Ferrari launch ‘urgent procedural’ action in Cardile to Aston Martin move

An Italian court has blocked Enrico Cardile from joining Aston Martin after Ferrari argued their former employee was still under a non-compete commitment.

Cardile left his Head of Aero Development role at Maranello last season to join Aston Martin but as per standard procedure, the Italian team inserted a period of gardening leave into his contract before he was allowed to start work with his new team.

Ferrari block Aston Martin new signing

Following Adrian Newey’s first day on Monday, it was anticipated that Cardile would soon be allowed to start work at Aston but Ferrari have confirmed that an Italian court has upheld their request that he will be barred until July.

A Ferrari statement 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.”

This will no doubt come as a blow to Aston who had hoped to have Cardile in-situ alongside Newey as soon as possible. Cardile agreed a Chief Technical Officer role at Aston before Newey was announced as also joining the team.

At the time, Executive Chairman Lawrence Stroll said: “I would like to welcome Enrico to Aston Martin Aramco as we look to reinforce the technical leadership team ahead of significant regulation changes in 2026. I am thrilled that we continue to attract world-class talent to our team.

“Enrico shares my motivation to be successful in F1 and will have all the resources available to him to realise that ambition. Together with Andy Cowell joining as Group CEO in October, and our existing leaders, we are creating a formidable team.”

Cowell, who assumed the team principal role as well in January, spoke at pre-season testing last week but was coy over when Cardile would be in place.

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“I guess what we’re looking forward to is having a thousand people working well together,” he said.

“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.”

“There’s a big group of people already working on the 2026 car, pushing forwards.

“And as we add people in, then we get stronger. And increased capacity, increased experience just helps push us forwards.”

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