Editorial on Todt's departure, from Planet F1 | <– Date –> <– Thread –> |
From: Dennis Liu (bigheaddennis![]() |
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Date: Tue, 13 Nov 2007 10:31:39 -0800 (PST) |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- Todt Gets The Ferrari Bullet Monday 12th November 2007 And so the dream team is no more - the men that re-established Ferrari as the undisputed best team in F1 have all gone their separate ways. Designer Rory Byrne has retired, Michael Schumacher has also retired and today we learned that Ross Brawn is leaving the Scuderia and that Jean Todt is being replaced. And whereas two went of their own accord, you have to guess that the other two didn't go quite the way they wanted to. Because after Ross Brawn announced that he was joining Honda, Ferrari quickly cobbled together a press release to say what their future structure would be, when previously they had said the announcement would be late in December. Sporting Director Stefano Domenicali will take Jean Todt's position as head of the Ferrari race team or, as he's known in Maranello, Director of the Gestione Sportiva. Ferrari also said technical director Mario Almondo (a man more at home with personnel and whose move to technical director so enraged Nigel Stepney that he started leaking data to McLaren) will now be the team's operations director, while Aldo Costa will take on the role of technical director. The rushed announcement made it look like Ferrari were covering off the assumption that with Brawn not going back to the team, Todt would continue as head of the race team. Previously Brawn had said that he would only return to Ferrari if he was given the top job - ie Todt's. In the end it has gone to someone with much less experience than either Brawn or Todt, but Domenicali is an Italian in an Italian team. After the shockwaves of Stepneygate, Montezemolo has made the Scuderia very Italian. We first noticed something awry when Brawn's expected return to the Ferrari structure wasn't announced at the Italian GP at Monza, as scheduled. Around about the same time Jean Todt started making noises along the lines that Ross wasn't essential to the running of the team and that he had been well-rewarded for his contributions over the years - a strange thing to say about someone about to return. He also let it be known that he had absolutely no plans of retiring from the race team, which made it appear that it was going to be a "him or me" scenario and president Luca Montezemolo (the di in his name is an affectation) would have to choose. When we learned that Felipe Massa (managed by Todt's son Nicolas) had been signed to a three-year contract in the week of the Brazilian GP, Andrew Davies immediately predicted that Todt would be leaving at the end of the season. The reasoning was this - Ferrari had all the time in the world to arrange an extension of Massa's contract, why would they do it just at a time when Fernando Alonso might be coming free. Unless of course Todt's influence was about to run out. When Montezemolo protested that it wasn't Todt's idea, to re-sign Massa till 2010, it was his own, it didn't ring very true. It made no business sense to tie the Scuderia's hands at a time when they could pick up the third best driver in F1. Now we know that Todt IS leaving. A few weeks ago, when Montezemolo said they would delay announcing the new structure of the team till around Christmas, it then became likely that Ferrari were not going to re-employ Brawn. Why wait till the season is about to start when Ross could be doing vital work on the 2008 car. The fact is the Scuderia have done very well this season without Brawn at the helm and Ross's links with Nigel Stepney can't have helped his case. But in letting him go, they've allowed a prodigious talent to work for another well-backed team. Stefano Domenicali was probably happy to hang around in his role as sporting director for a few years longer, so they could have installed Ross as team boss with minor ruffling of egos. As it is, Ross will regenerate the Honda team and help them take points off Ferrari. In a bizarre way, the race to be Director of the Gestione Sportiva has echoed the drivers' title race. With three grands prix to go, it looked like the current holder, Todt, was going to be pushed all the way by the younger man, Brawn. In the end, neither of them got it, and the unexpected figure of Domenicali came from nowhere. Unlike the drivers' title, there's going to be no appeal. Frank Hopkinson -----Original Message----- From: Dennis Liu [mailto:BigHeadDennis [at] gmail.com] Sent: Monday, November 12, 2007 3:48 PM To: 'The FerrariList' Subject: F1: Domenicali Replaces Todt as Ferrari Team Principal Fascinating! I had definitely concluded that Todt had beaten Montezemolo in boardroom politics - hence the re-signing of Massa. When the Brawn-to-Honda story was announced this morning, I thought that news underscored it - Brawn was waiting to take over the Ferrari F1 team, but Todt didn't want to go, so Brawn instead took Honda's offer. But then this news comes out. Domenicali? Really? Wow. Maybe just to avoid embarrassment over losing Brawn? Timed to the announcement that Schumacher would be testing for Ferrari this pre-season - telling the world that hey, we may have lost Brawn, but we've still got Michael? vty, --Dennis F1: Domenicali Replaces Todt as Ferrari Team Principal Written by: Adam Cooper, RACER Magazine Modena, Italy - 11/12/2007 Stefano Domenicali has replaced Jean Todt as team principal of Scuderia Ferrari by taking over the role of director of Gestione Sportiva, which is what the company calls its racing boss. Todt remains the overall head of Ferrari but from now on will only be seen in the paddock when he feels the need to come to a race. Presumably the double World Championship, achieved without Ross Brawn and Michael Schumacher, has allowed him to walk away at the perfect moment. The 42-year-old Domenicali is a long-term Ferrari man who graduated from the role of team manager via the position of sporting director. He will take over the job in January. Ferrari's announcement was a quick reaction to the news from Honda that Ross Brawn had become team principal. Clearly the team wanted to make the point that Brawn had not been kept out of a Ferrari management role by Todt deciding to stay on. In fact it seems that a year ago the team made a policy decision to promote from within and focus on growing a group of established Italians who were likely to be in it for the long haul. It could be that the Nigel Stepney case has not encouraged the team to want to continue to have too many foreigners into key positions. It remains to be seen whether there ever really was a serious chance of Brawn returning to the team, assuming that Domenicali was always going to get the top job. The restructuring sees erstwhile Technical Director Mario Almondo become Operations Director, although his co-ordination role will apparently be basically the same. Aldo Costa becomes Technical Director, while Frenchman Gilles Simon is Engine Director.
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