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[sagi58]

, Ben Anderson and Kevin Turner wrote:">Monaco GP: Fernando Alonso's Ferrari had ERS, brake issues

Fernando Alonso feared he could have been forced to retire from the Monaco Grand Prix on the first lap after an ERS problem with his Ferrari engine.

Alonso qualified fourth with what he described as his best lap of the year, but fell to sixth at the start of the race.

The Spaniard, who lies third in the Formula 1 drivers' championship, admitted his Ferrari lost power for the first few corners.

"The electric engine [ERS] didn't work so I didn't have the power going until Turn 3 [Casino Square]," said Alonso.

"I had a good jump, but I didn't have any more power to keep going.

"But the McLarens were fighting and also it is not completely straight so I was lucky that no one else overtook me.

"It was more stressful after Turn 1 [Sainte Devote]. Between Turn 1 and 3 I was very, very slow and I was a little bit worried I would have to retire after lap one. And then suddenly the electric motor started working."

Alonso conceded that, even if he had full power, he would probably have been boxed in on the run to Ste Devote.

"If I did have the power available I would have had to brake anyway because I didn't have the space," he added. "I tried to go to the left at one point but Kimi [Raikkonen] was doing a good start so it was not the place to go."

BRAKE PROBLEMS AT END

After problems for Ferrari team-mate Raikkonen and Sebastian Vettel, Alonso chased Daniel Ricciardo for third, but suffered brake issues in the closing stages.

"At the end we had some brake problems," said Alonso.

"The car was braking with only right brakes so I had to hold the steering to the left.

"Once you are in that position you just try to bring the car safely home and get these points, but obviously we will try to do better next time."

Despite the issues, Alonso believes fourth was the best the F14 T could manage in Monaco.

"Fourth was the maximum," he said. "The top three showed their potential and that they were faster than me.

"I'm happy with the weekend in general. The race was difficult, it was tough, but I've got more points than I had yesterday."

[spankyham]

I really think James Allison is a great asset to the team and we are about to start seeing his impact. Talking about their short and long term goals for me shows the influence of Marco Mattiacci.

The most telling part of this interview is JA talking about "unleashing" the talent that already reside within the team. I believe this speaks to the conservative approach that Stefano Domenicali implemented and which, it is now clear, stifled creativity.

I hope this all means Ferrari are not as far away as some thought from being competitive again

 wrote:">Allison: “Two platforms for development”

Maranello, 26 May – Scuderia Ferrari personnel are now back at base after the Monaco Grand Prix, convinced the team could have come away with something more in terms of the actual result. Kimi delivered a great performance and he was unlucky not to get a well-deserved podium finish. As for Fernando, he brought home more valuable points, thus preventing Red Bull from pulling too far away in the championship classification.

The engineers have returned to work today in Maranello, looking at two distinct platforms when it comes to development: a short term programme to close the gap that separates the Scuderia from its closest rivals and work on improving its methodology, with a plan aimed on the long term.
Technical Director James Allison summed up the situation on http://www.ferrari.com: “In Monaco, we continued to analyse the areas in which the F14 T can be improved and now, we are looking ahead to the next race in Canada, where the package we will use there is a good step faster than the car we raced last weekend. While our development programme has progressed well in recent weeks, it is hard to predict exactly what this will mean for the competitiveness of the F14-T, as we do not know what steps our competitors plan to bring to Montreal. So any improvement has to be seen in relative terms, hoping that the track will deliver an answer worthy of all the efforts we have made so far.”

The other area of development on which the Scuderia is working, relates to the management of the team and its working methods. “We must be able to make the most of the creativity and originality of our engineers,” continued Allison. “We know there is no magic wand, but there is a wealth of talent at Ferrari and we are working on an implementation and an approach to the work which allows it to emerge.”

[sagi58]

Funny you should say that, spanky... Domenicali always struck me as a conservative guy.
Didn't seem to have that fire, that passion that seems such a great part of the Scuderia!

At the risk of offending some people, he was just too "vanilla" for the team!!

[racechick]

I'm interested in the views of the Tifosi on the following statistic.

Alonso has scored nearly 3 times as many points Kimi has, which is worse than Massa was compared to Alonso last year.
Is Kmi worse than you expected him to be? Or was Massa better than he was given credit for? Or is it just weird statistics? If is there another explanation?

[What's Burning?]

some dirt got in his eye in Australia? I think it's nothing, no different than a lot of guys under performing when they come to a team because they have to bring the car to them, we've seen it before. There are exceptions, like Ricciardo currently with Red Bull and Lewis last year with Mercedes. But in my opinion the question I believe is not whether Kimi is under performing, it's what's Kimi's performance level and how long will it take him to get there. Perhaps the expectation from some was that he'd be giving Alonso more competition. It's still very early in the season, we'll see.

[1Lemon]

I think its alonso out performing the car rather than kimi under performing. Although that move on mag in Monaco was a bit bizarre.

[spankyham]

I'm interested in the views of the Tifosi on the following statistic.

Alonso has scored nearly 3 times as many points Kimi has, which is worse than Massa was compared to Alonso last year.
Is Kmi worse than you expected him to be? Or was Massa better than he was given credit for? Or is it just weird statistics? If is there another explanation?

It's a really good question RC. My two bobs worth is that it is too early to judge. Had Kimi not had his tire punctured by Max he probably would have gone on to hold 3rd place at Monaco and we would have been praising him out-driving the car. I see steady signs of Kimi coming to terms with what is a difficult car to drive and of course he is still settling in.

Be an interesting point to revisit during the summer break.

[spankyham]

James Allen wrote:">Ferrari restructuring must allow engineers to be creative – Newey the main target

Marco Mattiacci, the new team principal of Ferrari, has a good idea of the scale of the job he needs to do in order to return Ferrari to winning ways and it isn’t going to happen overnight.

Ferrari will have a major aerodynamic update package on the car for Montreal, as it traditionally does and a significant step on the power unit, which has been a major handicap on the straights this year.



If this doesn’t bring the team a good step closer to Mercedes, then it will inevitably begin to commit more resources to the engine side and to wind tunnel time to 2015, where it can make a difference.

But Mattiacci’s task is long term. Ferrari has lost the winning habit and he needs to recreate the culture that existed there under Jean Todt.

Current Ferrari technical director James Allison (below left) said at the weekend that Ferrari has no shortage of talented people, but the environment needs to be right for them to take risks. He blames a culture of fear of failure and unrealistic deadlines for Ferrari’s failure to innovate in recent years,



“There is a wealth of talent at Ferrari, the experience and quality of the people on the technical side is a match for any team. It is a question of giving them the encouragement to actually go off and do more unusual things and then have the time to look at them and know that if they fail it’s OK because there’s still time to put a back-up plan in place and for that to work,” he said.

“Creativity and originality will only come if you set out to allow the engineers in your organisation the space and the time to do that.

“If you force them to operate with their back against the wall, up against deadlines that are very tight, then there is no time for them to think about how they might approach something differently.”

In Monaco the talk was once again of Ferrari’s all out attempt to hire Adrian Newey away from Red Bull. Again, this is not going to happen overnight.

“I remain committed to Red Bull for the foreseeable future,” Newey said in Monaco.

But the foreseeable future is only the next year or two. Beyond that, anything is possible if the right circumstances are put in place.

Newey has been with Red Bull for seven years and historically that is about the length of time he was with Williams and McLaren before moving on to seek fresh challenges.

Newey is well aware of Ferrari, what it stands for and the prestige of the brand. He owns, drives and races Ferraris. He has no ideological barrier to working for Ferrari in Italy, merely to its reputation for being a turbulent environment.

He has said that previous attempts to hire him – of which there were many – came at the wrong time in his family life.



Now divorced with children who have mostly grown up, 55 year old Newey is at a different moment in his life. He has a new partner, Amanda Smerczak (above). His son is a keen kart racer and Italy is the hotbed of karting.

Anecdotally, one has the impression that Newey is indeed looking around at the moment, considering what to do next and he has bought himself some thinking time with his Monaco statement.

Ferrari is believed to be offering Newey a spectacular package which would give him, in addition to a massive salary comparable with many F1 drivers, the opportunity to be across Le Mans project, maybe even have a hand in designing a road going super car, but above all to make Ferrari the fastest F1 car out there.

All of this will be very tempting but what Newey needs is certainty that he and his department would be protected; from politics, from internal pressures and interference from FIAT and other outside forces and would be allowed to get on with their work.

He would also need a free rein to know that all the resources he needs are at his disposal, no questions asked. Mattiacci has been given a freedom previous Ferrari team boss Stefano Domenicali never had – to be able to sign things off quickly himself, without needing lengthy approvals. He has things set up more like the Todt regime in that sense. The team management can react more quickly and be more dynamic.

Newey works best in a protected environment and it is the thing he will be most concerned about at Ferrari, given its culture and politics. Todt managed to ring fence the team and was the strong man holding back the inside and outside forces to allow the team and its engineering innovators to thrive.

Mattiacci must reproduce that, and convince Newey very soon that he can do so, or the project will have little chance of succeeding.

[Jabberwocky]

Is there any other newey type super designers floating around?

Sent using NCC-1701

[What's Burning?]

That's laying it on thick... Newey, without you we can't right this ship! Other teams have won championships without him, clearly Brawn, has a decent record of late, but this IMO feels a bit, sad.

[spankyham]

As a Tifoso I'm so pleased reading what's coming out of the new leadership installed in Ferrari. JA makes it clear that the team already has the talent to match any other team on the grid, they simply need to be freed and encouraged to be creative, without fear of failure. The fear of failure culture, I believe was part of SD's modus operandi.

On top of this, MM and JA have made it clear that the team wants to add the best in any field they can. Hence chasing Newey. This is a great and positive strategy, of course Ferrari can't match the numbers and spending power of Mercedes and Red Bull, but that in no way dampens their enthusiasm and desire to find a way to win. In essence what we can't do in quantity we will try and achieve with quality. If they were able to secure Newey say for the 2016 season that would be a great achievement for MM to notch up so early on.

It didn't go unnoticed that part of the "lure" to AN was designing a Ferrari LM entrant

[Hammer278]

A more realistic option maybe to pay him to leave F1 and not design F1 cars for the next 2 years. Worked out great for them with a driver before.

[What's Burning?]

My comments before were strictly about the Newey portions. I agree that it's not about a lack of talent, clearly as some folks have left Ferrari and are still successfully working in other F1 teams. It's just not like Ferrari to openly state that they NEED a key person in order to win.

...and yes, I did pick up on the Le Mans comment, which befuddles me even more. If an F1 car is a full time job for Newey, how serious could they be about a Le Mans entry which would also be (at least initially) just as demanding as designing an F1 entry.

Let's see what he does, but it's a sad commentary on the state of the sport if Ferrari are really saying they can't put a winning car on the grid without the services of ONE man.

EDIT: Oh BTW, hello Hammer.

[spankyham]

My comments before were strictly about the Newey portions. I agree that it's not about a lack of talent, clearly as some folks have left Ferrari and are still successfully working in other F1 teams. It's just not like Ferrari to openly state that they NEED a key person in order to win.

...and yes, I did pick up on the Le Mans comment, which befuddles me even more. If an F1 car is a full time job for Newey, how serious could they be about a Le Mans entry which would also be (at least initially) just as demanding as designing an F1 entry.

Let's see what he does, but it's a sad commentary on the state of the sport if Ferrari are really saying they can't put a winning car on the grid without the services of ONE man.

I don't see where Ferrari have said they NEED anyone to to win - I think they've said quite the opposite ie belief that the CURRENT team is a match for any other team on the grid. What I read into the move for Newey is that Ferrari recognise they cannot match the employee numbers of a Mercedes or Red Bull, so their strategy is to go for the best individuals that are not already in red.

The deal being offered to Newey is not just for him, but for a complete autonomous design team that he would head. That team would have the design role for F1, LM and a supercar.

[What's Burning?]

BTW Spanky, don't know if you've gotten the chance to see this, the next time you're stateside maybe try and look it up. This was shown before the start of the season by NBCSports, haven't found and streamable source, it was a worthwhile watch even for a non tifosi.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3417244/