Luca di Montezemolo arrived in Bahrain this morning to give encouragement to his Ferrari team, which has endured its worst start to a season for over 25 years. He talked of the team making the mistake of thinking it is the best and being caught out and called for a fresh attitude
He also talked to representatives of other teams and manufacturers about the current state of F1.
This is a huge week for the sport, It is essentially being restructured with new rules for 2010 due to be ratified on Wednesday at the FIA World Council meeting which has been called to hear the McLaren disciplinary case.
By the end of this week the budget cap will be a reality with a set value on it. The start point is £30 million, excluding drivers salary and marketing. It is likely to go up by Wednesday, but nit by as much as teams like Ferrari, McLaren and BMW would like.
Montezemolo, as president of FOTA as well as Ferrari is not happy with the way the FIA has introduced the concept of the budget cap. The teams have a meeting set for May 6th in London, but the FIA timetable is more urgent than that and it could all be done and dusted by then. A fight is in prospect, although with six teams in favour of a budget cap slightly higher than the proposed figure it will be interesting to see how unified the teams are and how much of a fight they put up
Montezemolo sat in the baking sun in a blazer and blue shirt and spoke to the media this morning.
What is your feeling about the start Ferrari has made to this championship?
“We have won eight world championships in the last 10 years, three of the last four. I want to understand why we are in the middle of a black tunnel. There are four reasons; we have seen some very badly written rules, grey rules, with different interpretations. This means polemics.
“Second was KERS. KERS represents a lot of money, something which has been introduced to have a link, between F1 and advanced research for road cars in terms of energy in terms of green, in terms innovation which I like. We have done KERS even though it means a lot of money, means problems with safety and reliability. But we have been surprised to see that KERS was a suggestion and not real rule.
“Today we face a strange an not positive situation; we have three different F1 competitions on the grid. Cars with KERS, cars with no KERS and with a different floor, and a third competitor with no KERS and no floor. This is bad and is one of the reasons why we are forced to invest time and extra money at a difficult time.
“Also we started to work on the new car late at a time when the rules are new. And the last reason, inside the teams there has been a little too much presumption in the team. Sometimes you need to be level headed.
“We are working hard and I have a big confidence in the team.”
What do you mean by presumption?
Well sometimes when you win all the time, you think you are the best and I want a different attitude. And sometimes we think that maintaining the top is easy. We have done ten years at the top, but this year if we had interpreted the rules in a different way with no KERS and with a different floor we would be talking about a different Ferrari.”
How long will your patience last?
I’m totally unhappy. But stability of the team and confidence of the team since 1992 has been my main goal and I will continue. This team is the same one which crossed the finish line on Brazil a few months ago, winning the championship. So no problem. I know the reason my people know the reason. When I don’t know the reason I’m worried, when I know the reason I’m not worried.”
What is the state of unity within FOTA at the moment after the row over diffusers?
“Unity is good, We will have a meeting in London on May 6th, because here we are and we don’t yet know the rules for next year. “
What is going on with Michael Schumacher’s role?
“Michael’s position is very clear, when he stopped I said to him, Do you want to be the manager? Do you want to be the right arm of Jean Todt for one year and then take over, yes or no? And he said no. I’m sorry because he has a very good mentality, but his life is different. So we said ‘Why don’t you come to some races?’ But his main job has been on development of the road cars, Scuderia, California he has done some very good work. He will come back to some race but he has no role inside the team because he has no time to come to Maranello. He is in good relations with Domenicali and he makes suggestions.”
How do you feel about Ross Brawn winning with his own team
“I like Ross very much because he was in our family for many important years and has mad a very important imput. Is see a Honda car with the Brawn name, of Honda which has invested a he amount of money in two wind tunnels, deciding very early to concentrate on a completely new car and decided at the end of the year to stop. This is Honda with one of the biggest budgets in F1. They had a different interpretation of the rules, due to the grey areas.”
With all due respect to Luca (and I say this as a Ferrari fan) – it is really time to stop whinging about people’s floors now, different or otherwise. The stewards have declared them legal, Charlie’s declared them legal, and so have the FIA / WMSC.
If the rules were so terribly worded, maybe Luca should’ve been doing something to have them reworded before the season started. He can’t seriously expect the playing field to be changed midway through a season just because his team is underperforming, though.
Thrashing this dead horse into a pulp is not going to get Ferrari back up to the top. It’s time to show some class, quit complaining, and get on with the job in hand. Leave the whining to Flavio… 😉
Which are the four teams *not* in favour of a budget cap? Ferrari, McLaren and BMW are obvious; presumably the fourth is Toyota?
Six teams are in favour of a budget cap at around £50-60 million. BMW and Toyota are in favour of a budget cap at a higher level starting at £100m, coming down to £70m over three years. Ferrari are not into it at all, while I’m not entirely sure what McLaren as they have kind of kept out of that debate during their recent troubles. FIA wants it lower because it wants to attract a few new teams.
Sorry Luca, but your “reasons” are not valid excuses or complaints.
1. “There are four reasons; we have seen some very badly written rules, grey rules, with different interpretations. This means polemics.”
Translation: “We didn’t read the rules properly.”
2. “Second was KERS. KERS represents a lot of money… but we have been surprised to see that KERS was a suggestion and not real rule.”
Translation: “We didn’t read the rules properly.”
3. “Today we face a strange an not positive situation; we have three different F1 competitions on the grid. Cars with KERS, cars with no KERS and with a different floor, and a third competitor with no KERS and no floor.”
Translation: “Some people (us included) didn’t read the rules properly.”
4. “Also we started to work on the new car late at a time when the rules are new. And the last reason, inside the teams there has been a little too much presumption in the team.”
Translation: “Despite the fact we have the resources to do it, we didn’t bother with 2009 until 2008 was won. But even so, it wouldn’t have mattered how much money and resources we threw at the 2009 project…it was always destined to fail because we didn’t read the rules properly.”
It seems that Ferrari made one key failing in their preparations for the 2009 championship. Any guesses as to what it might have been?
Translation: “Despite the fact we have the resources to do it, we didn’t bother with 2009 until 2008 was won. But even so, it wouldn’t have mattered how much money and resources we threw at the 2009 project…it was always destined to fail because we didn’t read the rules properly.”
And I’m the boss and I’m not happy, so start going quicker or else. Capite? O dormirete con i pesci! 😉
If ferrari turn up in spain with all there new bits and the car is 1.5 secs faster than anything else on the grid and mr brawn is down in 9th/10th you can bet there will be bitching I agree with luca the rules are to open to be interpreted totally differently by everyone. After last night what has changed it was a precision .With more teams turning up under the salary cap next year it will just mean that there will be longer trains not better racing.
[…] Montezemolo demands new attitude from Ferrari […]
I would read it different though:
“Due to the test ban, our engineers had to make now immediate correct decisions of all the possible options we have inside the rules. And due to this missing test luxury, they where uncapable to do so”
I have to agree with Oscar.
The test ban is effectively eliminated the “proper” controlled way of developing the car.
Normally you change just one thing and test the effect, if it looks good then you can see if it can be enhanced further bit by bit so that you know the exact effect each modification has on speed, drag, braking, cooling, tyre wear etc. Each tiny change and it’s effects are recorded. This has been the “proper” engineering way to develop.
But with no testing you have to be very sure in advance that what you change is going to be for the good. Then stick it on the car and hope it doesn’t affect something else. This is where people like our Aid (Newey) who can visualise the whole effect in their mind, really come into their own. (like Neo)
With the greatest of respect to Ferrari, do they have that innate skill I wonder? They have flare, passion and volatility, having worked with Italians in the past, (lovely people) I would imagine lots of promises being made (sure no problem) and meetings like a box of fireworks going off.
Could we see sponsors leaving Ferrari?
BTW Can anyone say what sponsor the rear wing “bar code” painting represents? As I remember it, a tobacco company!
The stripes appeared in countries that had banned tobacco advertising back when it was still allowed in the sport. Shirley they cannot have tobacco money now.