[ 2020 ] Scuderia Ferrari - Ferrari

[Ringleheim]

Ferrari should set its sights not on Hamilton but Toto Wolff...that would be the best attribute to the team

Or better yet, some better technical people.

The people that run F1 still haven't figured out that the engineers are much more important than the driver.

There are maybe as many as 8-10 drivers out there who would be world champion this year, if driving the Mercedes. It really comes down to the matchup between the 2 drivers at the team.

As long as you are fast enough to beat the other guy, you're world champion.

You don't need a Hamilton to get that job done; you need the car.

[Racer X]

I have a question for everyone: Do you guys think Ferrari is bringing up 3 Juniors to decide who they focus on in the young drivers test at the end of the season? I mean it gives them a bench mark right and add that to their F2 performances can help them narrow their program choices. Also it helps them obviously with deciding who to promote.

Or what do you guys think? Will Ferrari use all 3 in the young drivers test again?

[Morteza]

[Ringleheim]

Glad Ferrari feel they have the time to goof around with the memory game crap.

[Jambier]

Ferrari should set its sights not on Hamilton but Toto Wolff...that would be the best attribute to the team

Or better yet, some better technical people.

The people that run F1 still haven't figured out that the engineers are much more important than the driver.

There are maybe as many as 8-10 drivers out there who would be world champion this year, if driving the Mercedes. It really comes down to the matchup between the 2 drivers at the team.

As long as you are fast enough to beat the other guy, you're world champion.

You don't need a Hamilton to get that job done; you need the car.

This is quite obvious but people seemed to forget that.
You need a top driver, and there is several of them in F1, but you mainly need to have top engineer and manager.

Wolff will never join Ferrari, and that is a shame. Let him the team for 5 years and he will build a world champion team.

[tangodjango]

Ferrari should set its sights not on Hamilton but Toto Wolff...that would be the best attribute to the team

Or better yet, some better technical people.

The people that run F1 still haven't figured out that the engineers are much more important than the driver.

There are maybe as many as 8-10 drivers out there who would be world champion this year, if driving the Mercedes. It really comes down to the matchup between the 2 drivers at the team.

As long as you are fast enough to beat the other guy, you're world champion.

You don't need a Hamilton to get that job done; you need the car.

This is quite obvious but people seemed to forget that.
You need a top driver, and there is several of them in F1, but you mainly need to have top engineer and manager.

Wolff will never join Ferrari, and that is a shame. Let him the team for 5 years and he will build a world champion team.

The person with the greatest contribution to Mercedes' is not Brawn or Lauda or Wolff or Cowell. It is the person who designed and built that structure you have at Mercedes and the synergy between Brackley and Brixworth, it is that structure that has allowed them to dominate, wrap up development by mid-season and focus on next year's car in the years that the competition was no threat and bring innovations like the blown wheel rims allowing them to out-develop the competition in the years the rivals were on level pegging, it is the same structure that will allow Mercedes to produce a great design in 2022 and it is the same structure that will let Mercedes keep winning even after Hamilton and Wolff and Cowell leave even if they encounter setbacks for a year or two. The person who built that structure was Bob Bell.

[e30ernest]

Was it Bell? He joined at 2011 and left at 2014 didn't he? I was thinking that for 2014 to have been successful they would have had a structure in place at the very start or even before Bell came in. It probably wasn't any one person though. Likely some management shake-ups when Brawn came in for Honda which continued on to the Wolff era. If it were 1 person, I think the organization would have started to deteriorate when he left. The Mercs only became stronger.

[Hoffman900]

Or better yet, some better technical people.

The people that run F1 still haven't figured out that the engineers are much more important than the driver.

There are maybe as many as 8-10 drivers out there who would be world champion this year, if driving the Mercedes. It really comes down to the matchup between the 2 drivers at the team.

As long as you are fast enough to beat the other guy, you're world champion.

You don't need a Hamilton to get that job done; you need the car.

This is quite obvious but people seemed to forget that.
You need a top driver, and there is several of them in F1, but you mainly need to have top engineer and manager.

Wolff will never join Ferrari, and that is a shame. Let him the team for 5 years and he will build a world champion team.

The person with the greatest contribution to Mercedes' is not Brawn or Lauda or Wolff or Cowell. It is the person who designed and built that structure you have at Mercedes and the synergy between Brackley and Brixworth, it is that structure that has allowed them to dominate, wrap up development by mid-season and focus on next year's car in the years that the competition was no threat and bring innovations like the blown wheel rims allowing them to out-develop the competition in the years the rivals were on level pegging, it is the same structure that will allow Mercedes to produce a great design in 2022 and it is the same structure that will let Mercedes keep winning even after Hamilton and Wolff and Cowell leave even if they encounter setbacks for a year or two. The person who built that structure was Bob Bell.

This. When the system is designed right,
the roles of the individuals have less impact to the overall end result. Good organizations can stay that way as long as someone else doesn’t come in and muck it up.

You also learn everyone is replaceable. Some people seem to struggle with that in their careers.

[Big Tea]

Was it Bell? He joined at 2011 and left at 2014 didn't he? I was thinking that for 2014 to have been successful they would have had a structure in place at the very start or even before Bell came in. It probably wasn't any one person though. Likely some management shake-ups when Brawn came in for Honda which continued on to the Wolff era. If it were 1 person, I think the organization would have started to deteriorate when he left. The Mercs only became stronger.

When one person puts a ladder to the top, however many are needed can climb it when he is gone.
We may not even know the name of the person who put it there, but the good luck to have a succession of people who recognise it for what it is has been critical.

So often we see a new management come in and make a point of dismantling the structure so there can be no dissension or set ways to interfere with the 'new brooms' (which seems to be the Ferrari way) arising from below.
So just good luck? or a deliberate strategy?

I have little doubt Toto's 'all in the family' and don't find blame find solutions attitude has been the key to maintaining it as the top team, but it has to have been initially set up under Honda surely?

[tangodjango]

Was it Bell? He joined at 2011 and left at 2014 didn't he? I was thinking that for 2014 to have been successful they would have had a structure in place at the very start or even before Bell came in. It probably wasn't any one person though. Likely some management shake-ups when Brawn came in for Honda which continued on to the Wolff era. If it were 1 person, I think the organization would have started to deteriorate when he left. The Mercs only became stronger.

https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/arch ... ng-shadows

https://the-race.com/formula-1/the-huma ... le-facade/

Isn't the very fact that his departure didn't affect the team performance proof that the structure works as intended.

[Jolle]

Was it Bell? He joined at 2011 and left at 2014 didn't he? I was thinking that for 2014 to have been successful they would have had a structure in place at the very start or even before Bell came in. It probably wasn't any one person though. Likely some management shake-ups when Brawn came in for Honda which continued on to the Wolff era. If it were 1 person, I think the organization would have started to deteriorate when he left. The Mercs only became stronger.

https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/arch ... ng-shadows

https://the-race.com/formula-1/the-huma ... le-facade/

Isn't the very fact that his departure didn't affect the team performance very proof of the fact that the structure works as intended.

At Mercedes I think you shouldn’t look at the persons but at the structure. What makes them strong that it isn’t one person or a small group. If you look at previous dominating teams, it was the combination of two-three people paired with a driver that delivered. At Mercedes it’s every senior and their team that make up this winning machine, combined with a driver that rarely drops points. We’ve all seen teams drop back when they lost key members, like Williams, McLaren and Ferrari. Loosing a structure is far less likely, although with the new cost cap in sight, might be challenging.

[e30ernest]

Was it Bell? He joined at 2011 and left at 2014 didn't he? I was thinking that for 2014 to have been successful they would have had a structure in place at the very start or even before Bell came in. It probably wasn't any one person though. Likely some management shake-ups when Brawn came in for Honda which continued on to the Wolff era. If it were 1 person, I think the organization would have started to deteriorate when he left. The Mercs only became stronger.

https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/arch ... ng-shadows

https://the-race.com/formula-1/the-huma ... le-facade/

Isn't the very fact that his departure didn't affect the team performance proof that the structure works as intended.

Thank you for that. Very interesting reads.

I wonder how it is in the Ferrari factories and design rooms...

So my takeaway there is that Ross empowered Bell to build up the technical department to what it is today. However, I think it was Wolff who expanded on that by allowing that team dynamic to grow organically as well.

I know the Netflix series was much maligned, but you could get an impression of calmness and problem-solving orientation in the Mercedes team (you don't see them blaming each other when someone makes a mistake) which is in stark contrast to how other teams seem to be run there (Haas and Renault especially).

[diffuser]

Was it Bell? He joined at 2011 and left at 2014 didn't he? I was thinking that for 2014 to have been successful they would have had a structure in place at the very start or even before Bell came in. It probably wasn't any one person though. Likely some management shake-ups when Brawn came in for Honda which continued on to the Wolff era. If it were 1 person, I think the organization would have started to deteriorate when he left. The Mercs only became stronger.

https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/arch ... ng-shadows

https://the-race.com/formula-1/the-huma ... le-facade/

Isn't the very fact that his departure didn't affect the team performance proof that the structure works as intended.

Thank you for that. Very interesting reads.

I wonder how it is in the Ferrari factories and design rooms...

So my takeaway there is that Ross empowered Bell to build up the technical department to what it is today. However, I think it was Wolff who expanded on that by allowing that team dynamic to grow organically as well.

I know the Netflix series was much maligned, but you could get an impression of calmness and problem-solving orientation in the Mercedes team (you don't see them blaming each other when someone makes a mistake) which is in stark contrast to how other teams seem to be run there (Haas and Renault especially).

I think it's easy to have calmness when your winning. I remember alot of questioning of Hamilton abilities during those last few years at McLaren. The car didn't have the pace. He had to take more risk to get ahead. The more risks you take the more often it ends in tears. Wasn't his fault the car didn't have the pace.

I think with Mecr it all starts with the budget, they have the most people that work for the F1 team. Makes it easier to indetify weak links and remove those people. Plus the got started early on the current PU regs and were miles ahead of everyone else. Once you they got ahead, they just kept it rolling. Of course with the budget and the people you need the guy that is making the right choices. Every wrong choice wastes money from that budget advantage.

[e30ernest]

I think it's easy to have calmness when your winning. I remember alot of questioning of Hamilton abilities during those last few years at McLaren. The car didn't have the pace. He had to take more risk to get ahead. The more risks you take the more often it ends in tears. Wasn't his fault the car didn't have the pace.

I think with Mecr it all starts with the budget, they have the most people that work for the F1 team. Makes it easier to indetify weak links and remove those people. Plus the got started early on the current PU regs and were miles ahead of everyone else. Once you they got ahead, they just kept it rolling. Of course with the budget and the people you need the guy that is making the right choices. Every wrong choice wastes money from that budget advantage.

But the Mercs weren't always winning and they were pretty calm then as a team back then. And I don't think it is just the budget since I am sure other companies like Ferrari and Toyota had the budget too. It's a management thing I think, being able to stand the pressures from the outside world to maintain internal stability to find solutions.

When the Mercs were tearing through their tires, I don't seem to remember as much calls for heads to roll as there has been for Ferrari when they don't do too good.

[diffuser]

I think it's easy to have calmness when your winning. I remember alot of questioning of Hamilton abilities during those last few years at McLaren. The car didn't have the pace. He had to take more risk to get ahead. The more risks you take the more often it ends in tears. Wasn't his fault the car didn't have the pace.

I think with Mecr it all starts with the budget, they have the most people that work for the F1 team. Makes it easier to indetify weak links and remove those people. Plus the got started early on the current PU regs and were miles ahead of everyone else. Once you they got ahead, they just kept it rolling. Of course with the budget and the people you need the guy that is making the right choices. Every wrong choice wastes money from that budget advantage.

But the Mercs weren't always winning and they were pretty calm then as a team back then. And I don't think it is just the budget since I am sure other companies like Ferrari and Toyota had the budget too. It's a management thing I think, being able to stand the pressures from the outside world to maintain internal stability to find solutions.

When the Mercs were tearing through their tires, I don't seem to remember as much calls for heads to roll as there has been for Ferrari when they don't do too good.

I always thought they tore through tires cause they had more DF. They didn't change anything to fix that they just lobbied and won the battle for tougher tires. They did that by making them seem unsafe. Also with Ferrari how mcuh of the noise is from outside the team. How much is for inside. We really don't know what going on inside. Like why was Maurizio Arrivabene replaced?

In my defense I did say you need the right guy at the top otherwise you just waste resources. Like Ferrari did with thier PU when they explored improving PU performance by illegal means. That was hundreds of millions of $ that right now is giving them 0. Did Maurizio Arrivabene sanction that arm of Development? There was noise on the ground that Ferari had been cheating for a while. Did they think that it was just a matter of time before they got caught? Did they axed Arrivabene on approving that line of development?