[ 2020 ] Scuderia Ferrari - Ferrari

[Fulcrum]

Originally posted by jumpingfish in the Hungarian GP thread but relevant here as well:

https://twitter.com/Vetteleclerc/status ... 9585297409

Any idea who will replace Vettel as lead strategist?

Probably Romain Grosjean or Magnussen, but then Ferrari will be sanctioned for using spare parts from another team.

[JPBD1990]

Ferrari needs to rattle some cages. They need to play politics like the old days. The engine freeze needs to go, surely they know that better than anyone? Are they just lying down and taking it? They should pull their weight.

Mercedes might be dominant and reaping the rewards, but if Ferrari wasn’t there then Mercedes presence in the sport is worth less. Let them win everything when it’s against redbull and tracing point. Something tells me that diminishes the achievement somewhat.

[El Scorchio]

Originally posted by jumpingfish in the Hungarian GP thread but relevant here as well:

https://twitter.com/Vetteleclerc/status ... 9585297409

Seeing that Vettel is his own race strategist, it almost makes sense why he is so mistake-prone. Nobody can be 100% focused on racing when they're simultaneously questioning the strategy provided by the team.

There is probably a case of mistrust there somewhere... and well, he is proven correctly in his feelings.
Although a drying track is one of the few things you can determine from the car best, I find it odd that they didn't prepare is more in detail before the race. They knew it would dry up and there are many people calculating every possibility... a simple call to go to soft, medium or hard should be know and prepared.

first failure is that they didn't discuss this before the race
second failure is that the driver is making the call instead of those 30 people working on data
third failure is that the driver was right.

Having been on both sides of the fence within the team I suppose he’s really well placed to be wise to it.

To be fair, the Leclerc to softs was a gamble, but Ferrari are in the unfortunate position where they have to roll the dice on strategy calls. If the soft had worked well it could have been a master stroke. I think they might have to take a lot of big swings this season. Some will come off and some will not.

[Manfer]

Ferrari needs someone like Toto or Horner as their TP. Someone who is willing to bitch and moan 24*7 till they get what they want. As we all know, squeaky wheel gets the grease.

[Jambier]

Ferrari needs someone like Toto or Horner as their TP. Someone who is willing to bitch and moan 24*7 till they get what they want. As we all know, squeaky wheel gets the grease.

Instead of chasing drivers they should chase Toto indeed.

Toto is one of the main reason of Mercedes dominance. Having Toto would really hurt Mercedes and help Ferrari.

Anyway now it is quite clear that they should invest 100% in the 2022 season

[Jolle]

Ferrari needs someone like Toto or Horner as their TP. Someone who is willing to bitch and moan 24*7 till they get what they want. As we all know, squeaky wheel gets the grease.

I guess, if this is the mentality, it's pretty obvious that Ferrari is failing. While having not only a veto right on rules and a direct line to the FIA and Liberty, they get paid more then any other team for just showing up.

Ferrari needs a good look in the mirror and nog bitch and moan about why other are doing a better job. This is a downfall of their own making. again.

[Big Tea]

Ferrari needs to rattle some cages. They need to play politics like the old days. The engine freeze needs to go, surely they know that better than anyone? Are they just lying down and taking it? They should pull their weight.

Mercedes might be dominant and reaping the rewards, but if Ferrari wasn’t there then Mercedes presence in the sport is worth less. Let them win everything when it’s against redbull and tracing point. Something tells me that diminishes the achievement somewhat.

That is Ferrari main problem. Always looking for something. The days of Ferrari being the best or most glitzy or big attraction are gone but the mind set is not. Just as it was in Mclaren a few years back, and just as Mclaren Ferrari need to move into THIS world and get on with making the best car to the existing rules. They are quite capable of it, but always looking for short cuts in the world with all this recording technology is not going to work.

[mika vs michael]

Ferrari lost the political game for quite some time. I am not convinced that their PU advantage was solely on fuel flow cheating. I think theyn found a loophole in the deployment department that FIA could not prove it was illegal immediately and for sure did not like. So Ferrari decided to accept in a way liability and made a deal. FIA would need a long court procedure that could take time in order to prove that Ferrari cheated and maybe both parties did not want that. The problem is that the result of such arrangement in the end is not bad for Ferrari only. it's bad for F1. 2020 championship is over. All the things FIA cannot understand should not penalise them...just because of the benefit of the doubt. In the end fuel flow cheating leads to having to use more fuel so carry a weight penalty or having to lift and coast. So maybe for qualifying it could be useful but during the race not so much. In the end Ferrari by going on a deal with FIA accepted that it was guilty of something. The Team needs a leader in the managing and political aspect of the sport. Not sure Binotto can be successful on that end. By not giving Vettel even a paycut contract and getting a driver like Sainz proves that he does not want to have too many headaches. he could not manage the situatio between Leclerc and Vettel. Ferrari would have way more success if they had given to Ross Brawn the position of Jean Todt...They seem lost not only in terms of engineering and building a fast car but in many other aspects of the sport.

[Manfer]

Ferrari needs someone like Toto or Horner as their TP. Someone who is willing to bitch and moan 24*7 till they get what they want. As we all know, squeaky wheel gets the grease.

I guess, if this is the mentality, it's pretty obvious that Ferrari is failing. While having not only a veto right on rules and a direct line to the FIA and Liberty, they get paid more then any other team for just showing up.

Ferrari needs a good look in the mirror and nog bitch and moan about why other are doing a better job. This is a downfall of their own making. again.

Not taking anything away from Toto, but he is a master manipulator, the best on the grid today. The advantage that they got from 2014-2017 was due to his planning. Mercedes had such a strong head start going into the hybrid formula, that everyone has been playing catch up since day one. And while the competition was looking to fix the engine and build cars around their weak engines, Mercedes went full force into developing arguably the best windtunnel-CFD system, all the while relying on their strong engine to keep them ahead.
Now that they have the strongest simulation tools out there, they will master any new regulation changes between now and forever. To their credit, they don't seem to be resting on their laurels as Ferrari often do.
Anytime they sense weakness in their team, Toto and Co orchestrate a BS problem that the FIA is forced to look into, all the while fixing the above said weakness.
This is what Ferrari needs. They need a smart conman. Someone who can get Ferrari's technical team time to catch up or push the competition behind. Ferrari seems to have lost this opportunity for this regulation change.
I believe they will need to go through a tough transformation period, similar to Mclaren, while the team catches up.
They need to steady during this time. Binotto needs support from Camelleri and Elkann. They need better PR people, who can handle the media. All this pressure inevitably trickles down to the team.

[Jolle]

Ferrari needs someone like Toto or Horner as their TP. Someone who is willing to bitch and moan 24*7 till they get what they want. As we all know, squeaky wheel gets the grease.

I guess, if this is the mentality, it's pretty obvious that Ferrari is failing. While having not only a veto right on rules and a direct line to the FIA and Liberty, they get paid more then any other team for just showing up.

Ferrari needs a good look in the mirror and nog bitch and moan about why other are doing a better job. This is a downfall of their own making. again.

Not taking anything away from Toto, but he is a master manipulator, the best on the grid today. The advantage that they got from 2014-2017 was due to his planning. Mercedes had such a strong head start going into the hybrid formula, that everyone has been playing catch up since day one. And while the competition was looking to fix the engine and build cars around their weak engines, Mercedes went full force into developing arguably the best windtunnel-CFD system, all the while relying on their strong engine to keep them ahead.
Now that they have the strongest simulation tools out there, they will master any new regulation changes between now and forever. To their credit, they don't seem to be resting on their laurels as Ferrari often do.
Anytime they sense weakness in their team, Toto and Co orchestrate a BS problem that the FIA is forced to look into, all the while fixing the above said weakness.
This is what Ferrari needs. They need a smart conman. Someone who can get Ferrari's technical team time to catch up or push the competition behind. Ferrari seems to have lost this opportunity for this regulation change.
I believe they will need to go through a tough transformation period, similar to Mclaren, while the team catches up.
They need to steady during this time. Binotto needs support from Camelleri and Elkann. They need better PR people, who can handle the media. All this pressure inevitably trickles down to the team.

I strongly disagree with you and it's even visible on the cars why Ferrari's misfortune is because of their own mismanagement.

Just look back to 2014 car. Clearly a car developed by the aero department and then handed to the chassis guys to make it work somehow. They went for pull rod front suspension!!! From an airflow standpoint a good one, but only in theory workable because of the high loads and steep angles and therefor a very weak front. Now look at that same area at the Mercedes and you see aero engineers working together with the chassis department coming up with a single blade lower wishbone that without compromise creates a perfect flow for their nose concept. All over the car there are these solutions made as a team instead of a pass-on problem.

This has nothing to do with a "smart conman" etc. This is pure to do with the inability of Ferrari to work as a team. And every time it goes wrong, they fire the TP before he can change anything while others just leave (they are on their fourth now since the hybrid and had three "disappointing" former world champions in the car). Their facilities had a big upgrade just a few years ago, they run several teams on the grid where they can source data from and an array of good sim drivers, the fattest sponsor, their old team boss is head of the FIA, their old tech man is head is sporting director of Liberty, the son of the FIA president wears a Ferrari shirt every weekend, extra prize money, veto, etc etc etc

what more do you want to win?

[Fer.Fan]

I guess, if this is the mentality, it's pretty obvious that Ferrari is failing. While having not only a veto right on rules and a direct line to the FIA and Liberty, they get paid more then any other team for just showing up.

Ferrari needs a good look in the mirror and nog bitch and moan about why other are doing a better job. This is a downfall of their own making. again.

Not taking anything away from Toto, but he is a master manipulator, the best on the grid today. The advantage that they got from 2014-2017 was due to his planning. Mercedes had such a strong head start going into the hybrid formula, that everyone has been playing catch up since day one. And while the competition was looking to fix the engine and build cars around their weak engines, Mercedes went full force into developing arguably the best windtunnel-CFD system, all the while relying on their strong engine to keep them ahead.
Now that they have the strongest simulation tools out there, they will master any new regulation changes between now and forever. To their credit, they don't seem to be resting on their laurels as Ferrari often do.
Anytime they sense weakness in their team, Toto and Co orchestrate a BS problem that the FIA is forced to look into, all the while fixing the above said weakness.
This is what Ferrari needs. They need a smart conman. Someone who can get Ferrari's technical team time to catch up or push the competition behind. Ferrari seems to have lost this opportunity for this regulation change.
I believe they will need to go through a tough transformation period, similar to Mclaren, while the team catches up.
They need to steady during this time. Binotto needs support from Camelleri and Elkann. They need better PR people, who can handle the media. All this pressure inevitably trickles down to the team.

I strongly disagree with you and it's even visible on the cars why Ferrari's misfortune is because of their own mismanagement.

Just look back to 2014 car. Clearly a car developed by the aero department and then handed to the chassis guys to make it work somehow. They went for pull rod front suspension!!! From an airflow standpoint a good one, but only in theory workable because of the high loads and steep angles and therefor a very weak front. Now look at that same area at the Mercedes and you see aero engineers working together with the chassis department coming up with a single blade lower wishbone that without compromise creates a perfect flow for their nose concept. All over the car there are these solutions made as a team instead of a pass-on problem.

This has nothing to do with a "smart conman" etc. This is pure to do with the inability of Ferrari to work as a team. And every time it goes wrong, they fire the TP before he can change anything while others just leave (they are on their fourth now since the hybrid and had three "disappointing" former world champions in the car). Their facilities had a big upgrade just a few years ago, they run several teams on the grid where they can source data from and an array of good sim drivers, the fattest sponsor, their old team boss is head of the FIA, their old tech man is head is sporting director of Liberty, the son of the FIA president wears a Ferrari shirt every weekend, extra prize money, veto, etc etc etc

what more do you want to win?

Well done!!!

Good analsys, You are right. Just look at their car. It looks underdevelopt compared to MB. Ferrari needs to work as a team...

[Hoffman900]

Ferrari reminds me of some firms I have worked for. They are old and lethargic, and are resting on their laurels. Without cleaning house and starting over, they are going to be on the back foot relative to their competition. As such, they have high turnover and low morale. Firms that are managed well and made the hard choices to clean house / rebuild are much happier places to work and they get better performance out of their employees.

[Manfer]

Push rod suspension does not explain the 1s or so Merc was pulling on Ferrari. There is evidence that shows Merc started their engine development year before anyone else. It was Toto and Ross Brawn who strong armed FIA into moving to the hybrid formula. Ferrari does have issues with mis-management, but the topic in question is how to fix that. Even if you have ideas to fix it, it takes time and time is one thing that is not on Ferrari's side. Every year they dont win, the pressure builds. They need to beat Merc at their own game (politically) before they beat them technically, and this is not going to happen with the way things are.
I dont understand why people forget Ross Brawn is the reason why Merc is where they are. He built the team you see today, when Honda up and left. Why do people not question his intentions when they talk about FIA favouring a particular team. Any question about FIA & Ferrari, people come barreling down on Jean Todt, but conveniently forget Brawn.
The intention of my discussion is empower Ferrari, not drag them deeper through slush they are already in.
If wearing a Ferrari shirt is all you need to win, Ferrari would be lapping Merc day in and out.
Nobody will stand by Ferrari and say they are the best. They clearly are not. As a fan of the scuderia, i can only suggest ideas to problems i see and what i see is weakening power at the top. Binotto needs a smart ally who can fight battles along side him, while he can focus mostly on reorganizing the technical structure. This is what has happened at Mclaren, bringing in Zak & Seidl. One handles the political side, the other technical.

[jumpingfish]

Since Todt took over the FIA, Ferrari has never won the Constructors' Cup, and drivers have never won the individual title. Everyone should be grateful to him for the fact that as the president of the FIA there is nothing to blame him for and hint at his past in Ferrari.

[El Scorchio]

Since Todt took over the FIA, Ferrari has never won the Constructors' Cup, and drivers have never won the individual title. Everyone should be grateful to him for the fact that as the president of the FIA there is nothing to blame him for and hint at his past in Ferrari.

I’m not sure if we should be grateful to him for doing the least we should all expect from him! But to be fair apart from the ambiguity of the engine thing last year it all looks to have been called pretty much down the middle which is obviously best for the sport, even if it does nothing for the spectacle.