“The Job is certainly difficult,” said Ferrari team boss Mattia Binotto. This assessment is not by chance: Binotto is for weeks, massive criticism, not only since the announced From of Sebastian Vettel and the more unexplained engine affair. But now a former Ferrari employee, to interfere with James Allison in the discussion and provides new against the wind.
Allison, who has worked from 2000 to 2004 and again from 2013 to 2016 as the senior technical employee of Ferrari, hinted at in the FIA press conference ahead of the Hungarian Grand Prix: The Management style of Ferrari is probably outdated.
Specifically, said Allison, just because of the great history, to feel everyone in the Team committed to the high external level of expectation. “Internally, the most clearly expressed through the Top-Down-Management,” says Allison. “At Ferrari, this is likely to be much more pronounced than in other Teams.”
Ferrari with the wrong Management style
What he’s saying: the decisions in the case of such a structure, only the chief days, and gives appropriate instructions to the employees in a hierarchy that is clearly laid out from top to bottom.
One such organization was doomed in the modern formula 1 but for the Failure, explains Allison more. “It means that you meet more short-term decisions. And this, in turn, can lead to one losing his direction, instead of the basic build, which could be from one year to the next.”
Has gone astray by Ferrari in the past few years, so simply? So it seems to be interpreting Allison. And he is a man with plenty of experience in formula 1: The 52-year-old Briton was since 1991 for Benetton, Renault, Lotus and Ferrari, is since 2017 as a Technical Director at Mercedes active. He knows it, so, as anywhere else.
… which should be no billing
And Allison makes it clear He does not want to demonize Ferrari and its functioning at all. “I would not have gone [2013] for the second Time to Ferrari to work if there, a terrible experience would have been,” he explains. “At Ferrari I have spent two significant portions of my career.”
He went during the 2016 season, after his wife had died in March of the same year, unexpectedly. Allison returned to his native England, to his three children.
The Ferrari of the time but he does not want to miss. To work for the legendary Scuderia, which means, “one feels that one is part of something Important,” said Allison.
Binotto as the successor to Allison
This was “the true strength” of Ferrari, “but it is also at the same time, the largest load, because the Affection of a whole Nation doesn’t bring much pressure when it’s running well. And the press is much more strict than any other formula 1 Team.”
Binotto can only confirm this. He, too, is already long in the business, with 50 years of almost the same age as Allison, but far less to learn in different worlds of work: Binotto studies met directly after his engineering to Ferrari and came out in 1995 for the formula-1 project, which he has since in changing positions, but with more and more responsibility accompanied.
It was Binotto, who took over after Allison’s farewell to the role of Technical Director at Ferrari, and after the From of Maurizio Arrivabene, almost two years later, the role of the team leaders – in addition to his technical duties.
Ferrari since 2008 without a title,
What he had recognized as a leadership figure in the Team soon: “If it’s not going well, as is currently the case, then you’re under a lot of pressure comes mainly from the outside. We have set ourselves but also very much under pressure, because we know what our goals are.”
And these goals are extremely ambitious: to be a world champion for the first time in over a decade. Most recently Kimi Raikkonen of Ferrari has won the title in 2008, won by Ferrari for the last Time in the formula 1 constructors ‘ championship. Since then, Ferrari was not classified in the world championship, never worse than P4, which is sufficient, but the high demands in Maranello.
this high claim to Binotto fairs, but stresses: “I have been working for 25 years in the formula 1. It is not the first Time that we have had difficult seasons at Ferrari. I had also expected a difficult time, when I took the Job.”
realignment at Ferrari?
This expectation has arrived. After the false start in the season 2020 – it is Ferrari’s worst formula 1 season opener since 2009, when Felipe Massa and Raikkonen were still in the first three races without points is Binotto with his back to the wall.
A radical realignment, but should not give it in the Ferrari, he says. On the contrary: “in such difficult times, it is important to maintain stability, to stay focused and ensure that you are doing as a Team, to make the right decisions to make it better.”
According to Allison, it is, however, exactly the mentioned “stability”, which could pose a risk for a race team. He compares the development of racing cars with a “mountain climbing in the fog” and says: “You know, it up, if it is running well. And the more you upload, the faster your car is.”
Want the car Ferrari, anything New?
“but If the slope is low, then you ask yourself, whether you get maybe gradually at the summit, and whether you should not be thinking about the next mountain.”
The next mountain, this could be, for example, a new design philosophy, a fresh approach to development. The big question that must be put to a Team like Ferrari, however, is the case of Allison: “you don’t recognize strongly enough that the current concept is good enough?”
is Crucial to hold in such a case, desperately to the supposedly tried and tested, but to try New things – in the hope that doing so a trend.
what’s next for Ferrari?
Allison stresses, however: the conscious turning to a new approach will be painful. He compared it to mountain climbing, and says: “The first part of a Transformation that leads you to the bottom. Because you have to start with a valley before you can climb another mountain. This can be a game of luck. And that scares, very even.”
The temptation to just go further and further without having to leave its path only once, was “very, very strong,” said the Mercedes technical boss. “The Whole thing is in a constant fog. And you know: When changing from a mountain on the other, you could also make a mistake.”
Where he sees the Ferrari on this trip currently, which Allison says. He suggests, however, that you should consider in Maranello, as the journey can be continued.
This article was written by Stefan Ehlen
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