In late 1992 Bernie Ecclestone, tightening his grip on Formula 1’s commercial rights after the re-election of his friend Max Mosley to the presidency of FISA (then the sporting wing of the FIA) was concerned that Ferrari’s lacklustre performance could see the Scuderia exit the pinnacle of motorsport. Such a move would obviously diminish the value of F1.
Luca di Montezemolo, appointed to Ferrari’s top job the previous year, was counting the costs of an extended win-less streak. The team had last won a grand prix in September 1990 and, worse, Ferrari had secured no championship silverware since winning the constructors’ title in 1983, nearly a decade earlier.Disgruntled Ferrari fans had no drivers’ champion to fete since Jody Scheckter lifted the crown at Monza in 1979. That long, 13-year stretch weighed heavily in the hearts of the tifosi.
To put those timelines into modern perspective, consider that it is now exactly 12 years since Ferrari last won a constructor title, and 13 since Kimi Raikkonen’s success…
Back in the nineties, Montezemolo was acutely aware that not only was Ferrari fast descending into F1’s laughing stock, but that the Prancing Stallion’s brand image was in downward lockstep with the team’s on-track performance. That in turn affected the premiums the company’s road car customers were prepared to shell out for its production products.
Montezemolo and Ecclestone knew each other well, having competed against each other during the mid-seventies while the Englishman owned Brabham and the Bolognese oversaw Niki Lauda’s first (1975) championship title, driving for the scarlet team. Now, though, the Italian nobleman was on a different mission: Rebuild Ferrari on road and track after founder Enzo’s death in 1988.
Clearly change was desperately required and it was in their mutual interests to return Scuderia Ferrari to the top. But how to institute it? During the past three years alone no fewer than six team principals – including Enzo’s son Piero – had tried but demonstrably failed to reverse Ferrari’s fortunes. 1991 had been particularly chequered: three team principals spread over 16 races.
Ecclestone had a candidate in mind. A tough, no-nonsense 40-something sporting director who initially competed internationally before switching to management and delivering world championship and other high-profile successes across various disciplines – including WRC, Le Mans, the World Sports Car Championship, Dakar and Pikes Peak – for Peugeot. And Ecclestone knew Jean Todt was itching to turn his talents to F1.
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It was not just Todt’s track record that impressed F1’s ringmaster, but also his fearlessness in the face of politics. He’d dragged FISA into court over regulation changes and could thus withstand the infernal (and internal) pressures all Ferrari team bosses are subject to. Bernie also knew Todt was potentially on the loose after Peugeot’s main board had bombed a planned switch to F1.
Thus, Bernie made an inspired call. “Get Jean Todt” he told Montezemolo, offering to broker a secret meeting. Duly taken up, a series of negotiations followed during which Todt demanded carte blanche over the sporting division. Montezemolo acceded, and Todt’s first race in red was the 1993 French Grand Prix.
The rest is history – best summarised by a run of record-setting six and five consecutive constructors and drivers titles respectively. They did the double again in 2007 as Todt prepared to leave, en route to succeed Mosley as FIA president.
Todt’s appointment was an extremely brave move by Montezemolo for it marked a break with tradition. Only once in Ferrari F1 history had a foreigner held the top sporting job, namely Swiss sportscar racer Peter Schetty, who moonlighted as competition manager in 1971. The rest (19 by 1993), including Marco Piccinini, born and educated in Rome before moving to Monaco, were Italians.
Montezemolo was not the only breaker with Ferrari tradition. Todt also ventured beyond the boot-shaped country in search of lieutenants, recruiting in quick succession Britons Ross Brawn and Nigel Stepney as technical director and chief mechanic respectively, chief designer Rory Byrne (South Africa), Japan’s V10 guru Osamu Goto as head of engine research and development, and, later, Frenchman Gilles Simon as engine director.
This list is by no means exhaustive: at one stage the list of nationalities employed by the Scuderia rivalled that of the United Nations, and as much English – if not more – was heard as passed a red huddle in the paddock. Crucially, this multi-national collective delivered, rapidly hauling in McLaren in the overall win stakes before edging away.
Still, so shaky had Ferrari become that it took six long years before Todt delivered on his objective via the 1999 constructor championship. Michael Schumacher delivered the drivers’ title the following season, making it 16 years since the 1983 title and 21 years since Scheckter’s success. However, once Todt’s Red Army rolled it proved unstoppable until regulation changes briefly halted the charge in 2005.
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Purple patches soon returned. Kimi Raikkonen and the team lifting both 2007 titles before Todt started winding down in order to hand over to his hand-picked protégé Stefano Domenicali. The team silverware stayed put in 2008 although Felipe Massa – another Todt recruit – narrowly missed out on his title in that unforgettable race at Interlagos.
A gradual erosion in form followed, gradually accompanied by a steady return to the Ferrari of old, to one where patriotism seemingly rules over points. The Italy-first policy appears to be back: All Todt’s successors held Italian nationality, with only current incumbent Mattia Binotto having born outside the country – in Switzerland, to Italian parents.
Marco Mattiacci – who lasted less than a year – was parachuted in from an executive position with Ferrari USA and had absolutely no clue about inner workings of F1. His first appearance in an official capacity at a grand prix – China 2014 – is best recalled for his donning of sunglasses throughout the weekend, overcast rainy weather and dusk notwithstanding.
Last year’s appointment of Binotto was analysed here previously, and the team’s form since provides no reason to revise that opinion. If anything, the opposite.
Another common thread since those halcyon years is that all team principals in history save for Todt were either Ferrari ‘lifers’ who were promoted internally or had prior links to the company or founder. This includes Binotto’s immediate predecessor Maurizio Arrivabene – an outside appointment, true, but a former senior marketing executive of long-time team partner Philip Morris and thus essentially an integral part of the team.
The third common denominator is that all four post-Todt team principals – in sequence, Domenicali, Mattiacci, Arrivabene and Binotto – are extremely good men at heart. Yet none seems or seemed totally comfortable in the rough-and-tumble of F1. Domenicali has happily found his niche as CEO of Lamborghini, Mattiacci is back in North America doing high end auto marketing, and Arrivabene is retired.
To summarise: in the 13 years since the Jean Todt’s 13-year spell in charge era ended in November 2007 four Italian team principals followed in his footsteps, who collectively have a single title to show for it – that 2008 constructor championship, which had the momentum of previous successes behind it.
Twice during this period Ferrari slumped to fourth in the constructors, failing to win a single race in 2014 and 2016. This despite drawing on the biggest budgets and pocketing the largest slices of F1’s revenues regardless of on-track results. Since 2010 Ferrari has employed three world champions – Fernando Alonso and Sebastian Vettel, with six titles scored elsewhere between them – and a returning Raikkonen, fired in 2009.
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Now consider the recent past. Ferrari entered a controversial secret settlement with the FIA over its power unit operation, and simultaneously lost its performance edge. This was reckoned by an engine customer as being around half a second per lap, while both years Ferrari had a ‘draggy’ car, one patently not up to Mercedes or Red Bull standards. This year it has mysteriously lost another half second, assumed through some chassis or aerodynamic deficit.
Qualifying in the midfield leaves the team more open to first-lap skirmishes, as happened last weekend when both cars collided, making for a point-less weekend. That something is seriously amiss internally is borne out by Ferrari being the only team to have received a formal FIA warning over COVID breaches. Although Ferrari is unlikely to remain fifth in the standings, it is clearly going to be a tough 2020 for them.
All of this begs the pointed question: Does Ferrari’s apparent reversion to a policy of (seemingly) appointing only Italians with Ferrari experience to its top F1 job lie at the root of the Scuderia’s downward trajectory for the simple reason that the already limited pool of qualified individuals for probably the most demanding and multi-faceted leadership role in global sport is reduced by at least 95%?
Surely Ferrari needs the very best about, not merely the best talent to be found in what is logically a rather shallower pool than available outside of Maranello.
Such fervent patriotism was considered appropriate when cars sported national colours and Ferrari raced in red through national pride not commercial considerations. This was long before Ferrari was spun off from Fiat Group in 2015 and registered as a Dutch PLC quoted on the New York Stock Exchange in order to attract multi-national investment.
Ferrari owes its shareholders the best possible on-track results, results befitting its status as the ‘grandee’ of F1, particularly as its entire marketing platform centres around F1.
Ferrari team bosses since Montezemolo
Years | Principal |
---|---|
1973-1975 | Luca di Montezemelo |
1976 | Daniele Audetto |
1977 | Roberto Nosetto |
1978-1988 | Marco Piccinini |
1989-1991 | Cesare Fiorio |
1991 | Marco Piccinini |
1991 | Piero Ferrari |
1991 | Claudio Lombardi |
1992-1993 | Sante Ghedini |
1993-2007 | Jean Todt |
2008-2014 | Stefano Domenicali |
2014 | Marco Mattiacci |
2014–2018 | Maurizio Arrivabene |
2019– | Mattia Binotto |
After all, Ferrari has (or had) no qualms about employing the finest drivers of their generations regardless of national flag. Thus Juan Manuel Fangio (Argentinian), Mike Hawthorn and John Surtees (British), Niki Lauda (Austrian), Scheckter (South African), Schumacher (German) and Raikkonen (Finnish) joined Italian drivers Giuseppe Farina and Alberto Ascari in the pantheon of Ferrari champions. Why does this not philosophy not apply to team principals or senior staff?
Is it pure coincidence that five of seven senior team members listed under ‘team’ on Ferrari’s website are Italian, joined by a Frenchman and a Spaniard? True, ‘foreigners’ have in the past been employed as technical directors (or similar), but their prevalence is far out-weighed by locals. Consider that every F1 engine director bar one has been Italian, with the exception being Simon, a Todt recruitment. Coincidence?
Now consider the situation at other teams: the currently dominant (German) Mercedes F1 team is headed by an Austrian supported by British technical and engine directors and previously employed an Italian engineering director; (Austrian) Red Bull has a British team principal and technical director; McLaren Racing’s CEO is American, the technical director British and team principal German.
Renault is headed is by a Frenchman, the executive director and technical director are Polish. Swedish owned, Swiss-based Sauber is named after Alfa Romeo, but the team boss is French. The situation at Canadian-owned Racing Point is equally disparate; numerous other such examples abound.
Ferrari’s future in F1 will hinge on some brave decisions, the toughest of them all being whether to venture outside its bubble as Montezemolo did almost 30 years ago or whether to continue with its policies. Ferrari makes much of its history, yet seems doggedly determined to hide its most successful period behind a bushel rather than learn from it.
What people remember first about Ferrari in F1 at the turn of the millennium is that they – and, by extension, Italy – reigned supreme, not that the team sporting the green/white/red Tricolore happened to be managed by a Frenchman.
Continuing to plod down this ‘Italy-first’ path does no favours to Ferrari, its legions of fans and followers, and F1 itself. It is an approach which deprives the team itself and the country it represents around the world the success they crave so passionately.
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Balue (@balue)
15th July 2020, 12:10
Good points, but that’s obviously not the diversity which some are calling for.
JackL
15th July 2020, 14:35
Actually it very much is, at least the non-political people.
thejerk
16th July 2020, 3:00
Both arguments are metaphysically analogous. Asserting a false equivalency exists is annoying to non-whites like myself.
Alex
16th July 2020, 17:49
I’ve never had to google so many words from such a short sentence!
Derek Edwards
15th July 2020, 12:12
13 years since Raikkonen’s success, surely?
Aleš Norský (@gpfacts)
15th July 2020, 12:17
This is absolutely correct, Ferrari is too Italian for its own good. I know Binotto is Swiss…yet. His days as team principal must be numbered and Ferrari need to find someone in Andreas Seidl mold…easier said than done.
SadF1fan
15th July 2020, 12:20
Binotto is an Italian born, raised and partly educated in Switzerland, the house he would have grown up in was very very much Italian.
GS (@gsagostinho)
15th July 2020, 12:43
Besides, the point being made in the article is not that Italian nationals are inherently less capable in F1. The issue is that Ferrari limits its pool of available team principals and other top employers by filtering the total talent pool by nationality. This means that when they need to hire someone for a top job, they have to choose a person from a fraction of the total number of competent people available for the job in the world, which (statistically) results in less optimal hirings. It is a very short-sighted approach in a highly competitive international sport.
socksolid (@socksolid)
15th July 2020, 22:08
Yep, that doesn’t work.
Aleš Norský (@gpfacts)
15th July 2020, 12:51
I believe he was born in Ticino…
SadF1fan
15th July 2020, 12:55
Lausanne. Ticino is actually Italian Switzerland, lingual and culturally very Italian.
Aleš Norský (@gpfacts)
15th July 2020, 17:20
For some reason I thought he was born in Locarno…Lausanne is actually in the French part of Switzerland. Not that it really matters…he is Swiss, same as Clay Regazzoni was Swiss.
Fer no.65 (@fer-no65)
15th July 2020, 12:25
It’s a fair point, but I’m not sure that’s the root of their issues, nor it’s a solution. It’s more of a coincidence that very capable people worked together during a very succesful period. Most of those people also worked at Benetton before that, and that was all british, and it was equally succesful.
People working at Ferrari might come from all over the world, but they are still carrying Italy’s pride on their shoulders. It’s the pressure that makes things go wrong at Ferrari, not the people’s nationalities.
Domenicalli perfectly fine team principal. He was fired in the aftermath of 2010. So was Aldo Costa. One was replaced by an italian that didn’t last long, the other by a brit which also didn’t go further than 2014.
Tracking the number of people that worked in different capacities over the past decade at Ferrari is a huge task in itself. It’s hard not to pinpoint that as a big weakness in their model: there’s absolutely no room for error, you either fix things magically or you’re shown the door. Whatever is written on your passport isn’t important.
Tifoso1989 (@tifoso1989)
15th July 2020, 20:24
@fer-no65
Domenicali wasn’t fired by Ferrari, he resigned himself after Mercedes one man show in the 2014 Bahrain GP. He surprised everyone in Ferrari because the senior technicians were under the target and not him . He resigned the same day that the Italian government overturned the leaders of state-owned companies, in which most managers clung to the chair so they will not to lose the privileges of their jobs. His decision was praised by the Italian media back then.
Montezemolo tried to dissuade him without success and then consulted with Marchionne who came to Maranello one day later with the excuse of inaugurating a new area of the Ferrari museum, to deal with the problem of replacing Domenicali.
anon
16th July 2020, 13:03
@fer-no65 not to mention that the era Dieter starts with, which is the early 1990s, also saw a number of foreigners at Ferrari in senior positions – the American Steve Nichols as Technical Director and the Frenchman Jean-Claude Migeot as Chief Designer are notable examples – and came not long after the British designer Barnard had been allowed to undertake design operations with his own UK based team in Guildford (the Ferrari Guildford Technical Office that Barnard founded) in the late 1980s.
Barnard, of course, would be back at Ferrari in 1993 as well, and again operating his own independent team from the UK, this time in Surrey. Todt’s arrival with other international appointees wasn’t necessarily that unique for Ferrari at the time.
stefano (@alfa145)
15th July 2020, 12:34
you mean since Raikkonen’s @dieterrencken
Matt (@hollidog)
15th July 2020, 14:12
South African biases lol
cduk_mugello (@cduk_mugello)
15th July 2020, 12:35
I know you can’t explore every argument in a comment piece like this, but it feels a bit simplistic. It’s not like Ferrari haven’t hired (or tried to hire) some of the best over the last 10 years. James Allison and Pat Fry come to mind immediately. Jock Clear is still at the team, after being poached from Merc. And we all know they tried at length to hire Adrian Newey.
Whilst headhunting rather than promoting internally may fix some problems, the issues at Ferrari seem to run a bit deeper. The real uncertainty at Ferrari has been one level above Binotto. There has been a lot of flux since di Montezemolo left in 2014.
Matthias[Wlkp] (@matthias-wlkp)
15th July 2020, 13:10
I agree with @cduk_mugello. On top of that, if you read “Thinking fast and slow” by Daniel Kahneman, he breaks down the result bias and halo effect in drawing conclusions exactly like in this article. In essence, you give good results from the past way more credit than they deserve, while doing exact opposite to failures. It’s human nature to underestimate luck factor.
Phil Norman (@phil-f1-21)
15th July 2020, 18:50
It’s an interesting article on Ferrari but then so is this comment in particular. I think you make a very valid point.
BasCB (@bascb)
15th July 2020, 14:04
Well, but aren’t both Fry and Allison also examples of how Ferrari being too focussed on being Italian hampers them to get the best out of these people even if they are brought in @cduk_mugello?
Newey is an excellent example too. Why did he not want to go to Ferrari? Because he does not feel he would get the freedom to excell in the environment of the team. I am sure that goes for many others too.
Tifoso1989 (@tifoso1989)
16th July 2020, 10:55
@bascb
According to Newey’s biography and Montezemolo statements, Ferrari tried to hire Newey 3 times :
The first attempt when they tried to build the Ferrari 637 Indycar, back then Newey was in a very comfortable position with March and his March 85C ending winning both CART championship and the Indy 500. So it didn’t make sense for him to leave his permanent role at March for a freelance contract.
The second attempt was in 1997, Montezemolo said he met Newey himself at his house if I’m not wrong, Newey at the time didn’t have a problem from a professional point of view joining Ferrari however his wife considered Italy not a developed country. Imagine then what would be the reaction of an aristocratic Italian like Montezemolo. Newey has already his first marriage scrapped by his move to the US and he didn’t want that to happen again.
The third attempt was in 2014 just before Montezemolo leaving, even though there was a politic against bloated salaries for senior technicians imposed by the parent company FIAT. Ferrari made the exception with Newey, they offered him full power on the Gestione Sportiva which includes all Ferrari racing activities and not only F1, a stratospheric salary something like 20 million (Newey said double what he earns at RBR) and the possibility to design their next hypercar, the successor of LaFerrari which was designed by Byrne.
Helmut Marko said that Ferrari’s offer was insane and RBR could not match it in any way. It was Newey who wanted to stay at RBR because he felt he has built the team from scratch. It was just like a baby for him. Newey not going to Ferrari has nothing to do with the environment in Maranello, it was related to external factors.
John Beak (@johnbeak)
15th July 2020, 14:06
Just look at Honda’s recent years. Their struggles turned around as soon as they ditched the strictly Japanese mentality and sought outside help.
It is easy to fall under the impression that one’s country’s power alone is enough to overcome the rest of world, especially if it’s a large country with a lot of talented people and numerous past successes. But the truth is, rest of world is always bigger.
AmericanF1
15th July 2020, 14:27
I would think the success of the team has a great deal less to do with nationality than expertise. When Schumacher left Benneton, he brought over all the major elements of a winning team, if Vettel had been able to bring over similar talent, Horner, Newey, etc., I expect similar results would have followed. And Ferrari made some serious, but ultimately unsuccessful, offers to do just that. I think the fact that Ferrari, all hallowed Ferrari, was unable to successfully woo Newey, Horner, and others from their positions at Red Bull speaks more to underlying corporate climate than it does to any pursuit, or lack thereof, to international diversity.
Gary Pooper (@gpwaon20)
15th July 2020, 15:07
The excessive use of the word “diversity” in anything and everything is potentially a negative factor for the traffic and advertising revenues of this site.
regs (@regs)
15th July 2020, 15:20
Actually positive. It’s feeding trolling and gaining new trolling userbase that helps to greatly increase ads views. It’s like WCCFTech feeding AMD kids. Their userbase had exploded. So here is the main reason why everyone jumping on this in western world right now – scoring personal points and gaining revenues.
As I said – hypocrisy is the base of modern western culture.
Jay Menon (@jaymenon10)
16th July 2020, 0:15
@regs
“As I said – hypocrisy is the base of modern western culture”
Absolutely love it. Brilliant. Thanks
Sven (@crammond)
15th July 2020, 15:23
@gpwaon20 I’d wager the opposite is true. An indication might be the market-research driven decisions by big motorsporting organizations lately. The majority, the money and the future is with target groups who have positive connotations to the concept of diversity.
Question is however what actually constitutes diversity, and there are diverse answers to that.
ruliemaulana (@ruliemaulana)
15th July 2020, 18:26
@gpwaon20 it’s all fun and games until corporations decided the comments section in this media are toxic. And the only way to avoid it is to silenced diversity of thought.
Andrea
15th July 2020, 15:08
I honestly don’t understand what the link can be between personal skills and nationality?
Or do you want to get the message across that since Italians are incapable regardless?
I would like to remind you that since the introduction of the hybrid engine, Ferrari has been the only one to come closer to contending for the title with Mercedes
Goran
15th July 2020, 15:21
Very stupid and a bit discriminating article. Ferrari would have won two titles but Vettel did a lot of mistakes in both campaigns. Ferraris team is still diverse, having an Italian team principal doesn’t mean they only choose Italians. How long has it been since they’ve had an Italian driver?All this writers and so called Motorsport websites just writing this nonsense about the greatest team in F1 because they don’t have anything else to write about. Ferrari put pressure on Vettel to perform,Ferrari pressure’s its drivers… bunch of nonsense. Red Bull are demoting drivers mid season if they don’t perform, but yet it’s Ferrari that is bad. What team doesn’t pressure its drivers? What team would be happy finishing last or underperforming?Just tired of all the negativity on Ferrari. At least when they lose they don’t protest and cry like some other primadonas in the paddock.
adam
23rd July 2020, 19:34
No offence but ferrari didn’t lose them 2 titles because vettel made mistakes. They couldn’t keep up with Mercedes and the way they could develop their car. Look at alonso in 2010 &2012 he lost titles because ferrari couldn’t keep up with redbull and their ability to develop their car. In 2012 ferrari had a dog of a car and alonso managed to challenge for the title and ferrari failed to make the car in better.
J3d89
15th July 2020, 15:49
Not the same diversity people wants now days.. 50% men ..50% women, X number of blacks, X number of Asians, X number of Latinos… Etc…
Keith Campbell (@keithedin)
15th July 2020, 18:39
I think Toto Wolf said it best “We set targets, not quotas” (this may not be the exact wording, but words to that effect). That way they can aim to improve the diversity in their company, without restricting their choices of employees. Use diversity as a strength, not a weakness. This is significantly different to the philosophy you stated.
JohnH (@johnrkh)
15th July 2020, 16:25
Spend the money and employ Wolff.
Azmo (@azmo)
15th July 2020, 18:21
And Hamilton or Verstappen while you are at it, current driver lineup is pretty mediocre t.b.h. Vettel hasn’t performed since 2017, Leclerc had some decent results in an illegal Ferrari last year, but the utter disrespectul move last weekend took him down a notch or two in my book
Excellent piece of writing btw, enjoyed the read
Qeki (@qeki)
15th July 2020, 20:40
Or they could buy whole Mercedes and change it to Fiat or Lancia
Bio
15th July 2020, 17:43
Biggest load of BS I’ve read in a very long time…
Selbbin (@selbbin)
16th July 2020, 9:30
You mustn’t have been reading much for a while….
Nixon isn’t the US president anymore btw.
Not George
15th July 2020, 18:33
How can F1 have any credibility in discussions about diversity (and thus human rights) when they’re painting entire corners in the colours of Saudi Aramco, or allow the Bahraini owners of McLaren to paint rainbow motifs on their cars?
Back to topic: yes, Ferrari won in 2000s by importing a diverse management team & their legacy knowledge of Bridgestone tyres. Will probably be another 21 year (17 for Constructor’s) gap or longer until their next title.
Nunof (@nunof)
16th July 2020, 0:30
I’m curious, when do you think F1 started promoting responsible and ethic advertisement? The sport not long ago went against anti-tobacco advertisement laws with many teams like Ferrari or McLaren promoting Philips Morris and BAT.
Nunof (@nunof)
16th July 2020, 0:32
*ethical
F1oSaurus (@)
16th July 2020, 8:05
@nunof Ferrari is the only F1 team still sponsored by a tobacco company right?
Selbbin (@selbbin)
16th July 2020, 9:32
McLaren has one on the books too. BAT
Joe (@jb784)
15th July 2020, 18:39
Nice article. I think Farina won his championship with Alfa before moving to Ferrari.
Ram
15th July 2020, 18:42
A little diversity of articles would be nice too.
Selbbin (@selbbin)
16th July 2020, 9:33
Sooooo…. about tennis?
Kim Philby (@philby)
15th July 2020, 18:43
A bad strategy call, an individual’s good luck, reliability and mistakes.
dot_com (@dot_com)
15th July 2020, 19:06
Of course, diversity, the current solution to all of F1’s problems.
Tifoso1989 (@tifoso1989)
15th July 2020, 20:58
There is a history of foreign technicians, especially the British, that failed badly at Ferrari in recent years even though they were quite productive in their teams. James Allison, Pat Fry, Loic Bigois, Steve Clark, Nick Tombazis, Neil Martin, Jock Clear, Dave Greenwood, Hirohide Hamashima… and the list is long.
Even before the dream team, technicians like Harvey Postlethwaite (except for 1982/1983 parenthesis), John Barnard, Steve Nickols were unrecognizable in Maranello and convincing them to settle in a small Italian village wasn’t cheap either. In Barnard case though, Ferrari ended up opening a technical office in Guildford.
Furthermore, in recent years under Marchionne’s leadership many Italian technicians proved to be a match for their foreign predecessors. Simone Resta, Mattia Binotto, did indeed a better job than Allison,Fry… So why hire foreign staff that are a match for their Italian peers but cost a lot more ?
The problem of why Ferrari are consistently struggling in the last decade for me is not the nationalities of their engineers but the bad political decisions taken by the Montezemolo/Domenicali administration especially when Montezemolo was very busy doing politics in Italy.
The decision not to invest earlier in simulation/CFD wind tunnel… and the modern tools to design a F1 car when the restriction on unlimited testing was imposed by the FIA in 2009. Instead Montezemolo kept lobbying Todt/Bernie to change the regulations in order to restore Ferrari’s testing advantage. Teams like Mclaren & RBR were investing in new simulation technology since 2006. The new Gestione Sportive office which was on par with the MTC and the RBR factory was only ready in 2015/2016.
The decision to sign off the 2014 hybrid regulations based on the fact that Ferrari were having the best KERS in the 2009/2011 years is simply ridiculous while Mercedes were better prepared.
With the current situation, Ferrari need to upgrade its methodology and especially be politically prepared for the next regulations changes. If they don’t do that employing Adrian Newey, Andy Cowell, Rob Marshall, Andrew Shovlin, James Vowles, Max Verstappen & Fernando Alonso won’t solve their problem.
Balue (@balue)
15th July 2020, 21:06
Good comment. Aldo Costa gives further insights into the Montezemolo disaster: https://audioboom.com/posts/7428786-special-episode-aldo-costa-the-man-with-more-world-titles-than-anyone-else
Tifoso1989 (@tifoso1989)
16th July 2020, 13:03
Thanks for sharing the audio, very interesting indeed.
F1oSaurus (@)
16th July 2020, 8:07
This is a better article than the wall of repetitive text at the top of this page.
Sensord4notbeingafanboi (@peartree)
15th July 2020, 21:52
Damn if they do damned if they don’t. Ferrari got praised for fostering local talent, now the opposite. Ferrari like any team ever, recruits staff around their factory, and like any team tries, if possible to hire personnel from other teams, no different from everyone. I would challenge the notion that other British teams are not staffed by 95% local staff. Even before Todt Ferrari had Barnard, Brunner and others. Ferrari as mentioned in the article always hired drivers from anywhere in the world, wounds and reprisals of facist time put behind their backs. Interesting to note that Ferrari has 2 British wchamps, as many as Williams and McLaren. I challenge the patriotic claim, being proud of being Italian and being patriotic are different things. Allison was not fired, we all know what went on, and wizard Aldo Costa is italian and is/was a fundamental part of the merc domination.
Nunof
15th July 2020, 22:35
This is completely nonsense. I’m nothing compared to Dieter, I respect him for what he does for F1 journalism but this is some daft thing to say.
You are pointing out the lack of diversity of Ferrari for trying to be a full Italian team, according to their heirtage and roots, while most of the teams are UK-based in a very small area of England and hire almost exclusively British staff! The issue with Ferrari, Haas, Alfa Tauri or Sauber is daring to break out of this monopoly.
And you in situations like this, as most English speaking people covering F1 fail to understand that this over-dependency on England brings a ton of issues, mostly inherited from some bad aspects of British society, such as a complex of superiority, with plenty of examples seen in derogatory comments on live coverage or discrimination against non-British teams. It blows my mind that F1 sees itself as a global sport but it’s unable to get rid of the preconceptions that plague some aspects of the British culture that affect it and enabling new teams to be able to foster innovation and job creation in the countries they suppose to support when they show the flag or play the national anthem.
Nunof (@nunof)
15th July 2020, 22:56
This is completely nonsense. I’m nothing compared to Dieter, I respect him for what he does for F1 journalism but this is some ridiculous thing to say.
You are pointing out the lack of diversity of Ferrari for trying to be a full Italian team, according to their heirtage and roots, while most of the teams are UK-based in a very small area of England and hire almost exclusively British staff! The issue with Ferrari, Haas, Alfa Tauri (not too sure wrt their dependency on Milton Keynes) or Sauber are daring to break out of this monopoly.
And you in this particular case, as most UK based people covering F1 fail to understand that this over-dependency on England brings a ton of issues, mostly inherited from some bad aspects of English society, such as a complex of superiority, with plenty of examples seen in derogatory comments on live coverage or discrimination against non-British teams. It blows my mind that F1 sees itself as a global sport but it’s unable to get rid of the preconceptions that plague some aspects of the English culture that affect it and enabling new teams to be able to foster innovation and job creation in the countries they suppose to support based on the flag they fly or the national anthem they choose to play on the podium.
DC
16th July 2020, 1:06
UK press is unable to praise anything but Hamilton.
Sensord4notbeingafanboi (@peartree)
16th July 2020, 8:09
Bravo @nunof finally a great comment. tabloid article this one, I can see where Dieter is trying to get but the whole thing as usual feels like an excuse for a flogging. Singling out a team for something all teams do, is nonsense.
The British media cannot see beyond it’s bias and patriotism. The awful things I’ve heard live on tv are far worse than some of the topical “things” of today. When a non-British based team farts it is a debacle but when an uk based team does the same it is all fine and dandy, I heard nothing.
ruliemaulana (@ruliemaulana)
16th July 2020, 13:34
Thank you for this, @nunof
zimkazimka (@zimkazimka)
16th July 2020, 9:58
Ooof… Just don’t tell Americans you consider replacing Italian white men with German/British/French white men DIVERSITY.
NewVerstappenFan (@jureo)
22nd July 2020, 13:29
This is the whole point of diversity.
Get the best people for the job. It will be a diverse bunch, based entirely on talent. They might not be pretty, they might nor be polite, they might not have qualities that look good in the media.
If you want results, you need people who deliver.
Now some people think diversity is in employing people from minorities to have “balanced” workforce.