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| Photo: Octane Photography |
But these people may not be aware that he's got a previous at the coalface, running an F1 team on a day-to-day basis. And what's more he was very good at it.
Over at Vital F1 I tell the story of Montezemolo's highly successful time as Ferrari's team chief. You can read the article here: http://www.vitalf1.com/sitepage.asp?a=2284
I believe he should go.
ReplyDeleteHis past accomplishments notwithstanding, the current situation at Ferrari is entirely his doing, and in any other organization failure of this magnitude would mean the sack.
He schemed to curtail Todt's increasing power and influence at Ferrari, which forced Schumacher into an early retirement, caused Todt to resign and led to the exodus of all the talent that made Ferrari an unbeatable force.
I think the Raikkonen chapter is illustrative of Montezemolo's failure over the last ten years or so, think about it: you fire a five-time champ to hire this guy, then put him on hold for two years with full salary, then bring him back again?
Possibly - though if Luca Montezemolo was to leave Ferrari I think there would need to be a careful succession plan in place first. I think there's a big risk that Ferrari minus Montezemolo if done too suddenly would create a rather horrid power struggle, rather like Ferrari in the years after Enzo died.
DeleteI suppose in Montezemolo's defence about Schumacher's early retirement, Schumi was umming and ahhing about his future at the time, and given he was 37 and his retirement seemed imminent Montezemolo was seeking to protect Ferrari's future with drivers. So he snapped up Raikkonen. Probably the team should have gone for Alonso instead, but Todt had resolved to never have Alonso drive for Ferrari as long as he was there (due to him verbally accepting but then later declining a testing role there for 2002). I think by that stage Alonso was committed to McLaren anyway.
As for Ferrari signing Kimi back, I do struggle to explain it, even before Kimi's relative struggles in the first four rounds this year. I can only assume that after Alonso's manager's contact with Red Bull mid last year Ferrari was worried Alonso would leave and wanted to protect itself again, or else wanted to punish Alonso for his wandering eye...