Monaco GP – Domenicali: “It was a decision taken for the good of the team”

The Friday of the Monaco Grand Prix is always a strange day. Officially it’s a day of rest yet the paddock and the pit lane are a frenzy of activity until the evening. With so much time available, the engineers make the most of it to study the data they’ve collected in the three hours of yesterday’s free practice to the tiniest detail. They also meet with the drivers and give the latest information to the mechanics who have to prepare the cars for the rest of the weekend.

Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro also followed this programme, with meetings that began at 11am and didn’t finish until after 7pm. Felipe and Fernando joined in with some of these briefings but they were also involved in PR activities, among them an autograph session organised by the grand prix promoter and cocktails with a group of Ferrari clients. For Felipe there was a special end to the day with his participation as a model at the Monaco Charity Fashion Show, which earned the most applause of the evening.

But Ferrari’s day was summed up above all by this afternoon’s briefing by Team Principal Stefano Domenicali for the press from Italy and the rest of the world. The hottest topic – and it couldn’t have been anything else – was the reorganisation of the technical division of the Scuderia that was announced last Tuesday.

“It was a decision that was taken for the good of the team, in order to improve,” explained Domenicali. “It was a rational decision, not an emotional one: a change that brings stability for the future.” It was certainly the hardest decision of Domenicali’s career, which will total twenty years at Ferrari a few days from now. “I don’t want to go into the details out of my respect for Aldo, a person who is a friend who I admire. We aren’t here to make things personal. Over the years there have been changes for various reasons: some have asked to have certain responsibilities taken away, such as Chris Dyer who had a problem of authority after the outcome of the race in Abu Dhabi. Now this decision was difficult because I’ve worked together with Aldo for so many years. But in my position you have to take the most rational decisions possible for the good of the team, even when they are hard.”

For those who made objections about timing, Domenicali replied: “These are structured timings that can’t be linked to the racing calendar. We want to keep competing for this world championship but we are obviously also working on the car for 2012, which is starting to take shape at this time. The decision was welcomed by the team, which reacted by immediately putting its foot on the accelerator. Clearly you can’t expect something to change in two days. It’s a question of changing working methods and trying to improve them, otherwise there’s no point in changing. We will try to establish different priorities in the car’s development.”

Domenicali didn’t play down his own responsibilities and he refused to see the reorganisation as a defeat for the Italian side of the team. “I know well that I am also under the microscope. It’s always like that and those are the rules of the game. It’s true that there is an Englishman, Pat Fry, in Costa’s place but when it comes to Italians there are also Marmorini and Lanzone alongside myself. Tombazis? Nikolas remains in charge of planning the car and he will have to concentrate on developing the aerodynamic side, the area where we concentrate the most effort. Perhaps the culture of aerodynamics doesn’t play a big part among the talents of Italy and we ought to make some important interventions to improve that situation.”

Source: Ferrari.com

Sebastian Vettel's Dream Team

Source: AlessaFainello

BBC F1 2011 - 1 Melbourne - Fernando Alonso - Team orders useful for all

Ferrari's Fernando Alonso welcomes the rule change to allow team orders during the 2011 F1 season, and pays tribute to the injured Robert Kubica



Source: BBC - FiftyBuckss

Räikkönen is now the master of his own rally team

Kimi Räikkönen drives his blackish brand new Citroen DS3 WRC-car as the master of his ICE1 Racing team in Sweden. His mullet is even longer and can't be hidden underneath his big Red Bull -beanie. The speed has improved a bit since last year, now that this new car suits the man's driving style better

Yet Räikkönen says that nothing has changed from last year although his time with Citroen's Junior team ended.

– We did things the same way we did last year. It was better to come up with something and make an own team if I still wanted to drive rally. This was the easiest option, Räikkönen tells.

The model is the same as Petter Solberg's.

You registered to Sweden in the last minute. Was everything put together at the last moment?

– I wouldn't say that anything happened in the last moment, Räikkönen calms.

Was your continuance in rally clear already last autumn?

– No it wasn't but nothing would have changed even if we would have announced during the last race that we will drive this year also. We couldn't have drove any more than we could now because the new cars weren't ready.

Could you aswell had switched to Ford and drove rally with Fiesta?

– I would have got a good car from there too with the same system. There is no difference to last year. It's just easier for me to continue here because I already spent a year with these people.

A bunch of French speaking mechanics from Citroen are working around Räikkönen's car. Nobody outside the factory wouldn't even be allowed to touch the new cars, computers and engines.

Räikkönen keeps his possible goals as his own secret. It would be logical to go for 6th unless Ford has escaped from Citroen.

– Let's drive and see. After that we see how we do.

In Thursday shakedown Räikkönen drove seven times an 8 kilometer test stage. Is the car different when compared to C4 WRC?

– There aren't many differences. It's a Super 2000-style car. It's more good in your hands and I think it turns easier, Räikkönen said. He has the experience of four rallies in 2009 with Fiat S2000.

Does this fit your driving style better?

– So far it has felt pretty good. It's difficult to say how it will go when it's the real deal.

There was raining snow in Hagfors and it will rain at least until Friday morning. The new snow didn't fit Michelin's spiky tyres at all.

– The new tires seem to be tricky because once you got just a little on the snow there was no grip left and it went into a waterslide. Although snow is a great element under normal conditions, Räikkönen said.

Räikkönen tested only for one day the new car to Sweden.

– But that wasn't a full day either since the engine broke down because it had probably been used in all Citroen's tests.

Kaj Lindström quickly lists the differences between this year's and last year's Citroen.

– This is smaller by size, the engine is different and the transmission is ordered by a stick. The biggest difference is the lack of centerlocking. That's why the car is a bit different to drive when it rams a bit and doesn't turn as easily.

Räikkönen's schedule is so wide that some track races could be placed inbetween - like for example Le Mans 24 h in June?

– Let's see what happens. I don't know anything yet and I don't have anything to tell, Räikkönen said.

Then will we possibly see Räikkönen in a F1-car this year or sometime later?

– It's difficult to say, Räikkönen defined.
The Finn has been taken to Renault to replace Robert Kubica only in the wildest rumours.

Turun Sanomat, Hagfors

Courtesy: Nicole

No management shakeup at Ferrari - Montezemolo

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

Räikkönen busy putting up a World Cup team in Fuengirola?

Tuesday, 23.11.2010 at 23.16

Räikkönen's motocross team is expected to be located in Costa del Sol.

Will Kimi become a team manager in Costa del Sol?

It was reported already earlier in the week that Kimi Raikkonen is planning to put up a motocross team.

Now Fuengirola.fi site reported that Räikkönen has been seen in Fuengirola watching places with multi world champion Kari Tiainen.

Tiainen owns big bike-teams on Fuengirola's and Mijas' borderline where the terrains offer good opportunities for training for motocross.

According to Fuengirola.fi Riku Kuvaja has been seen in Fuengirola.

Source: IL
Courtesy: Nicole

Räikkönen will found a team in Motocross WC-serie

Vauhdin Maailma November, paper edition

Kimi Räikkönen who has gone through a hard school this season in WRC-serie doesn't fear new challenges. According to very reliable sources Vauhdin Maailma has got Räikkönen is founding a Finnish team to motocross WC-serie 2011.

The project is called "Team Räikkönen" and it has been prepared behind the scenes for a longer time. The goal is to have two Finnish drivers out of which one would be in the toughest MX1-serie and the other one in MX2-serie.

Räikkönen's motocross team will compete with KTM-bikes. Very respectable and skillfull persons are involved in the team's operative activity, for example 7-time world champion Kari Tiainen.

Räikkönen himself has been asking the promising super talent Harri Kullas as a driver to his team but the 18-year old biker already has a signed contract for next season with another team so the cooperation will not come true. At the moment on top of Räikkönen's list is Toni Eriksson, a recent MX1-serie's national champion who won on the side the MX3-serie's WC-start and also Ludde Söderberg who got a trophy from MX2-serie's national serie and who won a race in Europe's start. Also Antti Pyrhönen has been included and the young promise Juuso Matikainen hasn't either been excluded from the game.

Kimi Räikkönen is not going to compete in the serie himself although he is known as an enthusiastic hobby-motocrossbiker. In the background he has an unselfish will to help Finns rise to the top again in one of our most traditional successful sports. It has been too long since for example Heikki Mikkola, Pekka Vehkonen or Miska Aaltonen held up Finland's flag in international cross-arenas.

Motorsport Federation's CEO Kurt Ljungqvist confirmed to Vauhdin Maailma that the rumours about Team Räikkönen's plans for the motocross WC-serie are true.

- I have helped so much in this matter that I asked the International Motorsport Federation if there would be a place for a new team like this immediately. The reply was quick and straightforward; no problems, it can be arranged, Ljungqvist tells.

- We are talking about a very serious project. Why wouldn't it come true? Especially when thinking about how tough professionals are involved in this starting from Kari Tiainen.

The funding won't be a problem since they have Räikkönen's fortune over tens of millions. It's also clear that the F1-champion's name will significantly help in getting sponsors for the team and the drivers. According to Ljungqvist it costs about 500.000 euros per season to run a team with two bikes in motocross.

- It's the input for the first year when nothing isn't ready yet and they have to get everything starting from bikes to garage-tents. After that it's much more cheaper to run a top team.

Vauhdin Maailma didn't get hold of Kimi Räikkönen for his comment on the matter.

Olli Koivusalo

Courtesy: Nicole

FIA to consider team orders breach on September 8

The FIA's World Motor Sport Council will consider Ferrari's team orders breach on 8 September.

For the position switch at Hockenheim last month, the Italian team was fined $100,000 by the stewards for breaking not only the tam order rule 39.1, but also the general guideline about disrepute.

It had been speculated that the disciplinary hearing would be held in Como, Italy, on September 10 -- the day of a scheduled Council meeting.

But that would have clashed with Friday practice for the Italian Grand Prix.

The sport's governing body has therefore convened a separate meeting two days earlier for the Ferrari matter, in Paris on September 8.

FIA president Jean Todt, implicated in the infamous Austria 2002 team orders controversy, will not chair the meeting; instead it will be headed by the deputy president for sport, Graham Stoker.

Also on Monday, Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo referred to some recent "perplexing decisions".

"But we must look ahead and believe in the fact that today, we are in the fight for the championship," said the Italian.

"This is the Ferrari I like to see and the one our fans want to see; a team that can fight and deliver the results."

Like McLaren, Ferrari's factory shut down for two weeks on Sunday.

Source: Motorsport

Alonso's Blog: A win down to hard work from the team

All wins are special. Winning is a great feeling and that was the case in Hockenheim, especially when I think of the huge workload undertaken by everyone at Maranello to achieve this fantastic one-two finish. No one ever gave up and I know how pleased they were to see two Ferraris cross the line ahead of all our rivals. For over a month now we have been saying that we had to get back to winning at least once before the summer break and finally, we did it. We did not have much luck in some races and, because of unusual incidents, we did not pick up the points we deserved. There was a slight feeling of frustration with this lack of results, but at last in Germany, for once we had a normal race on a weekend when he had no problems whatsoever and the result was there for all to see.

However, the win does not change my approach to the rest of the season. We knew full before Hockenheim that our car was much more competitive and that was what made me so confident. Now we must continue in this direction, starting this coming weekend in Budapest. The Hungaroring is a special circuit for me. It was here in 2003 that I scored my first Formula 1 win and I was on pole here last year. Returning to that 24th August seven years ago, I don’t remember much about the events of the day, because it was so emotional I had the impression that everything happened incredibly quickly: it would be nice to relive that experience this weekend at the wheel of a Ferrari.

The track can almost be described as a go-kart track for Formula 1 cars. The corners follow on, one from the other, so there is nowhere for a driver to pause for breath and it is vital to have a car that deals with the many bumps in the track surface and handles riding the kerbs. From the physical and mental point of view it is a pretty demanding race, so it is important not to get impetuous and overcook things, because any mistake is heavily penalised, especially in qualifying. It’s best to stay focussed and concentrate on your own work, trying to put together the perfect weekend, one step at a time. That is what we plan to do, starting on Thursday. I have already said it many times before: there is still a long way to go in the championship and the maths will only be done at the end.

Source: Alonso's Blog - Ferrari.com

Lewis & Jenson, one car, no team -- Vodafone ad

What happens when two world class F1 drivers try to build their own car without their team? Vodafone McLaren Mercedes drivers depend on their team; their team depends on our network.

Source: VODAFONEUK

Alonso's Blog: I trust in the team’s ability to react

Posted by Fernando Alonso

The Turkish Grand Prix was without doubt the worst event of the season. Our performance level was simply not competitive compared to McLaren and Red Bull and in qualifying, we even struggled against teams that up until now, were behind us. I wasn’t able to get to Q3 and so that compromised my race: when you start from twelfth, there is not much you can do.

On Sunday I did what I could: it was a case of damage limitation and I think we succeeded in that. On the opening lap I did not lose any places, which was not that easy given I was starting from the dirty side of the track. After that, I managed to get ahead of some cars thanks to a good pit stop strategy. Then came the most boring part of the race. I was at the back of a train made up of the two Mercedes, the two Renaults and the two Ferraris. We all had more or less the same pace, so overtaking would have been very tricky. At first, I tried to look after the tyres to see if that would give me a chance in the final laps and indeed, at the end, Petrov was struggling more than me with his tyres and I made the most of it to overtake him four laps from the chequered flag.

All the same, it wasn’t easy and in the passing move I damaged a wheel rim, but luckily I was able to finish the race without any problems, bringing home at least a few points. I am sorry I was not able to celebrate Ferrari’s eight hundredth Grand Prix in a fitting way. In Istanbul we were not quick enough and we have to react immediately. The championship is still wide open with everything to play for. I am fourth in the classification, fourteen points off the leader and if the old points system still applied, the difference would be just four. However, it’s clear we need to make a jump forward in terms of developing the car. Over the first four races, we matched the pace of our main rivals, but since we have been back in Europe, that is no longer the case. When I was racing against Ferrari, I admired its ability to react, producing probably the best development during the season. The people are the same now, so there is no reason why the same thing cannot happen this year: I trust our team and, above all, I trust in the will to win that every last one of us shares.

For Valencia, we will have a major update package which should see us make a good step forward, but I believe that already in Canada, we will have a different situation. The Montreal circuit will be better suited to the characteristics of the F10 and I think we will definitely be more competitive.

Source: Alonso's Blog - Ferrari.com

Monaco GP - A team effort

Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro took twenty points home from the Monaco Grand Prix, thanks to a fourth place from Felipe Massa and sixth from Fernando Alonso. This result means the Spaniard maintains the three point difference to the two drivers leading their classification, while Felipe goes up from seventh to sixth. In the Constructor’s Championship, the Scuderia is second, twenty points down on the leader.

Stefano Domenicali: “First and foremost, I want to congratulate the team and the drivers who did a perfect job today. Felipe drove impeccably, pushing hard when he could and running at the same pace as the leaders. Fernando produced an amazing climb through the field: starting from pit lane and finishing sixth is a great result, which came courtesy of a drive that was as aggressive at the start as it was well judged at the end. The chosen strategy, to immediately stop and change tyres proved to be absolutely the right one. After a Saturday that was not up to our expectations or potential, today we showed what we could do. Even if one team has the edge in terms of performance, both championships are still very open. We must continue to develop the car and work hard to reach our objectives.”

Felipe Massa: “On this track, if you don’t make up places at the start, it is difficult to pass other cars, especially if they have a similar race pace. You need to be patient and then exploit any eventuality such as others making mistakes. I ran almost all the race behind Vettel and Kubica and finished in the same position from which I had started: I don’t think I could have done more. This weekend, the car was very good and the tyres worked well: now we must ensure that is the case at all tracks and with all types of tyre. Today’s points are very important in the classification, but now we must ensure we are as well prepared as possible for the Turkish Grand Prix, one of my favourite races.”

Fernando Alonso: “This result is a morale booster. To start from pit lane and finish sixth is way more than we could have expected. It was a difficult Sunday for me and much of the credit for this result goes to the team, which chose an aggressive strategy and worked hard to build the car for the race, starting from almost zero: to finish a race like this without having problems is the result of a super job. I lived through the initial passing moves with a bit of frustration: when you are behind a slower car and there is no room to pass, it’s difficult. Coming out of the tunnel was the best place to do it and some drivers were good about it, others less so. I passed five or six cars on the track and another dozen thanks to a nice strategy. On Thursday I only did twelve laps on these tyres and today I did 77 and the car still worked well throughout. It’s hard to say what might have been, if I had taken part in qualifying: I was definitely on form and pole was within our reach. We must stay calm and work well: the results will come and it was clear to see today how talented our team is. At the end of the nineteen races in the championship we will see who is strongest. If it’s not us, it will mean someone else did a better job, not because we haven’t tried our best.”

Chris Dyer: “A difficult race as usual at this track. Felipe started fourth and finished the race in the same position: overtaking is almost impossible here. There was a bit of degradation on his softer tyres and we stopped a few laps earlier than planned, but we still managed to maintain position. Fernando got a great result. We had planned right from the start to stop on the first lap to change tyres and we managed, also thanks to the race being neutralised, to make up several places when other drivers pitted, after also passing a few cars on track. Then, for Fernando, the main job was to look after the tyres and the car, given that he did practically the whole race on the same set of tyres. He did it perfectly and always remained in touch with the quickest guys, ready to make the most of any eventual problems.”

Source: Ferrari.com

Jenson & Lewis in Style

See the winners of our contest modelling the 2010 merchandise collections with Jenson, Lewis and the team.

The animated video was shot at the McLaren Technology Centre and shows the collections available at www.mclarenshop.com.



Source: OfficialMcLarenVids - YouTube