Discussion of Formula One racing

October 31, 2009

Ferrari has not given up yet

Filed under: Uncategorized — admin @ 2:42 pm

After the lack of performance in Spa and some quotes attributed
to Irvine that Ferrari was slowing down the development of this
year’s car*, one could start to worry that Ferrari was going to
give up. But Luca di Montezemolo has just said some things which
I think were intended to motivate the technical team by pointing
out to them that blaming the drivers would not get them off the
hook:
        http://www.totalf1.com/news/1999/aug/31.html

"If the drivers don’t have the car, they can’t win," he said.
"And at Spa, they didn’t have the car, we all saw that. We have to
believe in this championship. So I’m calling now for the fullest
possible technical support for the drivers."

*: ok, one would expect that those were only excuses from Irvine, but:

 1 – it was not anything which has not been alleged before. At the
   end of 1995 Alesi complained that in the later part of the season
   Ferrari didn’t provide some evolutions (their excuse was that the
   budget was exhausted) that he and Berger had asked for. But those
   evolutions quickly appeared once Schumacher started to test.

 2 – it is of course in Ferrari’s interest to help Irvine now. But
   considering that, if Irvine were to win the championship, then
   the wisdow of spending $100+ million with Schumacher since 1996
   could be questioned, it might not be in the interest of the
   careers of some of the people there.

BTW, while checking if the Ferrari web page had something on this
(I didn’t find anything), I saw that they will be testing at Monza
from September, 1st (Wednesday) to the 3rd (Friday), with 3 cars
and Irvine, Salo and Schumacher.

BTW2, the same article has a photograph of what may be the 2000 BAR
livery. Sponsors are 555 (main), Motorola (front wing), Becks
(rear wing) and Sonax:
http://www.totalf1.com/images/cars/1999/BAR/2000bardesignbig.jpg


http://www.mat.uc.pt/~rps/f1/  a born-again-tifoso
        Mark Sandman – Morphine, RIP (July 3th, 1999, Italy)
.pt is Portugal| `Whom the gods love die young’-Menander (342-292 BC)
        Europe |    Villeneuve 50-82, Toivonen 56-86, Senna 60-94

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7 Comments »

  1. Rui Pedro Mendes Salgueiro <r…@rena.mat.uc.pt> wrote:

    > BTW2, the same article has a photograph of what may be the 2000 BAR
    > livery. Sponsors are 555 (main), Motorola (front wing), Becks
    > (rear wing) and Sonax:
    > http://www.totalf1.com/images/cars/1999/BAR/2000bardesignbig.jpg

    Apparently they will alternate races with Lucky Strike.

    Though you have to wonder about Bernie.  BAR must be livid that he
    walked through the Spa paddock clearly holding the pictures out for
    people to ‘accidentally’ snap pics of.  And then he goes round showing
    it to other team owners (Walkinshaw and Jordan are being shown it in one
    photo).  But why give Bernie your 2000 livery design anyway?

    As for Ferrari, the question is are they motivated enough to win it just
    to see it taken to Ford?

    Comment by admin — October 31, 2009 @ 2:42 pm

  2. Christine Johnston <chr…@dircon.co.uk> wrote:
    > But why give Bernie your 2000 livery design anyway?

    Something like this?

    "Now now young Mr Pollock, we don’t want another little temper tantrum
    like last year, with a car that looks like its livery was designed on the
    wall of the gents with a spraycan after a night on the herbal ciggies
    so let’s see what your marketing people have been up to, spending all
    that money on paint jobs instead of development work…"

    pete

    p…@fenelon.com "there’s no room for enigmas in built-up areas" (HMHB)

    Comment by admin — October 31, 2009 @ 2:43 pm

  3. Rui Pedro Mendes Salgueiro <r…@rena.mat.uc.pt> wrote:

    - Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -

    > After the lack of performance in Spa and some quotes attributed
    > to Irvine that Ferrari was slowing down the development of this
    > year’s car*, one could start to worry that Ferrari was going to
    > give up. But Luca di Montezemolo has just said some things which
    > I think were intended to motivate the technical team by pointing
    > out to them that blaming the drivers would not get them off the
    > hook:

    > "If the drivers don’t have the car, they can’t win," he said.
    > "And at Spa, they didn’t have the car, we all saw that. We have to
    > believe in this championship. So I’m calling now for the fullest
    > possible technical support for the drivers."

    > *: ok, one would expect that those were only excuses from Irvine, but:

    >  1 – it was not anything which has not been alleged before. At the
    >    end of 1995 Alesi complained that in the later part of the season
    >    Ferrari didn’t provide some evolutions (their excuse was that the
    >    budget was exhausted) that he and Berger had asked for. But those
    >    evolutions quickly appeared once Schumacher started to test.

    Heh, and things still suffered at the start of 1996, like in Brazil and
    Argentina where they ran the F310 with the 412T2′s rear end…

    >  2 – it is of course in Ferrari’s interest to help Irvine now. But
    >    considering that, if Irvine were to win the championship, then
    >    the wisdow of spending $100+ million with Schumacher since 1996
    >    could be questioned, it might not be in the interest of the
    >    careers of some of the people there.

    Now now :-) As much as they would probably expect/hoped/planned/whatever
    that Michael would win the WC and not Eddie, I can’t see them throwing
    away the opportunity just for that reason. Of course, I could well be
    wrong, but what Ferrari did in the race in Belgium suggests that they are
    still giving Eddie every opportunity to try to win the WC. The fact that
    the car sucks (relative to the McLaren) is just a minor problem in
    achieving that goal :-)

    It would be nice if Ferrari *did* actually produce a superior car to all
    its competitors for once – it has consistently made cars which are
    competitive, but which are never quite as good as those which have gone on
    to win the WC each year, IMHO. If they could do that then should have no
    trouble winning the WC!

    > BTW, while checking if the Ferrari web page had something on this
    > (I didn’t find anything), I saw that they will be testing at Monza
    > from September, 1st (Wednesday) to the 3rd (Friday), with 3 cars
    > and Irvine, Salo and Schumacher.

    I notice on the 2nd it says "Eddie Irvine worked on set-up and some new
    aerodynamic developments for the F399." So there’s some hope for Ferrari
    it seems.

    > http://www.mat.uc.pt/~rps/f1/     a born-again-tifoso

    What has lead to this change in your .sig from this?
    http://www.mat.uc.pt/~rps/f1/ an ex-tifoso since 95/11/13

    I just checked and this was the day after the Australian GP. Was it
    because of who was leaving the team, who was joining it, or both? :-)

    BTW, what do you make of this comment by Rubens? How (much) does this
    differ from the current ‘arrangement’ at Ferrari?

    "If I have to allow Schumacher to pass me, then Ferrari does not interest
    me. However, if – for the good of the team – we work to get a result with
    me as co-pilot, that’s acceptable."

    I want other people to comment on this before I do so I can save myself
    from the possibility of making a fool of myself :-) as I have my own
    feelings on what he means and I don’t see how they are much different from
    the way things are (please note I said ‘much’, I didn’t say that Rubens’
    job=Eddie’s job!)

    Dave

    ——————————————————
     David Wright, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia

     da…@smug.adelaide.edu.au | http://www.smug.adelaide.edu.au/~davew/
     sch…@geocities.com       | http://www.geocities.com/MotorCity/1560/

    Comment by admin — October 31, 2009 @ 2:43 pm

  4. Dave Wright wrote

    > BTW, what do you make of this comment by Rubens? How (much) does
    > this  differ from the current ‘arrangement’ at Ferrari?

    > "If I have to allow Schumacher to pass me, then Ferrari does not
    > interest me. However, if – for the good of the team – we work to
    > get a result with me as co-pilot, that’s acceptable."

    I think there is a significant difference. Eddie went to Ferrari
    knowing he still had a lot to learn and happy to accept a clearly
    defined secondary role, which included moving over for MS from day
    one, should he happen to be ahead of him. Of course, at that stage in
    his development, he wasn’t likely to be ahead of him very often. It’s
    only in the last year or so that he’s made it clear that his next
    contract would have to be on more equitable terms or he would go
    elsewhere.

    Rubens, on the other hand, is going there – in his own mind – to prove
    he is as good or better than Schumacher. I very much doubt that he has
    accepted having the more onerous elements of Eddie’s contract imposed
    on him. Surely the most he will have accepted is clause which says he
    has to move over when the championship is at stake – his view of
    working ‘for the good of the team’. Of course, Schumacher and Todt’s
    view of working ‘for the good of the team’ may be somewhat different
    from that of Barrichello.

    The questions are, how much testing will he get; how much say in
    development; or in choice of setup? The Schumacher way is to ensure
    that his team-mate has no chance of being as fast early season. If
    Barrichello let’s that happen, he will be no better off than Eddie
    was, or Johnny Herbert at Benetton. Rubens is going to have to be
    prepared to play hard ball from day one.


    David Betts (dav…@motorsport.org.uk)

    "Believe me, when you did well against Stirling, you knew you’d really
    done something: he was the greatest I ever saw – by a long way" –
    Richie Ginther

    The Ferrari Gallery:
    http://www.zing.com/album/ff/ff/b3/7/ffffb37f.html

    Comment by admin — October 31, 2009 @ 2:43 pm

  5. Dave Wright wrote:
    > BTW, what do you make of this comment by Rubens?
    > "If I have to allow Schumacher to pass me, then Ferrari does not interest
    > me. However, if – for the good of the team – we work to get a result withme
    > as co-pilot, that’s acceptable."

    I get the impression that Barrichello is saying he is willing to help Ferrari
    win the constructers WC, but he is not willing to do so much for Schueys
    drivers WC.  I dare say he will drive defensively when asked to, and let him
    past easily enough, but I dont think he will blatantly slow down so that MS
    can take the chequered flag.

    Luciano

    Comment by admin — October 31, 2009 @ 2:43 pm

  6. "David Betts" <dav…@dbassoc.freeserve.co.uk> writes:
    >Of course, at that stage in his [Irvine] development, he wasn’t likely
    >to be ahead of him [MSchumacher] very often.

    Also Ferrari gave Irvine less testing time than Michael when he first
    joined the team.

    Cheers, Mike

    Mike Marler                          Information Technology, Georgia Tech
    mike.mar…@oit.gatech.edu           Atlanta, Georgia  30332-0715

    Comment by admin — October 31, 2009 @ 2:43 pm

  7. David Betts <dav…@dbassoc.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
    > The questions are, how much testing will he get; how much say in
    > development; or in choice of setup? The Schumacher way is to ensure
    > that his team-mate has no chance of being as fast early season. If
    > Barrichello let’s that happen, he will be no better off than Eddie
    > was, or Johnny Herbert at Benetton.
    >Rubens is going to have to be
    > prepared to play hard ball from day one.

    And Rubens ain’t the man for that, is he?  Though perhaps Ferrari know
    that already.

    Basically, anyone who signs for Ferrari thinking they are getting equal
    status as MS is only fooling themselves no matter what they say to get
    you to sign the contract.  If they wouldn’t give Eddie equal status to
    stay (a driver who has won races for them and is their WC contender)
    then why would they hand it to RB just like that?

    Comment by admin — October 31, 2009 @ 2:43 pm

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