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After a glorious 15 year spell at the top, is the Scuderia's time up?
With the resource restriction coming into effect next year, Ferrari will have to shed almost half of its estimated 900 staff.
Will they be able to compete with the likes of McLaren, Redbull, Mercedes and Renault?
Well it's pretty clear that they're not going to dominate anymore, so I guess you can only go down after that. But who knows how far down they will go, only time will tell.
They have to get more focused though. All of the babbling on about being a passionate team and whatnot is not enough. They constantly say that they're working hard back at the factory but it barely shows on track.
I don't want them, or anyone, to dominate but the worst case scenario for a team like this should be barely making it into the top five. Tops three is not bad since the competition has really improved and increased in amount.
I'm a little uneasy about how the resource restriction will impact the big teams, and if it is too extreme for F1 in general.
BUT . . . Compared to where they were with Schumacher, Brawn, Byrne, Todt, Martinelli, Simon, et al, where COULD they go but down?
Having declined, are they still competitive? Yes. Can they still win races? Yes.
And (IMHO), if you're a true fan of F1, you do NOT want domination by ANY one team -- Ferrari or otherwise -- but rather SEVERAL competitive teams.
Seems to me that when Ferrari dominates they are hated for killing competition. When they do not dominate they are condemned. But, win or lose, they are F1's reliable constant.
Enzo Ferrari was a great man. But he was not a good man. -- Phil Hill
No crees que deberías de hablar ingles en este foro 'URKETALAMAKINETA'?? Si no, por favor hazlo.
Pero el equipo de F1 no depende de las ventas de coches de calle, antes era la manera para financiar el equipo pero creo que ya no lo es. Son totalmente aparte desde hace tiempo atrás y no tienen porque afectarse tanto una a la otra. Y esto no llega a crisis, estas exagerando con llamarlo así. Estamos a la salida de una recesión y no tiene nada de raro que las ventas bajen un poco. Ya veras que todo se mejorara.
Y bienvenido(a) al foro. Espero que te la pases bien.
With this rule cycle, yes they are in decline to the 1997-2008 decade and a bit that gave them 8 Drivers World Titles and a run close in the other 3 with only Hamilton, Hakkinenn, Alonso and JV ruining the domination.
With them shedding 900 staff from their F1 squad, more or less halfing their F1 staffing, those staff are all to be re-designated to their GT programme and a posible soon to happen assault on Le Mans to try and dominate the all domanant Audi and Puegoet in that catogory.
Thing is, Ferarri need to get their F1 programme re-processed. This could be potentially difficult with the loss of the "dream team" of Todt and Brawn. However, it can be done, they have been hiring a good ammount of former Toyota guys that were good at the management side for Maranello to try and get the process correct again.
Will Ferarri get a title in this rule cycle, i dont really think so. In the next rule cycle from 2013 when the 18" wheels are rumored and the new engine and such, i think this is Ferarris opertunity. This is where i think Alonso has been sold on his signature on his contract. Build the team, and the sort of car that suits him and his driving style, then from say the 2012 season get a good young driver that has to defer to Alonso, and can act as his "wing man" so to speak.
I think Ferarri are in a dormant state, leaving others to fight it out, while they rebuild, and re-engineer and then get the domanance they had for the 12 years during the "dream team" era.
I think that ferarri have now got a new dream and that is domanance in Le Mans, GT and F1. Its now been noticed by others that Mercedes and McLaren are now looking for a simmilar programme, if the money and staffing is there.
Ferarri in decline, is nonsence. Ferarri and their next era of domanance is not gonna be in the next couple of years, but in the medium to long term, is gonna happen. Its not a question of if, its when.
And for the record, for the "Dream Team" era i disliked Ferarri to the point that i turned away from F1 for 2002-2005ish.
Hmmm I fear Ferrari will be mid table under the Resource restriction.
As a Mercedes-Benz fan it gives me no joy to see them go that way. As a Merc victory against a weak Ferrari is worth that bit less.
Who cares? F1 has been great with and without them(better when they were not dominating by cheating). Ferrari is not F1 regardless of what Luca thinks or claims.
If you don't care then don't post, it's as simple as that. Can you tell the difference between the other mature and well thought out responses and yours?
ISLAMATRON wrote:Who cares? F1 has been great with and without them(better when they were not dominating by cheating). Ferrari is not F1 regardless of what Luca thinks or claims.
mx_tifosi wrote:If you don't care then don't post, it's as simple as that. Can you tell the difference between the other mature and well thought out responses and yours?
Just because you dont like the responce does not mean it is well thought out or immature... how well thought out are the posts that claim F1 sucks unless Ferrari is at the front. I very well enjoyed F1 before Ferrari got turbo engines banned because they could not produce a good one.
Ferrari is not the end all be all of F1 as the tifosi claim. F1 was actually much better when they were the backmarker laughing stocks of the paddock. The pro-Ferrari attitude of F1 leads to Luca doing the stupid --- he does and says that drags F1 down. If they were looked at as any other team, which they are, would they have been given veto power?
Again, so what if they are in decline, every team has ups and downs, such is F1.
And what if Mclaren are in decline? Will they hang on to their champion, Hamilton?
I bet he would jump faster than a rat on a sinking ship!
And no ISLAMATRON, Im not saying Hamilton is a rat, he would just be quicker than one should MCLaren produce 2 duff cars in consencutive years.
McLaren without Mercedes will be like butter without bread. I watch with interest to see what Mclaren do next. Personally I see them touting themselves to VW before long..
Ferrari need to come to terms with reduced manpower. How can they do this so dramtically as next years figure of 450?
Johnson - I'll easy say it if needs be. I don't worry about annoying Islamatron.
Anyhoo, to topic. A lot of Ferrari's success was down to Jean Todt taking over in 93 (or was it 92?) with the one goal of making them the leading team. Since 97 they have been title contendors and he finally achieved his goal in 2000.
The success of Ferrari is easily attributable to Jean Todt. Without him would Ferrari have managed to sign Schumacher or would he have ended up in McLaren? When Schumacher joined then so did Ross Brawn. What made Ferrari great was the "F1 Dream Team". Ferrari no longer has this team and is suffering.
If you look through Ferrari's history, they have had a history of messing up at key moments. The peaks and troughs theory is not far off but I think their lack of performance is due to not having the right people anymore.
Driver choice is key in my humble opinion. Schumacher was clearly trhe best at helping to develop a car. Massa and Raikonnen where also a good pairing that could work together (despite Kimi's public image, apparently the exact opposite when there are no camereas) but Alonso? The guy is not a team player and this is detrimental to their performance.
Clearly their lack of performance is down to a number of factors. The main one for me is that they no longer have the best drivers and the best brains in the business.
