Ferrari boss defiant over team orders scandal
29 July, 2010
Ferrari boss Luca di Montezemolo with drivers Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa
Jul.29 (Ferrari) On the eve of the team’s departure for Budapest, at what is a crucial moment in the season, Ferrari President, Luca di Montezemolo chose to send it an encouraging message. “With all the comments made recently, most of them misguided, there is only clear and concrete truth: Ferrari is strong and winning again. That is what I, everyone in the company and our fans wanted.”
Luca di Montezemolo with Stefano Domenicali
Everyone at Ferrari was naturally delighted with the fantastic one-two finish in the German Grand Prix last Sunday, which proved assertions that the car had improved considerably over the past few races, even if the results had been lacking. While the quickest car outright in qualifying was still a blue Red Bull, the next two cars on the grid were both red and, in race conditions, it seemed that the Cavallino was quicker than the Bull. It certainly eased the task of packing up the cars and equipment as quickly as possible after the race, as the team transporters headed immediately for Hungary.
The engineers returned to Maranello to begin planning for the twelfth round of the championship, in the spirit of keeping the development momentum moving forward, to close the gap to the leaders in both classifications, before flying out to Budapest on Thursday.
Race winner Fernando Alonso celebrates with Felipe Massa on Hockenheim podium
The German result is also gratifying because a few days after the Hungarian Grand Prix, all work stops at Maranello, as indeed it does for the other teams, during the compulsory Formula 1 shut-down, prior to the following round in Belgium, when more updates can be expected on the car, Meanwhile, the mechanics headed immediately for Budapest, where work on preparing the cars began on Tuesday.
The F10s will therefore be essentially to the same specification as in Hockenheim, apart from a few minor updates on the aero front, although they will be set up with more downforce to deal with the requirements of the Hungarian track, where almost all corners are slow to medium speed. Bridgestone brings its Super Soft and Medium compounds this weekend and they have usually been well suited to the Ferrari F10, as was demonstrated in Bahrain, Canada, Valencia and Monaco.
However, the use of dry tyres does not seem to be guaranteed for much of the weekend: currently the forecast is for some rain on Friday, thunderstorms on Saturday, with drier conditions prevailing on race day, which sounds like a very similar scenario to the German GP weekend, rather than the inferno of heat that usually characterises this event.
Related posts:
- Alonso: Winning is great but long way to go
- Photo Montage: Hungarian GP
- Sympathy grows for under fire Massa
- Briatore: Ferrari did nothing wrong
- Ecclestone: F1 should scrap team order ban
Mr di Montezemolo needs to realise that be it not for the global audience of F1 fans – F1 would not exist in the way it does and he needs to stop putting his Team’s interests in front of the interests of the watching public – the big part of the pie he wishes to get at the end of the year is paid for one way or another by the watching public/fans – the revenues that are generated by Bernie’s lot that are then shared amongst the teams come from TV revenues which the broadcasters are happy to pay top dollar for and do so because of the size of the viewing audience on a Sunday afternoon which means they can then generate their own revenues from Advertising revenues from big brand companies punting thier stuff to the watching viewers during the broadcast (admittedly not on the BBC in the UK). If we witness too many more of the debacles we watched in Germany on Sunday all but the most avid fan’s will begin to switch off and the broadcasters will not be willing to pay such vast amounts for a shrinking audience as the Advertisers will not pay as much for a slot of advertising . Whether he wishes to acknowledge it or not the fact is that the viewers want to see drivers slugging it out and knocking the proverbial 7 colours s*$t out of one another on track be they team mates or not – that’s what we tune in for ! – fixing races like as was done on Sunday and we’ll soon tune out again di Montezemolo can have his big share of of a much smaller pie.
Mr di Montezemolo, it is a shame that one driver was favored over the other. The manufacturers points would have been the same, you just selected the other driver to gain maximum points. Felipe could still be a long shot at the title but you have robbed him of that.
The followers of F1 recognise that the race was Felipe’s and was handed to Teflonso. I don’t know how Teflonso can comment on being the winner without feeling bad.
Shame shame shame