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They have the money, they surely have the drivers, so what is it? Anything other than resource management and lack of leadership?

I say off with Dominicalli's head, he took a successful formula of a winning team and butchered it. His best year as a team boss was 2008 and that one was inherited from 2007's team


4 years later, no WDCs no WCCs, cars that are 3rd fastest at their best, updates that don't work, extremely bad driver management (IMO) and the list goes on


What do you think? I'm wondering if Dominicalli will blame it this time on Massa. We all know he used the same excuse on a different driver back in 2009

Should Dominicalli be given more time? Is he doing the best job possible?

Find it hard to blame any one cog in a big movement. As a team boss he will go with whatever the designers and aero guys tell him will be the way to go.

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It's the Alonso factor, to much pressure with no in season testing to take advantage of. Instead damaged image with Massa being teated awfully, and even the lead driver him self questing the team publicly. It's all a bit of a mess really.

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Driver Instructor & Test Driver

I think the boss always should take the blame. If his engineers are not good enough, he has the biggest resource in the field to get better people. Things are not as simple as bring the best people in the sport and they will give you a god result, it's about managing them the right way.

Just look at Flavio, who has zero technical abilities, but he knows how to build a team. Look at Brawn, who's a genius when he was in Ferrari, failed to field a decent car for so many years, except one fluke in 2009 when he outspent everyone and spent a whole year developing that car.

Management plays a huge role




That's another sign of weak management. It almost feels that Alonso is the boss and Dominicalli is scared of him. Also the way they handled Massa and also Kimi in 2009 is simply disgusting

How Ferrari does it? I do not know...

I know many were pointing the finger at Pat Fry, but remember they fired Aldo Costa in the middle of the season last year and I think it does not only comes on the designer, but just how does things work behind the scenes?

Alonso complaining about the upgrades have not been noticeable since what June or July at one point? Its all about the packaging of the car and the Ferrari looked like a brick compared to the Red Bull. Look at a side by side of them both...

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Felipe Massa fan/supporter since 2002 and counting!

The way I see it is that Dominicalli has no excuse. He can't say "my excuse is Newey". He blamed it on Kimi in 2009 and said he needed a driver who can lead the team and help more in developing the car

Now he had that driver for 3 years, what did he do? Was Alonso the missing factor in Ferrari? Or was just an excuse that he used?

Time has proved that it wasn't the case. If I'm one of the bosses I'd be very upset, if you give everything to your top man, you expect him to deliver, and Dominicalli hasn't.

LdM might cut him some slack because he's Italian, and I bet if he wasn't he would've been handed his early settlement check back in 2010

2012 was their best year since 2008.

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The end is near

They only JUST lost out to a team spending $100 million+ more than them .... so no, not yet.

Still not good enough. They barely made it into 2nd in the WCC, and that was purely down to luck, and a lot of it when you take into consideration what happened to McLaren this year

Things can't just stay the same. Ferrari started firing people in 2010/11 and still they're not up there. That means all the people they fired were not the problem.

Who in his right mind would fire Chris Dyer? One of the best employees Ferrari ever had, and for what? A single mistake. That's bad management. Who would fire (or agree) to get rid of his last WDC when he was driving his teeth out and single handedly kept Ferrari in the 4th position in 2009? Because of money most probably. But is that considered good management?

I think LdM, or I hope, won't let it pass easily this time. Dominicalli is weak and he's not a Ferrari boss material. Maybe they should think of getting Ross back or even Flavio. The latter is Italian and Alonso's manager too so it should be an easy sell of LdM decided to let SD go

Stefano is always very deflective , sneaky operator.

They need a big change in people and style otherwise they will continue to come up short.

I think this ones on Pat Fry. Its questionable weather he should be fired because he hasnt been in the position too long but the abysmal state of the Ferrari at the start of the season and utter lack of new parts at the end when all the competition was still developing their cars lays squarely on his shoulders.

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Again, same guy was super in McLaren and helped producing a top car. Brought into Ferrari and failed to deliver. What does that tell you?

Ferrari Senior management needs to go sooner than later.

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Minds are like parachutes, they work best when they are open

It's the Ferrari culture and politics.

I agree with the previous poster that 2012 has been the best year since 2008. I think Newey built a better mouse trap. Better than all of the teams. I am in the camp that his Red Bull flexi-wing is illegal, and that Charlie Whiting should have banned it early on.

I have no idea how good any of the Ferrari designers are. But I do think that Ferrari's aerdynamicist may be the weak link. Why fire Domenicali if the aerodynamics are the primary issue?

Stop being sensible and reasonable. It's out of character for this forum.

Personally, i would let things sit. Rear end stability wont be a big issue for them in 2013, this is a big bonus. Massa has fought his way back towards his best (my driver of the day at the last two races). This bodes well for next season...

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Forza Ferrari

And who's job is it to get the right people in the right place?

Poor Ferrari. It must be hard being such a small team with limited resources. They've certainly never thrown massive amounts of money at an F1 championship, always winning it without massive amounts of in season testing and development.

Seems Ferrari can't catch a break since deliberately shredding Kimi's character publicly (with sellout media's help).

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Kimi has always looked better in black.

Didn't Ferrari discover a problem with their wind tunnel not too long ago, which was the reason why their upgrades were a pile of rubbish?
Hardly Pat Fry's (or anyone else's) fault then that they couldn't continue to upgrade properly.

Until they fix the calibration (or whatever the problem was) on the windtunnel they can kiss championships goodbye.

They knew they had a problem a long time ago and have had the use of the Toyota wind tunnel ever since. Thats not the reason for the lack of parts.

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in 2010, i would say fire Stefano cos he made a bizarre strategy decision in Abu Dhabi that cost Alonso the title. This year, they just didn't have a car quick enough for the WDC. Alonso's 2nd place greatly flatters the Ferrari. Had it been a normal race, it would be a 5th or 6th place Ferrari. The technical department is what Ferrari needs to look into. It wouldn't hurt much though to bring in a stronger team principal as Stefano doesn't seem to make these crucial calls. For eg, I thought Alonso should've pitted earlier for inters and at that point, he was 2 secs off Button. Had he done so, he would be right behind Button. There's no guarantee he'll get past but at least, it gives him a better fighting chance.

They need fresh talent in the designdepartment.

They would have won if not for these 3 things:

1. Alonso not leaving Raikkonen room,

2. The decision to continue on old tires in Canada,

3. Destroying Massa's motivation and confidence.


They could have taken both championships, even with the car they had.

As for the WDC: 3 points. Alonso lost it all by himself, at Suzuka.

But he still can't admit that, he's blaming the team ("strange decisions").

But drivers do make mistakes, its normal. Whether Alonso admits it or not, that's a character issue. He also made some silly mistakes in 2010 that we could say have cost him the championship

But can we solely blame Alonso? How many drivers are better than him in the current grid? Almost next to none. The flaw is within the team not the drivers

Even Massa could've faired much better if the really wanted him too.

Massa's confidence was not destroyed. He was taking grid penalties yet he was quicker. The car is not quick enough, simple as that. I've yet to see the 3rd best car win the title in recent memory.

Well, that's the whole point. They have all the means to produce a top car, at least a 2nd fastest car would be easier but they cant even do that since 2009

Perhaps things will improve next year.

Personally, I blame Luca. Ferrari has never really been the same since Brawn/Todt/Schumi left the team.

Also, imagine if Kimi was alongside Alonso in that Ferrari?

I think they would've challenged for the WCC easily. Which, again, demonstrates another bad management call

i think they are clearly very happy with themselves, i don't see too much changes, and ih ope it stays that way.

I dont think its complicated. There are three main components to success in a team. Car, Driver, Strategy - unfortunately in order of importance. Certain people are clearly responsible for each and while the last two were not always perfect the first was clearly the weakest link. Thats Pat Fry's baby.

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Dominicalli should have been gone a long time ago - probably at the end of the '10 season.
I always thought that this "all italian" management wasn't a very bright idea.
As for Massa, he dammaged his own image at the beginning of this season, not Dominicalli.
From that time on he got the no.2 status and rightly so.

Think people are forgetting that operationally (at the track) Ferrari have been almost perfect this season.

Easy to say they should change up the aero dept but apart from signing Newey (not happening) what can they do except keep on working?

No, they only just missed out, its Newey thats making the difference with the current regs and i doubt any team anytime soon is likely to find someone better.

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Your first point is true, they have been nearly perfect in terms of strategy. But for your second statement. I don't know I'm not a team manager and I don't know what it takes to be a good one, but how about you compare them to McLaren? or even Lotus? If Lotus had the resources of Ferrari they would've had a consistently faster car than the reds.

I think though, that its much more complicated than how it was broken down to in the post above, and its simply Pat Fry's baby. Even if it was that simple, who put Pat Fry in his position? Who thought that Fry is the right man in the right place? It's Dominicalli, so that is also his responsibility

But thats the problem - they didn't keep working. There was quite a while there around June and after that the car remained largely unchanged and thats precisely when they began loosing their well earned lead.

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you're simply talking about the WDC but what about the WCC? They lost by quite a margin, and its only McLaren woes that gifted them the 2nd place

So you are suggesting they fire the person who hired the incompetent worker and keep the incompetent worker? Cant have it both ways.

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You cannot deny that part of the team functions very well. Race strategy, pit stops, the drivers etc.
They need more innovation in engineering, it's not the kind of thing you can just mail order in.
Yes he must take responsibility, but a part of the team is performing, another part isn't. Instead of resigning, this should give him the clout to shake things up.
I don't buy all this sometimes borderline racist crap of "spaghetti management", they just got 2nd in WCC and WDC! It just takes a special combination of factors to be the best, like Schumi's Ferrari, 2005-2006 Renault and Red Bull now. Ferrari just don't have that now and have to build and adjust until they do.
Cutting off the head everytime you don't win will not make a winning team.