Ferrari has added reliability to its romantic Formula One image as Michael Schumacher prepares to defend his drivers’ title when the season starts in Australia on Sunday
Oliver Owen
For many years in Grand Prix racing there were two types of team British and Ferrari. There was the odd interloper such as Ligier and Renault but in the main the top teams were either based in Britain or in the small Italian town of Maranello.
The British teams were efficient and functional. They had a “no-frills” approach to their motor racing and their success went in a cycle. Lotus would run at the front and then Tyrrell would take over. If McLaren were the top team then you could expect Williams to come along and leap-frog ahead of them. They embraced the arrival of sponsorship with great enthusiasm and no little common sense. They all relied on the ubiquitous Ford-Cosworth V8 for their horsepower.
Ferrari were a little different. They had been in the sport since the world championship began and attacked it with their hearts. The team were glamorous but chaotic and when things weren’t going well they were shambolic. They refused to go down the V8 route and instead used a screaming flat 12. It was all very Italian it looked great but didn’t always work. They weren’t keen on sponsorship either. Enzo Ferrari built his expensive road cars to pay for his race team, whose cars would remain gloriously “flame red”.
At the end of last season Michael Schumacher put Ferrari back at the front of Formula One after 21 years of abject failures and, more recently, tantalising near misses. His win in Malaysia guaranteed that Ferrari would carry the number one in 2001 and Italy went berserk. The cars that carry the “Prancing Horse” represent Italian motor racing’s national team and they are supported with a fervour that Jaguar can only dream about. It doesn’t really matter who’s driving the thing victory is Ferrari’s.
Now that they have learned how to win again they have to discover how to stay ahead of the pack. Ferrari’s record in this department is awful. Not since the 1952/1953 seasons has the team won back-to-back drivers’ titles, but now there is a stability about them that should prevent last season’s success becoming a descent into another deep trough.
So what’s changed at Maranello? Essentially, the team has become more “British”. Gone is the “fly-by-the-seat-of-the-pants” instincts that so bedevilled the outfit. The whole thing is a lot less Latin.
There is a management structure in place that is pulling in the same direction and isn’t carrying the excess baggage of history. In Jean Todt, Ross Brawn and Rory Byrne, Ferrari have three of the wisest heads in the business, proven winners in F1 and other spheres of the sport.
Sporting director Todt has moulded the team into a slick unit and Brawn provides the brains. His attention to detail is legendary and as a strategist he is without equal. Byrne designs the cars and has made the most of the rigid rules that now govern Grand Prix racing. In the current scheme of things designers are as important as the men who drive their creations. If McLaren’s Adrian Newey is the Schumacher of designers then Byrne is not far behind.
The vital ingredient is Schumacher. Like all great champions he is single-minded and selfish. He might not be as popular in Italy as Ferrari drivers in years gone by (learning Italian might help) but he has the team working for him and, so it seems, for him alone. He is not paid 20-million a year to come second. He makes sure everyone else is aware of that too.
Rubens Barrichello talked of having equal status when he joined Ferrari at the beginning of last year but that was all it was talk. His job is to defend Schumacher and pick up the pieces should the German not be around at the finish. Eddie Irvine described partnering Schumacher as like being “hit over the head with a cricket bat” and even as the Ulsterman challenged for the championship at the end of 1999 the Ferrari number one returned from injury and made it quite clear he was the main man.
That Schumacher is the best driver of his generation is without question. He is the only man in recent history to win the championship without having the best car underneath him (Benetton and Ferrari); he is also the most driven. Alain Prost’s record of 51 Grand Prix victories is in his sights (he’s on 44) and if he wins another title he will equal the Frenchman on four and be within one of the legendary Juan Manuel Fangio.
Schumacher’s place in history is assured but this is a man who, when he leaves the sport, wants his name all over the record books like a rash. This will guarantee that Ferrari do not drop the ball when it comes to defending the title. At the moment the German’s plans beyond next year are unknown but Ferrari will be desperate not to lose him.
In the past Ferrari have enjoyed short-lived success. After every triumph came a fall not always of their own making but a fall nonetheless. This time it will be different. A new professionalism has gripped Maranello and falling from the top of the pile is not an option. This is New Ferrari, a team who have reinvented themselves and become more successful by abandoning their long-held beliefs. Hell, the cars aren’t even scarlet any more but are dressed in the corporate red of sponsors Marlboro.
Were Enzo Ferrari, the company’s founder who died in 1988, alive today he would not recognise the team after their transformation. The name may still be Ferrari but things have certainly changed and that might just be the key to their continued success.
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