Ferrari president Sergio Marchionne delivered an uncompromising verdict on the team’s efforts during 2016, saying it has “failed” to develop its car.
Speaking to media at Monza ahead of qualifying for the Italian Grand Prix Marchionne said “I think we failed the targets” he set at the beginning of the season.
“I don’t think there’s a doubt in my mind, there’s no use putting sweeteners on the stuff. The car isn’t there. I think we started well in Australia, I think that we failed in developing the car during the season which is due to a variety of reasons. Post-mortems on this thing have been done ad nauseum now, we’re done.”
Ferrari led the season-opening race of 2016 but it is almost a full year since their last victory at Singapore in 2015.
Technical director James Allison left the team in July. Marchionne believes Ferrari has made good changes in response to its disappointing campaign and will fight back next season.
“I think we’ve made changes to the leadership team,” he said, “I feel quite comfortable this team of ‘kids’, these people are quite capable of turning the fate of the scuderia around.”
“I think we need… unfortunately we don’t have a lot of season left. But already here in terms of the changes we’ve made to the car I feel a lot more comfortable than I did in the past. Let them finish the season, I think we’ll do the best we can for the rest of ’16. The fight starts in 2017 at the first race.”
Gary
3rd September 2016, 12:49
Good analysis, Ferrari failed. The CEO should be replaced. That would be Marchionne.
SeanG
3rd September 2016, 13:00
Exactly.
Fer Aut (@312t)
3rd September 2016, 16:47
+1
Michael Brown
3rd September 2016, 23:48
Bingo
Kansas
3rd September 2016, 12:50
italian engineering work force……..has that ever work before??
and for christ sake……ferrari has failed in their in season development since 2009
Pinak Ghosh (@pinakghosh)
3rd September 2016, 12:59
Oh dear! The morale at Scuderia seems to be really low…
Mike (@mike)
3rd September 2016, 14:05
If it wasn’t before it is now.
dennis (@dennis)
3rd September 2016, 12:59
Ruin Chrysler some more and stop getting on F1 fans’ nerves…
SeanG
3rd September 2016, 21:09
Yep!
Ylli Beli (@yllib)
3rd September 2016, 13:04
I actually for once appreciate his words. It has been a long time since they understand and admit most importantly admit “failure”. Lets not forget that this is the first full year of Marchione in f1 and i believe the he is starting to understand that results do not come from moaning but by putting your head down and working hard. At least he is not promising that they will win…but he is showing commitment that they will fight…He is relieving the team from the pressure and is giving them a new prospective.
As an old ferrari fan, I want to believe that he is knows what has led to 2009-2015 failures…lets give him some time.. (sorry for my english)
petebaldwin (@)
3rd September 2016, 14:11
@yllib – No need to apologise for your English – I wouldn’t have guessed it wasn’t your first language!
I hope it’s not just more of the same from Ferrari and that things will actually be different next year. The sport desperately needs two (or more) teams fighting at the front.
Philip (@philipgb)
3rd September 2016, 13:25
‘The fight starts in ‘
The Ferrari mantra since 2011
Philip (@philipgb)
3rd September 2016, 13:26
‘The fight starts in *INSERT FOLLOWING YEAR*‘
The Ferrari mantra since 2011
Tae-kun You (@wok03)
3rd September 2016, 13:59
Does anyone got an idea of what he meant by saying “kids”?
Gary
3rd September 2016, 14:05
He’s in his early 60s so to him they are all kids.
Ivan B (@njoydesign)
3rd September 2016, 16:57
it was actually a pretty funny moment in that interview – he let the word “kids” slip before correcting himself to use “people”.
nase
3rd September 2016, 20:41
@njoydesign
That’s probably an interference with Italian. In Italian he would’ve said ‘ragazzi’, which can be translated literally as ‘kids’, but also as an affectionate term for a group of people (just like a an English-speaking team boss could call his employees ‘boys’ or ‘lads’ without raising too many eyebrows).
In short, what he really meant to say was lost in translation.
Tae-kun You (@wok03)
4th September 2016, 11:44
Thanks for the explanation
Blazz
3rd September 2016, 14:36
Well… What a way to rally the troops eh. They say “the buck stops with the captain of the ship”. Ferrari have sacked Domenicali who was team principal, Di Montezemolo who was president, now the only other place to look in true Ferrari tradition is the president of FIAT and Ferrari- Marchionne himself. The reshuffle should be complete then. But of course history tells us that Ferrari has perfomed dismally in car development since 2009 and perhaps the problem lies with their design philosophy. But hey what do us arm chair critics know.
Mehtab Ahmed (@t4bb3)
3rd September 2016, 14:52
If Marchionne analysed the state of his development department, he should have been insisting to bring back in-season testing!
bukester (@bukester)
3rd September 2016, 15:00
This is the guy that said the Dodge Dart would save Fiat/Chrysler! He should be sacked.
Josh
3rd September 2016, 15:36
It’s nice to see a powerhouse struggle because when they turn things around and start winning and bringing home championships again it will be appreciated a lot more. Red Bull won’t take winning 4 in a row for granted in the future nor will Ferrari.
pcxmac (@xsavior)
3rd September 2016, 16:21
Ferrari failed by not getting rid of the 100kg of fuel per race limit. Everyone but Merc is failing, so maybe not that bad. Maybe they failed again by allowing the rules for next year. Why people keep letting Merc steam roll everyone in F1 is beyond me. The rules are killing the competition.
anon
3rd September 2016, 18:43
@xsavior, You constantly promote this as some sort of “silver bullet” to magically solve everything in a single stroke, and yet you have never provided any evidence or rational argument to back up your claims. Why don’t you actually try and provide some evidence for once?
John H (@john-h)
3rd September 2016, 20:15
Some of us remember Ferrari calling for an engine formula because they couldn’t employ Newey.
Well, here you go… an engine formula.
Markp
4th September 2016, 11:45
Engine and tyre formula. Look at Singapoure last year Merc mis calculated the tyres and went from dominance to midfield. Merc are good at every element of modern F1 but I think tyres have the biggest impact and if you can consistently get them in the sweet spot you will win. Ferrari suffered this year with sudden temperature changes, I don’t think this affects aero and engines so must have been the tyres.
Lauri (@f1lauri)
3rd September 2016, 17:47
Ferrari failed since its new wind tunnel didn’t work. The designer of the tunnel said, Luca Montezemolo wanted it to be an architectural masterpiece (google it, you’ll see it kinda is) – which ended up screwing original purpose, badly.
And I can’t unterstand these kind of de-motivational speeches. What good will this type of pressure bring? How?
AntoineDeParis (@antoine-de-paris)
3rd September 2016, 21:15
Ferrari failed, because they thought James Allison is the saviour.
2016 campaign is the clear failure.
bull mello (@bullmello)
3rd September 2016, 21:44
Ferrari president Sergio Marchionne is saying all the right things that are expected of a “good” corporate boss. Will he accept the “failure” as his own or will others pay the price?
A great “leader” is hard to find. Being one is even more difficult.