How much of Ferrari's pre-season testing progress is due to Marco Mattiacci?

Certainly development of an F1 car is continuous, however much of development of the current car was done under Marco Mattiacci's leadership and under his restructuring of the F1 team's personnel. The argument was he didn't know F1, but he did know team building and that perhaps is his mark left on this team.

Two questions, does Marco deserve some of the credit? And secondly was firing him a mistake? I can't think Arrivabene has anything to do with the progress this team has made so far.

 

Good points. Entirely plausible. Difficult to prove. Perhaps they simply used Marco as the change agent. Supposedly Bernie didn't like Marco.

 

well in regards to "team building", since the key team "pillars" he kept during his watch have all been sacked, i don't see his contributions having amounted to much.

2015 car development should be accredited to Allison and his direct reports, who had already started down a path before marco's arrival.

 

I'd say that his input was decisive, as the big design decisions already were made when he, Fry and Tombazis left. He also was the one who put Allison on charge.

But as Arrivabene said, this is not his or Mattiaci's car, it's Ferrari's. The work already started with Domenicalli.

 

+1

James was quite simply the man who told Marco who to hire based on his experience. He was Marco's right hand man but basically the one with the knowledge. Marco almost certainly was the one that structured it all up nicely without the ridiculous (but oh so Italian) chain of command where no one knew who was in charge of what...

 

What ever mechanics led to Alonso not being with Ferrari I think played a part in improvement. I do not know what/who those are, so I can't speculate further as to who to thank.

Ferrari was simply not going to win championships with Alonso. I've been hoping for Alonso's replacement with a Torro Rosso driver for the past three years, its been a bit of a bummer each time RBR has pulled the driver I'd of wanted at Ferrari and put them in the RB seat, especially given Ricci's performance. I was hoping last year for Kvat to go Ferrari for this season. I do not know the actual goings on, but my wanting to see Alonso gone is my own worthless opinion based on pit/driver radio I've heard during the races.

 

Hard to say his impact given such a short time he's been with the team.

 

If this Ferrari ends up being competitive, then I credit Vettel. This would be his 3rd team that saw a near immediate improvement when he came on board.

 

Somewhere Marco Mattiacci is either smiling or pissed off.

 

Like Luca I imagine a bit of both.

At this point I don't give a rat's azz who was responsible I'm just happy.

 

Marco Mattiacci has changed life

 

Good for him. I was thinking last week where has he gone. He must have enjoyed his time in the USA. A smart and accomplished executive he is.

 

And I'll bet his new job has a lot less hassel and BS.

 

The most important change at Ferrari was sacking Fry. He was a liability for sure IMO.
Pete

 

Agreed PSk, and let's not forget the others that left. Aerodynamics, engine development, the team principal and the no. 1 driver all left a lot on the table.

 

This is a great point. I've spent my life in management of a fortune 50 company with lots of divisions and subsidiaries, and now management consulting. The mash up of titles at Ferrari always made me laugh. It looked like everybody was in charge. When that happens, you essentially have several companies under the same name going in different directions. This may have been Stefano's shortcoming. Someone, probably Allison/Mattiacci, appear to have put an end to that.

 

Lets hope that it stays together long enough to win a championship or two.

Eventually Ferrari always reverts to disorder.

 

In my opinion Mattiacci didn't do anything for the F1 team when he was in charge and part of it for the short period of time. He didn't achieve anything. So why would I give him credit for something especially now that he is not even part of it;

 

Yet another good point. Ferrari (and others) only seem to thrive when there is a strong leader. A Lauda, Schumacher, Todt, Brawn and hopefully an Allison and Vettel.

 

Notice a commonality among the names you mention?

 

Ya!

 

Post F1/Ferrari lifestyle, from April 2015
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The "commonality" is that none of those mentioned is Italian. I've said it before, but the F1 team seems to hit its highest points when a Germanic (which includes Austria) chap is in charge: Nikki, Schumi, now Vettel?