When Ferrari was floated on the New York Stock Exchange a year ago there was much excitement. The price of its shares rose from $52 to $60 and everyone looked pretty smug. By February, the share price had dived to $31.66. But, since then, it’s climbed slowly – with a few ups and downs – and is now back at $52. Ferraris are still selling, but on the race track things have not been going quite as well. The cars were not very competitive this year, despite high expectations. And then, at the end of July, came the news that the Chief Technical Officer at Scuderia Ferrari, James Allison, would be leaving. It was not an easy situation.
Allsion had lost his wife as the result of a sudden illness in March, and wanted to spend more time with his family in England. Sergio Marchionne and Allison could not agree on how best to handle the situation, and so Allison departed. There was, of course, considerably sympathy for Allison, but in F1 there was startled amazement that Ferrari had split with James. He was the keystone for the future, and most rival teams reckoned that his departure would set the team back at least three years. Some said five! This didn’t really bother anyone, because one man’s setback is another man’s gain.
The races since the summer break have seen Ferrari left behind by Red Bull in the battle for second in the Constructors’ Championship. There has been only one podium finish since Allison departed. This state of affairs seems to have affected Sebastian Vettel, because he’s been involved in as series of incidents that have looked as though the German four-time World Champion is just a little desperate with the situation. He trails Kimi Raikkonen in the points in the World Championship, as well as Max Verstappen – who joined Red Bull four races after the start of the year, and yet is in the process of passing both Ferrari drivers and aiming to close the gap on his team-mate Daniel Ricciardo. The most likely scenario – at some point – will be the removal of team principal Maurizio Arrivabene, as he is the obvious scapegoat for the problems. But will that help?
What Ferrari needs more than anything at the moment is leadership that understands what Formula 1 is all about. Marchionne may be a wizard when it comes to car companies and juggling stocks and shares and financial stuff, but he is not a racer and he doesn’t seem to understand that big car company techniques don’t work – and never have – in the cut and thrust of Formula 1. All of this has led the team’s former chief engineer, Luca Baldisserri, who left Ferrari in 2015, to come up with some scalding criticisms in the Italian media. Neither Marchionne nor Arrivabene had experience in racing, he said. Ferrari was no longer a team, he said. It was now a group of scared people, he said. There was a climate of fear, he said. People dared not take risks, he said. It was a complete demolition of the organisation. Now you could say that Baldisserri is a bitter man, who was moved aside and left behind by changes in the team, but you cannot doubt that he has some idea of how to run a successful team – and that he has an in-depth understanding of the team. He joined Ferrari straight from university in 1989 and, after working in the design department, became a race engineer in 1993 – culminating in working with Michael Schumacher between 2000 and 2002. He then became chief track engineer and later Operations Manager and even Team Manager before being shovelled sideways into the Driver Academy. He has a pretty good idea about what he’s talking about. He’s an old school racer.
All season in F1, Ferrari has been claiming that the team is almost there and has been unlucky not to win races. But this has sounded increasingly hollow for quite a while now. The win has not come. When Mercedes has stumbled, Red Bull has grabbed the available success. The role of Chief Technical Officer at Scuderia Ferrari remains with Mattia Binotto, but there continue to be rumours that the team is chasing Paddy Lowe of Mercedes. Lowe says that he’s not interested. In F1 circles, in England, the job in Maranello is seen more-and-more like a high-paying poisoned chalice. And now Arrivabene has told the Italian media that Vettel must earn his place with Ferrari when his contract finishes at the end of 2017. Vettel will not have been happy with that, and it was no accident that Sebastian spent half an hour chatting with his old Red Bull bosses in the middle of the paddock in Suzuka. There was a message in that for the folk at Maranello. Fernando Alonso might be forgiven for a wry smile. He has been through this process already!
For the time being the team can say that it’s concentrating all of its efforts on 2017, and that the team hopes to emerge ahead of its rivals when the new rules come into force. But is that really going to happen? And what happens in March next year when it emerges that Ferrari is not going to win next year either? While the rival teams allow themselves the occasional snigger at the mess that Ferrari has managed to get itself into, it should be remembered that Ferrari is a key element in F1 popularity. It has more fans than the other teams because, for whatever reason, the brand is something that appeals to fans all over the world. It’s wrong that the team gets more financial support than the other teams, it can easily afford to compete on equal terms, but it is nonetheless part of the fabric of F1. Where Ferrari has traditionally failed is that it has allowed outside pressures to disrupt the racing team, which should really be given the support it needs. All told, thinking F1 is easy is a big mistake…
Joe Saward has been covering Formula 1 full-time for 28 years. He has not missed a race since 1988.
Write your Comment