quoteFerrari’s boss Arrivabene facing the sack May 11, 2016 · by thejudge13 · in Breaking News. ·
Autosprint, a leading Italian motorsport magazine, claims that following a disappointing first four races in 2016, Maurizio Arrivabene is facing the sack.
Having won one of the four flyaway races in Malaysia last year, it appears Ferrari have slipped back towards their 2014 form which saw the Mercedes team win the opening 4 races of the season.
Having superseded Luca de Montezemolo, new Ferrari president Sergio Marchionne moved quickly to sack his predecessor’s appointment as Scuderia team boss – Marco Mattiachi. It would have been difficult for Marchionne to replace Mattiacci with a non-Italian and so in Arrivabene he appointed a fellow countryman who had served the team for years in a PR role liaising with sponsor Philip Morris.
Maurizio Arrivabene has been a big hit with the media and the fans alike, though he is merely a figurehead with no engineering experience and no large project management experience either.
However, there has been no indication of any internal disputes at Ferrari between James Allison and Arrivabene – so if Maurizio is facing the sack, it could be because Sergio Marchionne needs to ramp up the pressure within the team and someone has to carry the can.
quoteFerrari primed for senior management overhaul?
By Julien Billiotte, 11/05/2016 at 17:17
Recent reports in the Italian press indicate that the Ferrari F1 Team could undergo a major senior management reshuffle in the coming months with technical director James Allison tipped as a potential successor to team principal Maurizio Arrivabene.
It was not long ago that Ferrari president Sergio Marchionne replaced long-standing chairman Luca di Montezemolo in the light of a dismal 2014 campaign.
Arrivabene arrived a couple of months later to take over from Marco Mattiacci, who had been appointed as team principal following Stefano Domenicali’s surprise resignation in April 2014.
Allison came from Lotus in mid-2013, which means his influence on car design only truly started to show on last year’s grand SF15-T. Under his technical stewardship and Arrivabene’s colourful leadership, Ferrari managed to bounce back to win three grands prix in 2015.
In the wake of this return to form, Marchionne set high goals for the Scuderia this year, saying on the eve of the current season that another title-less campaign would be “a tragedy”.
Despite taking another step in terms of performance over the winter, Ferrari has yet to enjoy a clean race weekend in 2016 amidst reliability issues and on-track incidents, and is already trailing Mercedes by 81 points in the Constructors championships.
Meanwhile, the highest-placed Maranello driver in the standings, Kimi Raikkonen, is 55 points behind runaway championship leader Nico Rosberg, with team-mate Sebastian Vettel another 12 adrift.
A report in Autosprint initially suggested that Ferrari looked to re-hire former chief designer Aldo Costa, who parted ways with the Scuderia in 2011 and joined Mercedes as engineering director, to fill Allison’s position should the British engineer step up to take the reins.
However, Motorsport.com claims that Costa is not interested in returning to Maranello. Instead, Ferrari would be keen to poach Toro Rosso’s James Key, whose work on the recent STR chassis has not got unnoticed
quoteARRIVABENE SAYS RAIKKONEN AND VETTEL IDEAL FOR 2017 8 June, 2016
Ferrari team chief Maurizio Arrivabene has indicated that he intends to keep Kimi Raikkonen at the Maranello squad beyond 2016.
The 36-year-old Finn’s contract is expiring, and names including Nico Rosberg and Daniel Ricciardo have been linked with the seat. Sebastian Vettel, however, publicly wants Raikkonen to stay.
When asked to name the ideal teammate for Vettel in 2017, boss Arrivabene answered: “I’ll tell you next year.
“We have the ideal pairing, with both of them pushing forward. What more do we want?” he told the Swiss newspaper Blick.
quoteComing to the current Ferrari drivers. Your approach is identical with them or you try to meet two very different personalities? Maurizio Arrivabene: "It's a compromise. I have a very direct and honest relationship with them, and vice versa. We face very clearly, straightforward. There is never the need to impose anything, you arrive together with what must be done. Then the characters are different. Kimi is more introverted but in the past year and a half has always talked more and he is very accurate when giving directions. Sebastian is open, meticulous, a detail freak. Both are great professionals and you can see when things are not going well. In certain situations you would become demoralized but immediately after you analyze what happened and go on. And if you find yourself at dinner, you discover nice guys, intelligent, people who work in Formula 1 but with which you can tackle many topics, who read a lot and have eyes that go beyond the paddock."
When Ferrari has a driver out of contract you can't escape the game of predictions for the upcoming season. Raikkonen will stay or you look beyond? "I have said many times that we have two World Champion drivers. Sebastian wanted Ferrari, it was his aspiration as it is to many other drivers. And he is focused on his work and I think he wants to stay here long. Kimi is giving his contribution also for the constructors' championship and in the first part of the 2016 season he is going well. When the car is in place, I don't think that he is inferior to anyone. But it's early to give definitive answers for the next year, we have almost two-thirds of the season ahead of us."
It´s really hard as Kimi fan in this silly season times So thoughts from another guy:
quoteFerrari faces risks if it drops Raikkonen, says Prost
By: Jonathan Noble, Formula 1 Editor
Ferrari could find a quicker driver to replace Kimi Raikkonen for 2017, but such a move may not be the best thing for the team, reckons Alain Prost.
Raikkonen’s contract at Maranello runs out at the end of the year, and there have been growing question marks about what Ferrari chiefs will do in light of recent mistakes the Finn has made.
However, Ferrari is also well aware that Raikkonen works well with teammate Sebastian Vettel and, after Raikkonen moved aside for Vettel in Baku last weekend, the team knows the benefits of not having friction between its stars.
Speaking at the FIA Sport Conference in Turin, former Ferrari driver Prost understands that the Italian team faces a tough choice – especially with promising talent like Carlos Sainz and Sergio Perez potentially available.
“Everybody can see the positive points and the negative points,” said Prost about the Raikkonen situation. “There are one or two drivers on the market who could be quite good for Ferrari, maybe a little bit quicker, but you do not know [for definite].
“One thing you also have to take into consideration is the pressure at Ferrari. Sometimes you can see some very good drivers in an average team and, when they go to a top team, they do not perform the same because it is a little bit different.
“The positive sign for him [Raikkonen] to stay is that he has a very good relation with Vettel and you have a number one and number two, not on paper, but in fact. For the ambience it is not bad.
“To be honest, I don’t blame them [Ferrari] and I don’t criticise. I am sure they are going to make the right decision.”
We really can't argue anymore about the fact of Kimi being considered the number two driver, now we can only be grateful for him to stay one more year in Ferrari.
Anyway
I read about Turrini saying Ferrari and Kimi were close to sign a new contract, so that can only be good news IMO.
I however find it sad for Kimi to finish his carreer in F1 as number 2 driver. One must never forget that when driving for McLaren he could have been champ but engines failure did not helped him at that time.
I sincerely hope so even if he had one only world Champ title. I remember when he started with Sauber, Mr Sauber did say he never he'd seen such a cautious guy speaking very few but noticing every thing and being highly professionnal even if pretty young at that time. Then with McLaren I don''t remember his name bit Dr. XX presented his excuses to Kimi many many times cause the engines failure, which made that bKimi never got a World Champ title even if the fastest on track.
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Mon Mar 28, 2016 7:33 pm
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