Without a win this year and just one podium, Ferrari has dumped its technical director
Revival of Prancing Horse in hands of ex-McLaren man
Just five days after extending the contract of Spanish dual world champion Fernando Alonso for another five years, Formula One's oldest, most successful and most revered team, Ferrari, is in turmoil, sacking its technical director.
Ferrari announced overnight that Aldo Costa will "take on new responsibilities within the company".
After a terrible start in this year's world championship which sees the team with just one podium from five races, Costa will effectively be replaced by Pat Fry, a British engineer who spent 18 years with Ferrari's greatest rival, McLaren.
Fry joined the Italian team less than a year ago and in January was promoted into the role of head of racetrack engineering in place of Australian, Chris Dyer.
Dyer had worked with Michael Schumacher and Kimi Raikkonen in world title-winning seasons but was blamed for the strategy that resulted in Alonso finishing only seventh in last season's finale in Abu Dhabi when he was a chance to win a third world championship in his debut season with the Italian stable.
As we reported in early January, Dyer's role at Ferrari was to be "redefined" within days but nothing more has been heard of him.
Pressure always mounts at Ferrari when the team is not winning and last Sunday in Barcelona, where Alonso led the first 18 laps but ended a lap down, team principal Stefano Domenicali was reported by Spain's AS newspaper to have been on the receiving end of harsh words from Emilio Botin, boss of the team's main sponsor, giant Spanish bank Santander.
Ferrari has struggled on this year's Pirelli tyres, especially the harder compounds, and has complained that aerodynamics are playing too big a part in F1 now. In Barcelona it was forced to remove a new, higher rear wing it had hoped would improve its performance.
The team is hoping that its cars will be better suited to the Monaco street circuit where practice begins tomorrow (Thursday) night and at the following grand prix in Montreal, Canada. However, it is a decade since Ferrari won in Monaco, although Alonso has won in the principality for Renault and McLaren.
A shrewd politician as well as a brilliant driver, Alonso is demanding significant changes (and improvement) to the F150 Italia model Ferrari by the time F1 returns to Spain at the end of June for the European GP in Valencia.
"We were too slow on soft tyres and very slow on hard ones," Alonso said of the Barcelona race. "We took a step forward but at the same time McLaren and Red Bull took two. I have not given up but we need a better car games. Let's see what happens at Valencia at the latest."
Alonso is fifth in the championship, already 67 points behind Red Bull leader Sebastian Vettel with his only podium being third place at the Turkish GP on May 8.
Ferrari's other driver, Brazilian Felipe Massa, is eighth in the championship, 94 points behind German Vettel, and in Barcelona was one of only three non-finishers with a gearbox failure.
In the constructors' championship Ferrari is 110 points behind Red Bull and 63 behind McLaren.
Domenicali admitted in Barcelona it "hurt" to see Alonso go from leader for almost one third of the race to being lapped in a drive he said was that of "a Lion", evoking memories of another Ferrari favourite, Nigel Mansell.
"We need to provide him [Alonso] and Felipe with a car with which they can fight all the way to the end of a race," he said.
It is a far cry from the days when Michael Schumacher reigned. The German won the last five of his seven world titles with Ferrari, then run by Jean Todt (now president of the Federation Internationale de l'Automobile -- FIA). Its technical director Ross Brawn is now running the Mercedes team which won the 2009 title.
In the golden days Ferrari also had the talents full-time of designer Rory Byrne and its chief mechanic was Nigel Stepney, later banned from F1 in the Spygate scandal for passing secrets to Ferrari. Stepney is now working in the Nissan team in which David Brabham races in the GT1 world championship.
Although Ferrari won a world title with Raikkonen in 2007, it has been on the slide since, with Alonso's talent last year perhaps masking the extent of its problems. Costa had been technical director since the end of 2007.
Fry has not been given that title but rather has been appointed "the director of the chassis side".
Production will be in the hands of Corrado Lanzone, while Luca Marmorini remains in charge of engine and electronics.
Domenicali admitted before the news of Costa's ousting that if Red Bull "keep progressing like they have, then no doubt it [the championship] will not be easy [for Ferrari]".
"They are very far ahead, so we need to make sure we do the maximum to recover," Domenicali said. "The nature of the people in Maranello [Ferrari's headquarters] has to be that they need to push and to work hard because we want to keep it alive as long as possible, so we still believe. Sunday [in Barcelona] was the worst race we have had since the beginning of the season in terms of race pace because before that we were quick, so it's a shame.
"We need to see where we are in the next couple of GPs because we will have much softer tyres and a different configuration of the track. Then we will see where we are in terms of fighting for the title.
"We know it is difficult, but we don't give up," he stated.
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