ever. ²