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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