Crossroads or crosshairs at Ferrari?

With James Allison’s seemingly inevitable departure as Ferrari’s Technical Director, it has come at the most inopportune time for the Maranello outfit, as the team’s season progress has stalled longer than the airflow on an F92A.

Former engine chief Mattia Binotto’s appointment to replace Allison can only be seen as a stop-gap solution and spreads Binotto’s talents too thin at a time when Ferrari need to be consolidating their engine package. They are now closer to Mercedes than it has been for 24 months, and they need to allow their aero and chassis departments to take full advantage of the sweeping 2017 regulation change.

Instead it’s the first sign that Ferrari could be returning to the dysfunctional era of the 80s and early 90s – where lack of interdepartmental conversation lead to fractions within the Scuderia. It was only upon of Ross Brawn and Rory Byrne in the second half of the 1990s that the windows were finally opened at Ferrari and a cohesive structure was allowed to thrive – cocooned from administrative interference.

As the former head of aerodynamics at Ferrari during the Brawn/Byrne/Schumacher era, Willem Toet is well equipped to dissect what made the Brawn acumen so affective at Ferrari as he began to implement an archetypal Formula One management structure that still resonates today.

“I arrived at Ferrari a year before Ross. There’s a lot of stories but I’ll save that for the future!” laughs Willem. “But I think the main mechanism that gave Ross the power to make a difference at Ferrari was that he was given the control of both powertrain and chassis.”

“They hadn’t done that before” he continues. “When I joined it was John Barnard who looked after the chassis (as technical director) but not the engine. Because he didn’t look after the engine, he didn’t have those battles that you have to have; e.g. ‘I can have more power if I have better cooling, more valve clearance etc…’

Today those arguments are much easier to have because of lap simulations, but in those days you didn’t know the final outcome when you were developing an engine and chassis together.”

Rumours have come about that Ferrari CEO Sergio Marchionne has twice sounded out Ross Brawn about a possible return to Maranello, but on both occasions has rebuffed Brawn’s conditions that he is to have total control of race operations.

It’s somewhat akin to hiring Frank Gehry and commissioning him to build a McMansion. It also shows Marchionne’s ego is only matched by his lack of foresight, having passed on an opportunity to rehire one of the most adept manipulators of technical regulations (and regulators) this century having opened the door for Mercedes’ turbo advantage when the 2014 engine regulations were still being thrashed out.

Most likely Marchionne’s biggest failing is his inability to know his limitations and interprets that as a potential loss of power at Ferrari. It’s a small-minded approach that misses the big picture by a country mile.

“Brawn was able to impose limits on both sides so they knew how to work together, but he also had that strength of character and personality to be able to protect the technical people from the fluctuating input from of the non-technical bosses from the company” Toet continues. “That would change race by race, but Ross could always filter this so we’d have completely consistent input as to what we should do next.”

“He (Brawn) also has a ruthless side to his personality but in the end great people do. There are times where you have to be able to step back and look at the picture without any emotional attachment. Ross is also able to make a decision at the last second, taking in all the facts he needs. I’d be inclined to make a decision just a fraction too early, where Ross was able to stay completely cold and calm and make the call at exactly the right time”.

Making the right call at the right time is something Marchionne should definitely be taking heed of.