Jérôme d'Ambrosio is a Belgian motorsport executive and former racing driver who serves as Deputy Team Principal of Scuderia Ferrari and head of the Ferrari Driver Academy. He joined the team on 1 October 2024. He was born on 27 December 1985 in Etterbeek, Brussels. ¹

Racing career

D'Ambrosio climbed the single-seater ladder with DAMS, finishing runner-up in the 2008–09 GP2 Asia Series and winning his first GP2 main-series race at Monaco in 2010. He reached Formula 1 with Marussia Virgin Racing in 2011, contesting a full season in an uncompetitive car with a best finish of 14th, and made a single further start for Lotus at the 2012 Italian Grand Prix as a stand-in for the banned Romain Grosjean. ¹ He found greater success in Formula E, racing for Dragon Racing and Mahindra Racing and taking three race wins, the 2015 Berlin ePrix, the 2016 Mexico City ePrix and the 2019 Marrakesh ePrix, before retiring from competition at the end of the 2019–20 season. ¹

“In 2023 he joined Mercedes as Driver Development Director, leading the works team's young driver programme.”

Transition to management

After retiring, d'Ambrosio moved into team leadership at Venturi Racing in Formula E, serving as Deputy Team Principal from 2020 and then Team Principal from 2021, guiding the team to runner-up in the Teams' Championship in 2021–22. ¹ In 2023 he joined Mercedes as Driver Development Director, leading the works team's young driver programme. ²

Remit at Ferrari

Ferrari recruited d'Ambrosio alongside Loïc Serra from Mercedes, and he took up his role at Maranello on 1 October 2024. As Deputy Team Principal, he reports directly to Fred Vasseur, supports the running of the team and can deputise for the principal; Vasseur has called him "the perfect profile" to be his right-hand man. ² He also supervises the Ferrari Driver Academy, the Maranello-based junior programme whose first member to graduate to a Ferrari race seat was Charles Leclerc in 2019, and which more recently produced Oliver Bearman, who scored points on debut for Ferrari in 2024 before joining Haas full-time. ³

Stepping up in 2025

The depth of d'Ambrosio's role became visible at the 2025 Austrian Grand Prix, when Vasseur left the circuit before Sunday's race for personal reasons and d'Ambrosio took charge of the team for the Grand Prix. He played down the moment, saying he had simply done "my role as deputy" and that he speaks to Vasseur "20 times a day," but it underlined his standing. ⁴ His remit spans, in his own description, "purely engineering to performance to finance to HR," and he has said he will spend some 2026 race weekends at the factory rather than trackside. ⁴

Bottom line

d'Ambrosio combines first-hand racing experience across F1 and Formula E with a track record of leading driver-development programmes. Why he matters: he is Vasseur's most trusted lieutenant, the figure responsible for Ferrari's pipeline of young talent and the one who steps onto the pit wall in the principal's absence, a profile that has prompted speculation about his longer-term future at the top of the team. ⁴