Newey to Ferrari...not sure yet

Thank you for the laughs.

 

Yes, I'm disguising my tears. Ok?

I'm hoping the Scuderia are now seeing this is not a practical reality for them.

 

Yeah, introspection's always been a Ferrari strong suit.

 

#1

 

Not so certain, David. Luca is at the point of desperation to right the ship; he is an extraordinarily intelligent man and could well conclude that this might be the best chance he has to do it in the shortest possible time.

 

Don´t know the story. Why controversial?

 

If he were would he have made that recent hire?

 

Perhaps the recent hire is a stop-gap while negotiations with Brawn are ongoing? I can but hope...

All the best,
Andrew.

 

I doubt that you ask a man to give up a job like head of Ferrari North America just to keep a seat warm for a short while.

 

Only if bigger tasks than FNA or F1 are waiting ahead. But I don't buy into that theory either.

 

One article I read said that his appointment had the blessing from the very top of Fiat so who knows.

 

That's a lotta dough. Anyone meet this guy?

 

At this rate, Ferrari is a team in complete disarray. There was a time when that used
to work but not these days.

For Newey to come to Ferrari, not only would he command a king's ransom for his
design services, he would also need to have complete control over the entire design
department as he has now at Red Bull.

So, not only would he be starting from square one, he would have to right the ship. Don't
see it happening, at least not in the context of the current restrictive rules.

As for Alonso and Kimi, the way things are going, it wouldn't be surprising to see one of
them out of the team before season's end. Keeping in mind, this is the team that fired
Prost for criticizing the car and team. Hope I'm wrong.

BHW

 

+1

 

Newey or Mattiacci?

 

Phillip Morris is still writing BIG checks in Maranello.

 

I have a friend who worked for Newey way back when he was with Andretti racing.

He noted that Newey was even way back then, very very methodical about testing.

For every test he would work out in advance very carefully not only what he wanted to test, but what he expected to get from each change, and then, had a full series of logic trees of what to do next based on what each change produced and how much was gained or lost in each mod.

I'm sure other teams do this now too, but with the limited testing allowed a very methodical and rigorous process has to be developed to maximize the gain from the limited amount of testing done.

Newey has been doing this for a very long time and has it down to a science. Plus the fact that he has learned, from seeing his predictions of what each change will produce either be verified, or proven wrong, that he now has an "instinctive feel" for what he is doing and this something that only time can develop, and money can't buy, unless you buy that person.

So, you aren't just buying the services of the person, you are buying his knowledge base, and what is that knowledge base worth????

As they say in the Master Card ads, and if you want to win in F1... Priceless...

 

AFAIK he is the only designer in F1 that designs the car on paper still. The rest all use computers. Newey designs each and every part on (technical) paper. Not sure if he or someone else makes it on the computer after that but that's irrelevant. Amazing though.

 

He says that now he only draws rough sketches and then his crew does the hard work with the computer.

A modern F1 car is too complex to be designed by a man with a pen. Also I guess that Newey has more important things to do than designing the car himself.

 

I would tend to agree with you Ron, but it would be a step in the right direction (although I do not believe Red Bull would let him go to the enemy).
As they say in my business, "the fish stinks from the head" an by that I mean the head of the race team.
Just my opinion, anyway....

 

Hire Newey, step back, and let him do his magic. What's so difficult?

-F

 

LdM.

 

Of course.

But seriously, what's the problem (with LdM)?

If the team returns to its winning ways (with the help of someone else), LdM looks like a hero and all he has to do is write the checks. Leave things the way they are and LdM looks like a loser.

The sign of a good leader is picking the right people and letting them do their work. Hmmmm.

-F

 

According to James Allison, the team doesn't have complete freedom in development. Baffling, I know. Why they don't get it is absolutely beyond me.

 

Tradition and ego.