Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo has ruled out any major personnel changes at his team for 2011 and has vowed to start the season with a competitive car.
After Fernando Alonso's chances of winning the 2010 championship were dashed by a strategic blunder at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, sections of the Italian media reported that "heads will roll" in Maranello. But Montezemolo said the management structure and technical staff will not change dramatically, with Pat Fry the only notable addition to the team after switching from McLaren midway through last season.
"We will not repeat the mistakes of the past," Montezemolo insisted during an interview with Auto Motor und Sport. "There will be a few job changes and adjustments but nothing dramatic, just the normal process of good people from the second row moving forward. With Pat Fry from McLaren, we have only brought in one man from the outside, and this happened long before Abu Dhabi."
He said Ferrari was purely focused on starting the season with a faster car than its rivals, which he believes is where the team went wrong this year.
"Even though we won the first race this year, we did not have the best car from the start, we won [in Bahrain] only because Red Bull had a problem," added Montezemolo. "We improved significantly this year compared to 2009, but - as was the case the previous year as well - Red Bull had the best car. Next time we must have the best car from the first race."
Source: ESPNF1
